Culture & design in Israel
I found Fletcher post about culture and design in India and China very interesting. It immediately made me think about UX in Israel, something that I already discussed before.
Fletcher pointed out two important design abilities: understanding the big picture and attention for details which, I agree, are both important for a good UX design.
If I may summarize Fletcher ideas, although I do urge you to read the full post, attention to details can be undermined as a result of:
- Daily life isn’t easy so details seem like a luxury, if something works – it’s good enough
- Education programs are lacking
- Not enough UX experience
Details are treated better when:
- People are used to do as told and tend to follow requirements in an exact manner
- A culture that values mastering old techniques rather than inventing new ones
So where is Israel on these continuums? Well I would easily say on the Indian side.
> Life in Israel is probably easier than in India, as for the perspective Fletcher is giving, but then it is easy to say we have more important things to consider then design details. I’m not sure this is true for UX practitioners but for Israeli users, details can be perceived as luxury. Also for policy makers of websites and software companies – it can be a reason for not investing in UX (unless they have international management or international users).
> Education programs for UX are definitely lacking, actually the big universities for all I know (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem) don’t have programs in UX at all!
> Add to that the absence of “chain of command” in the Israel culture, on the contrary – we always argue J and usually everyone has their own opinion when it comes to interface design.
> We are great with inventions even if we are a bit conservative. Anyway an Israeli will always adapt a short cut if available rather than “master an old technique”, so if we can cut down on the details, it is a win win situation.
> I would add to that our tendency to “round” corners, which is a known Israeli “pride” and does not work great with UX details.
> About experience, I’m not that sure, we had a good start as the army and related industries has UX (or Human Factors) for a long time, but somehow it did not pass on to the civil software industry. I don’t have a good explanation as technology tend to pass on a lot…
There is more in UX than details, I know, but this is a good point for considering the cultural significant in UX design. Despite the above list, I consider my fellow UX designer in Israel to be rather good in dealing with details, but hey I’m an Israeli too, so I’m not sure it counts.
I would love to know what you think – take a moment to share your thoughts.
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