May07

SGV UX: Impact of Culture on Design and Tech

by Paul Hanaoka

Brief Recap

We kicked off the event in the early afternoon — we opened up our cafeteria area as a coworking space so that people could work remotely and skip the evening traffic! Frank, Grace, and Jesse joined up for a productive afternoon spent typing in silence.

Once everyone had arrived for the main event at 7, we ate some kimbap and then took a quick tour of the Liferay office. Afterwards all the Liferay designers in attendance briefly introduced themselves and shared a little bit about what they work on.

Tour de Liferay

Brief stop in the gameroom

The main event started around 8, Grace, a UX Architect at PatientPop started by talking about how different cultures view of death can shape technology. We discussed how Facebook's 'memorial page' feature is seen as good by some cultures, and very negative by others.

George, a co-founder and advisor for Comparably, shared a presentation on Western design trends — some standouts he identified were:

1. Think about why, not just what
2. Great design is about listening and thinking, not just doing
3. There is no neutral design
4. Design for enrichment, not engagement

Automattic's 'The Four Planets of Design'

To close out the night, Jesse (a UX Researcher, also at PatientPop) shared about the importance of names in Latin cultures — and how her mother (Julieta Helenita Guadalupe Justino Medina-Despard), reacts when she has to fill out poorly designed forms that can't accommodate her family names.

Jesse's enthusiastic talk sans slides — photo courtesy of Grace Lau

Her presentation was a great reminder that we all have biases — and that the first step to overcoming them is to acknowledge their existence and work hard to compensate for them. If we do this, then we can design better, more inclusive experiences.

Thanks to all who joined! For more photos check out Grace's album and check out her recap on Medium!

Shameless Plugs

• Follow us and the SGV UX group to learn about more events in the LA area!
• Liferay Design Principles
• Liferay Design 2018 Annual Report

Special Thanks To...

• Grace Lau and George Ishii for facilitating the event
• Liferay's IT team who patiently helped us work through A/V issues