The author's perspective
I am a designer. My education is in human-centred design, and my professional experience is in design education. These things, along with my work experience as a UX designer as well as a UX/UI curriculum architect, have given me some knowledge worth sharing. HCI is a lot to wrap your arms around. One book will not make you an expert; however, the professions that are the by-product of HCI skills are also growing and are more of a vocation than merely an occupation, and I hope you will continue on this path.
HCI is a vocation
A vocation is a job that is particularly worthy and rewarding to a person and typically requires great dedication and passion. I suppose my great dedication to the UX/UI practise has a part in me writing this book, but it also is why I come back to the HCI watering hole. Great dedication requires time, effort, and enthusiasm. Hopefully, you possess these factors. The time it will take you to consume this book will not make you a designer, but the information given can be executed with effort and enthusiasm over time. This practice will allow you to improve, and with improvement comes mastery. We will put you on the path to mastering some HCI skills. Still, there is always something new to learn, a new technology to consider, a new coding language to adopt, a new way to communicate complexity, a new way to think, and a new way to solve a problem with and for other people.
Challenge 3 – What do you know about a lawnmower?
Setup:
- Get out a sheet of paper or open a Google doc.
- Set a timer for 15 min.
Part 1: What is your lawnmower knowledge?
- Write down everything you know about a lawnmower.
- Include brands, use, value, cost, mechanics, and so on.
Part 2: Review your knowledge:
- Review your lawnmower knowledge and recall.
HCI will work on a wide range of content. Your ability to become an expert quickly in the software problems you are solving will help you throughout your career. The value an HCI designer brings is their thinking and skills.
Often, students have never put a second thought into a lawnmower. I then follow up with: "What if your client is John Deere?" How much do you have to know about lawnmowers now? A heck of a lot. The modern John Deere corporation is a global manufacturer with thousands of employees and thousands of products or stock-keeping units (SKUs). The role of HCI skills, software, and user interfaces in the success of John Deere or any other company is not to be understated. I do not work for John Deere. However, as an HCI designer, I know that I can use my human-centred research skills, software prototyping abilities, and user-testing processes to get excited about improving the human-computer interaction between a lawnmower and a user. I also know that interacting with a computer to buy, operate, or to fix a lawnmower will ultimately have an impact on the business of John Deere. John Deere, or any other company, solve very human problems with their products, and computers play an essential part in making them successful.
HCI is not only relevant to, but crucial to any business and the ability to use user research to identify problems, understanding their users' experiences, diagnosing what needs improvement, and helping communicate the values of human-centred thinking to their business and their users are the reasons why you should want to learn HCI. Throughout this book, I will extend my love for HCI, the human-centred design process, and continue to show you how you will be able to apply this ethos to your current and future jobs.