Reflection Week

So far, the projects that have resonated with me the most are the UX of Disguise and the UX of Hair, even with their imperfections. To elaborate, what I particularly appreciated was the research-driven approach that didn’t impose design ideas but rather allowed the creative and playful process to naturally shape our future directions.

Survival of the Outfit from the Collaborative Unit stands out to me as well due to its speculative nature in design. Additionally, I’m drawn to the prospect of stepping beyond my comfort zone and engaging in trying a new craft, in this case, an atypical garment.

I had unmet high expectations for the Micro UX project, anticipating applying some Generative Artificial Intelligence and thorough research. Macro UX and the rest of the projects I enjoyed, but I do not see their topics (in the realm of environmental and social justice) as a central piece to my work, but rather secondary.

Reflecting on my Final Major Project (FMP) during my undergraduate degree, I am wary of encountering the following issues in my MA FMP:

• Struggling to position myself within a theoretical framework.
• Overburdening the design with excessive concepts.
• Creating designs “outside of” the real-world context and not refining them there.
• Applying research methods with a lack of understanding.

Reading Direction

The general trend of expanding technology in each sphere of our lives, as pointed out in (Bedal, 2016) and (Shum et al., 2013), helped me to discover the concept of embodied cognition which I have been applying in my recent projects to some extent without realising. 

I found the arguments presented by (Orego, 2018) and (Rafei, 2023) about understanding our interactions with the world in general and specifically with technology radical and worth going in this direction.

Orego (2018) highlights how traditional cognitive science tends to isolate brain functions within it, disregarding the fact that human beings actively engage with the world. He underscores the concept that we comprehend the world and process thoughts through action. Rafei (2023) asserts that this viewpoint neglects the role of the body and emotions in the larger system of interaction “intricate interplay between cognition, emotion, and context.”

The tenets of embodied cognition resonate with the points raised by Bødker (2015). He poses the inquiry of how we can engage in design across diverse domains with a multitude of artefact experiences, adopting an open-ended approach.

References

Bedal, L. (2016) UX Collective, 31 May. Available at: https://uxdesign.cc/user-experience-as-embodied-experience-considerations-for-ux-designers-b66813b08adf (Accessed: 18 July 2023). 

Bødker, S., 2015. Third-wave HCI, 10 years later—participation and sharing. interactions, 22(5), pp.24-31.

Connecting – Trends in UI, Interaction, & Experience Design (2013). 24 January. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lciYKwVLTuk (Accessed: 20 July 2023). 

Orego, B. (2018) ‘An intro to Embodied Cognition, and how it relates to user-centered design’, Medium, 30 April. Available at: https://medium.com/performing-design/an-intro-to-embodied-cognition-and-how-it-relates-to-user-centered-design-dbf13a41a86e (Accessed: 18 July 2023).

Rafiei, M. (2023) ‘Embodied Cognition: A New Approach to Revolutionize UX and HF Studies’, LinkedIn, 10 April. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/embodied-cognition-new-approach-revolutionize-ux-hf-studies-rafiei/ (Accessed: 18 July 2023).