Selina Toh | BA User Experience Design
As a designer, one of the key steps in our process is finding inspiration, as a user experience (UX) designer, unique inspiration is even harder to come by. Today’s internet is boring and bland. Everything looks the same, generic fonts, identical layouts and the absence of unique identity. UX designers have grown accustomed to following the same set of rules, principles and law to create what has been defined as a user-friendly look and experience. The UX strategy has been reduced to a systematic and predictable approach to achieve the ultimate goal of UX today, meeting users' needs and providing effective solutions to enhance user experience. A classic UX process includes extensive research, data analysis, solution design and testing, this systematic approach serves in formulating practical design methods and providing the best user experience. Because of how UX research dictates design decisions, the look, layout, etc, many modern websites and applications, ecommerce, social media, product pages, marketing landing pages, blogs, portfolios and even video sharing platforms have conformed to the standard layouts prevalent in each industry, leading to my cry that everything looks the same. In my journey, transitioning from a UX student to a real world UX designer I often find myself questioning if UX is indeed a creative field, the systematic and predictable approach is quickly creeping in, killing the creativity in UX. The topic of debate in question in this essay is Anti-design and I believe it is a philosophy that can break the formulated structure of UX today, pushing UX designers out of the UX norms into exploring creative and riskier solutions that pushes the boundaries of UX today. Anti-Design “It’s taking the principles of fine art and that ability to be creative outside of boundaries, and applying them to a world that has historically been very structured.” as described by Julia Tylor, who works as the creative director of design consulting firm Throughline. The conventional and traditional UX aesthetics of these days is usually simplicity. We are taught that simple equates to intuitive and frictionless design, the key to good UX. The idea is that while users want websites that are aesthetically pleasing, they also don't want their journey on the website to be disrupted by distractions or obstacles put in their way, meaning to avoid using any extraneous design elements. During a talk at the 2017 AIGA Digital Design Conference by product manager Daniel Kalick, Simplicity becomes a sort of assumption that it’s what every human wants in every experience everywhere. Anti-design refutes that notion by exploring other kinds of experiences one could get out of being online. “Think about the best experiences, or the most memorable experiences, that you’ve had in your life — first date, a festival or a concert, a game, a vacation. I don’t think that what is memorable about any of those things is their simplicity,” Kalick said. “I think the point anti-design is making is that we don’t always want simplicity. We want to be challenged, we want complexity.” Anti-design in the context of UX can be a great way for companies to communicate their brand, building a memorable digital experience and interacting with the users in fresh and engaging ways. There is no definition of what makes a good or bad design but “It should make someone think and feel something,” Hoefkens said. “If it’s being used to communicate the right message, in the right place, for the right audience then it’s a good piece of anti-design.” When everything looks like “good design” (Adobe Wireframe with Khoi Vinh) https://open.spotify.com/show/5ykZ7DGfxkdhuCvn3jwP3X?go=1&sp_cid=40b1ddfa908748c0cdfe283b7abfec48&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop User Experience | The rise of Anti-Design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1CLA2MgvrA
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February 2023
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