World renowned neurologist and author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The Island of the Colorblind and An Antrhopologist on Mars amongst others (these are the books I’ve read to date) gives a wonderful talk about his experiences in working with people “seeing” hallucinations who are “visually impaired”.

We see with the eyes but we see with the brain as well; and seeing with the brain is often called imagination. We are familiar with the landscape of imagination…we’ve lived with them all our lives but there are also hallucinations as well; and halluciations are completely different. They don’t seem to be of our creation. They don’t seem to be under our control. They seem to come from the outside and to mimic perception.

Personally I found this talk to be of great interest from my past experiences in working with people with brain injuries; assisting them in the physical, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of their rehabilitation. I believe those in the User Experience (UX) field should be taking a more genuine interest in how people behave, and not just in user testing.

We design for other people. So does it not stand to reason that a basic understanding of how the mind works, what motivates people, drives them to certain behaviors, how they perceive value, etc all be a standard field of study for those who claim to be an expert in UX?

The web is a conversation. The importance of context is being argued by many thought leaders in our respective industries. In a quick conversation on twitter Will Evans, myself and others were debating about the notion of which element is “king” today. Is it conversation, context, or content?

I jumped into the discussion stating:

@semanticwill engagement with others is only possible when an open dialogue is created. conversation is the portal to potential.

and Will responded…

@jeffparks and conversation is predicate on shared language, which is predicated on shared context, ergo context is king, QED.

People, like it or not, are social creatures. We need to start with that understanding and focus more on the emotional side of User Experience and less on the technological aspects.

As Doctor Sacks points out

As a physician I have to define what is going on and to reassure people…10% of visually impaired people get these, but no more than 1% of people acknowledge them…the notion if you see things or hear things is that you’re going mad. The psychotic hallucinations are quite different…they address you, the accuse you, they seduce you, they humiliate you, they jeer at you; you interact with them.

This same premise is true in the User Experience discipline. There are many with brilliant ideas and insights who are afraid to share because the community thought leaders may think their ideas are less than worthy or unimportant.

Whether believed to be real or imagined this is an issue the leaders in all communities practice will need to address immediately if they hope to survive in the coming years.

In conversations with thought leaders around the world over the past few years most agree with this notion however they see it as an enormous challenge to shift the focus from an ingrained quantitative corporate culture to one that acknowledges the enormous value of connecting with people at a human level.