Week 2.

This weeks reading was great. I have actually had both of Don Norman’s books since my undergrad but for some reason I hardly ever touched them. In hindsight, it probably would have been much more helpful to read it when I was still so new to design. Even now though it is very helpful and insightful and should help me bridge my gap of design knowledge from industrial design into UX.

Something from the reading this week I enjoyed came in the section about Human Thought, and he speaks about the brain in a positive and negative emotional state. In the section he says “A positive emotional state is ideal for creative thought, but it is not very well suited for getting thing done.”, and just a sentence later mentions “A brain in a negative emotional state provides focus: precisely what is needed to maintain attention on a task and finish it.”. This related to me and the way I worked in my undergrad because I can remember looking back and being in a great emotional state and having a bunch of ideas for projects and things I wanted to design, but never really got anywhere, but when I was in a kind of funk or sad, I would really focus on one project and hunker down until it was finished.

This week there was also a pin that Meg Holder shared about the 14 User Faces Every UX Designer Should Know and Remember and I really enjoyed it. It was informative for someone like me who does not have much experience in UX and it was very easy to understand. It is definitely a pin I will be keeping on my own board for future reference.