China taught methe real meaning ofUser eXperience*

*a very personal stream of consciouness

this is where I studied:Milan1.3 mln population / 182 sqkmthe land of design and fashion

this is where I came from:Osnago4843 people / 4.5 sqkmthe land of furniture making

then i was back to Milanfor half of my master

this is where I studied too:London8.6 mln population / 1572 sqkmthe land of diversity (I believed...)

and then I landedin Shanghai to complete it:

my world was so little till then

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“let’s make someawesome chairs!”

back in the days in Italy

I chose to study product design

I mean, really, the chair is the ultimate symbol of Product Design

“less is more” was our mantra...

Dieter Rams Ten Principles of “Good Design”

Good Design Is InnovativeGood Design Makes a Product Useful Good Design Is Aesthetic Good Design Makes A Product UnderstandableGood Design Is Unobtrusive Good Design Is HonestGood Design Is Long-lastingGood Design Is Thorough Down to the Last DetailGood Design Is Environmentally Friendly

Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible

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this is the reason why i switched to UX

we are soooo full of products thatwe don’t need more, we need tounderstand if people really need them,if products can be simplified oroptimised, if they fit the users’ needsand if there is a better way to interactwith this overload of goods!

so, if “less is more”...

definition of UX:

“humanizing interactions”

in fact, in Milan we call it Service Design

"User experience" encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interactionwith the company, its services, and its products.

User experience (UX) refers to a person's entire experienceusing a particular product, system or service.

definition of UX:

a kind of UX which is more linkedto real life services than digital

we basically designed bike sharings,public spaces and community vegetable gardens

I realised most of the services are actually about spontaneous habitsthat our people had in past but that we lost with modernity

(e.g. km 0 BIO food, communal gardens to integrate lonely elderlywith youngsters and teach them old techniques, products SHARING)

no more products

most of what we need is already ‘somewhere’

designing ≠ makingi started observing

and then i started freelancing for many startups,designing apps and web apps

*I’m just reading the book ‘The Best Interface is no Interface’ by Golden Krishna

(ok, apps are awesome but this is another story)

“there is an app for everything”*

and somehow we ended up making appsfor each project

and don’t focus enough on the real relationof users with products and services

I just switchedfrom physical products

to digital products

UX≠UIUX designers tend to become APP designersto satisfy the needs of a fast world

we keep makingwithout observing

I think UX is about really trying to understandemotions, rational approaches, tastes, nuisances

of people (more than users) in order to offerthem a better service

through multilayered systems made of physical and/or digital productsso that companies improve their business and relation with clients

UX

stop making, start discovering!

it is indeed the place where to compare, analyse,investigate, test new approaches to old habits

and viceversa

China is the best learning groundfor UX designers

with such a diversity of local and foreign cultures, populations and traditionswith all the different phases the Country has been through in its recent historywith their frenzied development which is now slowing down and reconnecting

with such a powerful cultural identity and strong foreign influence

and the place where too many things are being ‘made’but the wind is changing

so here’s my real life UX discover story:

i took my time to meditate on this insight

in Wilddesign i got the chance to conduct a trend research

on bathroom styles and habits in China for a big client

“my warmest suggestion is to stopdesigning malls restrooms with squatting toilets,

it’s sooo gross”- a Western specialist we interviewed

us Westerners tend to judge too fastwhat is different

from our previous experienceconsidering our society ‘developed’

why do people use squatting toilets instead?

then why do we design public restrooms with sitting toilets?

why don’t Western people use it?

did anyone really sit on a public toilet ever?

and this was the start of my very rigid search...

those words made me think...

why can 99% of people in the whole World squatwhile in EU and North America

only 15% of the people can?

when you startto look around

and you feel likeyou lived in aTruman show

so i did some research on the topic.. .apparently my complete inability to squat

is to blame on chairs

squatting is the most natural and beneficial position

for the human body and it’s rooted in us

but we invented chairs, and then strollers for babies,and of course sitting toilets...and we fell in love with itand we lost that ability in the Western world

but

a chair is not just an object, it ’s a statement,it carries symbolic meaning, a cultural value

until they became everyday objects during renaissance

and the product for every designer in modern times

chairs were symbols for dignity, power,authority, education and civilisation...

(e.g. the word ‘chairman’ for academic roles and boards)

oddly enough (or not), this is where the innovative startupsin the world of sanitary ware are going:

Ido Portal, a Movement teacher in America, among others,teaches people how to be able to squat again in 30 days

i don’t know if this is genius or completely illogical:

squattypotty29$ for a stool

when you probablyown a bunch in

your house

you can literallyuse anythingelse to achievethe same result

their ad displaying a whiteprince with a unicorn poopingrainbow ice-cream in thecorrect squat position

*again:most of the services are actually about spontaneous habitsthat our people had in past but that we lost with modernity

don’t just make things, question diversity to the roots, explore as much as you can in the real world

cause innovation might be just around you

UX is a bottom-up discipline, not top-down

to conclude:

be curious for your workand squat for your health

my aim was to raise questionsthanks to this quirky topic about how much

UX design has still to learn from real life experience

if you’d like to talk further, we can meet later!

thank you!