Getting back to Touken Ranbu

After few years of not gaming, plus many things that happened in my life. I come back to my boys. I think I had issues with vpn or something last time, and then just left Tourabu.

War expansion event is going on. I haven’t been getting any new swords of course, I forgot the mechanism and I think I haven’t even pass stage 7-3. Oh well, the new event offers 4 swords, and I am aiming for Shizukagata naginata. Boy, he’s so cute. I like naginata because it slash 5 enemies at once and Iwatooshi was kinda weak, so might need more. To get the sword, I’d have to run 80 times in war expansion event 3. The enemies aren’t that bad, there is only one yari in the boss node that can’t be outspeed so prepare to get minimum damage at least for one sword. I got two swords damaged most of the time. So that’s the main reason I bring my tantous. Its a good occasion to train tantou kiwame too. I have 4 tantou kiwame, that needs to level up. Tantou has short repair time. I damaged oodachis, and they need 12-13 hours to repair. Sed. I also try to smith Shizuka with 603/501/715/795 recipe. No luck this far.

Shizukagata naginata

Shizukagata and Tomoegata naginata has interesting back story. Naginata is a heidelberg or glaive like weapon. It seems that wife of samurai were trained to use this weaponry to defend their house while their husband went on campaign. Shizukagata came from Shizuka gozen while Tomoegata were said to be based on Tomoe Gozen. Both of them were female warriors/onna bungeisha during Minamoto and Taira era back then. Shizuka gozen was Minamoto no Yoshitsune’s mistress while Tomoe gozen supported Minamoto no Yoshitaka. Although it was said that it was never proven the existence of Tomoe gozen, she sounds very badass. I become a fan since I like Minamoto clan.

Tomoe was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features. She was also a remarkably strong archer, and as a swordswoman she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or a god, mounted or on foot. She handled unbroken horses with superb skill; she rode unscathed down perilous descents. Whenever a battle was imminent, Yoshinaka sent her out as his first captain, equipped with strong armor, an oversized sword, and a mighty bow; and she performed more deeds of valor than any of his other warriors.

Tale of Heike

Ara, I should read Heike monogatari.

Indonesia, 2020.

What happened to you, America.

United States is my second home country, I spent time in the states and some part of me stay there even as I left. United States of America, is home.

That is just me who spent 2 years. For those who live longer, I believe they felt stronger bond to the land. I am referring to dreamers, or any other citizen of any country that call ‘Murica home.

United States is like a huge melting pot of people from any part of this world- Zoe, 2013

I was told that by a colleague that comes from Scotland, before my departure to U.S.A. It indeed is a mini-world, you can meet anyone anywhere and I am truly amazed by that fact.

Most of the people I met in the states are the most wonderful and kind-hearted people I ever met. I learned a lot from there, not only from the academic side but also attitude, open mindedness and kindness.

I lived in Dallas, a small city in Texas. I am very blessed to be there, since it is an international city. There are a lot of people from Asia, there are a lot of moslems,

The election and the inauguration of Trump in 2017 had me shocked in disbelief. How could that happen? I am not supposed to talk about politics since politics well.. is politics. It didn’t make sense then, it doesn’t make sense now.

Most of his policies didn’t reflect the forward thinking, wisdom oh well or just common sense. Immigration is one of the weirdest thing I observe. Moreover now, as the Black Live Matter, Covid and other issues shows up, I wonder how could US be so divided? Ok back to the immigration issue. How can Trump make policies that somehow wants to block US from immigrants, and raised issue related to immigration or citizenship (e.g like with Obama). This is just my thoughts, but aren’t people that are not native Americans are immigrants in the beginning? White Caucasian descendants immigrated from Europe to find better live in the states, then Asian, and it seems to me that it is the foundation of the states? I am not an expert so I don’t know. I’m not sure its super complex.

Now Covid makes me jaw dropped even more. I understand that freedom is the very basic need in US so yes it is need to be respected. But then the problem comes, when they started to protest just to wear mask and not complying with health procedures and kept going out despite of the warning. I am sure many of the citizen are reasonable and only few that are not. But man, looking at some of the responses such as went to beach during spring break when the infection rate was high and act that invulnerable(1, 2).  Note here I focused on Florida because at that time I had someone I worried about. But also some anti protest in MN. Some even think that it is hoax. What’s so difficult using mask? (3). Doctors are fighting with their live. Oh well, that is not unique to US. UK is too, and my home country is too.

I’ve talked about this to several other people. It’s seems to us – non-US people, some of the behavior reflects… toddler like behavior (4). Like ” I want it now! now! I don’t care” and then throw tantrums when their demand is not met. There are things called discipline and patience.

Maybe it is kind of hard to differ between hoax and true news since.. well media is so mixed up there. If the highest authority can mix up data then hm….. who to trust? It’s laughable and sad at the same time.

ara ara…

It’s just an opinion so.. chill out.

1. “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying”: Spring breakers are still flocking to Miami, despite coronavirus warnings. ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB44ZZda2G0
2. The Costly Toll of Florida Not Shutting Down Spring Break ://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/florida-spring-break-coronavirus.html
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-FDPwSK3zo
4. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/6/10/21285542/hair-cut-protest-lockdown-culture-war

Abuse of power

There was an interesting story about the accusation of Indonesian president, Jokowi that he abused his power (by the former president, SBY) about a rule related to civil organization. The issue was caused by Hizbur Tahrir, because it was accused to stir up radical islamic view so the country decided to disolve the organization.

Anyway, the abuse of power that I want to tell you about is not that high level.

My dad is a police officer. He had a very weird experience (in my opinion) during one of his duty as a chief section in a small city. He was stationed in an area where the ones who lived there were wealthy and influential people. One day, there was a small problem. There were leaves fall from a tree to a house where one of this influential people lived in. They called up some of their connection in police (I was thinking that probably one of the general somewhere). Long story short, some strings were pulled and my dad was transferred somewhere because of his mistake.

Now, that I think that is an prime example of abuse of power.

He had gone through this kind of experience twice. Transferred because his subordinate’s fault. As a leader he had to be responsible for his subordinate’s action.

Meanwhile at home, me and my mom talk about this. As I listen to the long story she told me. There is a huge gap between the current police system in Indonesia. The source of police recruits come from the regular and the elites. The elites, skip a lot and gain lots of privilege, because their networks, their relatives, their family who are most likely also elites and create a bubble in their own community. Regular police are like pawns, they start and at the very low hierarchy of the police organization and the elites make it so the regulars won’t be able to reach the top to sustain the privilege they have. So that the elites won’t have to crawl and suffer the hardship at the lowest level of police hierarcy.

What I’m talking about is like this.

The regulars, say they have the lowest rank. They gotta do all the hardwork. If they wanna be promoted, they sure have to work their ass of, get education, and blablabla. The elites, got into middle management right away so they don’t have to do the hard stuff. They can ask their friends, senpais, family to be assigned in good place. Im not saying that is bad, but its like there is a  gap of experience between them, The analogy is like a high school graduate works right away, while the bachelors works as their managers. I can understand this system. But, as a police, I think hard on experience is the best way to teach them how things work. another imo, I think the police education should have only one source, so the police all have the same right and experience. If they want to get promoted, then they go into the police academy or something then they got promoted. The result, sometime, as I heard from my parents, are that their leaders make policy that are not suitable with the society or their subordinates.

Human are human, when they have power, and they got emotional over their or their friends or their relatives and they abuse the power they have to smash someone just because they can….  that is not wise. Though it may seem cruel, I believe Allah (thank goodness I have god lol), will ask everyone of us, what did we do with the power he gave us in this world. May Allah forgive our sins.

My rights as a pedestrian user

Here, as I also found during my live in Dallas, I often find myself walking quickly, half running or actually running when i cross the street. I shouldn’t be doing that here since the car driver (mostly) respect the pedestrian and they wait for us walkung the street. But well since its a habit, I pressume. In jakarta or depok the drivers doesnt pay the same respect to anyone that cross the street. They keep speeding as if they dont see you or they dont want you to pass before they do. I once or twice got scratched because a motor wont stop or even slow down when they see me crossing the street. Its horrible. Moreover in a big city like jakarta which by all means not friendly at all to pedestrians. The roads are so huge so its almost impossible to cross it alone. No stopping light to cross the street. And crossing the street made virtually impossible by the busway. I am not blaming them since they also install bridges to cross. But I do think that jakarta is not made for those who wants to walk. Its hot. I know but sometime if its only few blocks away, I would be glad if I can move my lazyass and burn some fat. Its healthier for me. Well i am not entirely sure since the pollution is so dense though (笑)。

I remember two foreigner friends I had when i taught English wonder why there were no one walking the pedestrian. I was an avid user of motorcyle and I got really lazy to walk even for a short distance. No wonder I get so fat lol but I think that is the commong way of thinking for indonesian or javanese like me(i guess).

Fuck

What does fuck means?

sex?

curse?

exclamation?

as a second language speaker, I think fuck is overused.

It has the capacity to bond people and break people.

Few years ago, I lost a friend because I simply say fuck so much. I didn’t realize it hurt people.

Now, I am in gaming community in which almost everything makes you say fuck, and it offends no one. Well, depends on the situation ofc.

” OP AS FUCKKKK”

“For fuck sake, blablabla”

“Fuck that shit” -> meaning killing something in game

There were time I wonder if there is no polite person in gaming.

I soon realize in quest or something like that, everytime I screw up, I say fuck. When I got hit by something, I say fuck. When someone else screw up, I say fuck. When time is running out, I say fuck. I literrally say fuck for everything. Like a to be in a grammar. I am not amazed about it but I understand that is not a good thing lol.

 

Depok, 11/17/2017

The animal-less life

As I  grew up in a suburb area near Jakarta. It is a satellite city, as like many other metropolitan its really expensive to live there, so many workers lived in city like Depok. It was 1980s so the environment was still green. I could tell you how Depok changed from a green lush and quiet city into the current hot and modern-city. But not today, not in this blogpost.

The are where I lived was barracks for policeman. Depok was still green at that time. There were big ponds of fish farm near my house. There were a lot of empty field, filled with fruit trees such as banana tree, cassava, guava, rambutan and many more. Me and my friends always play around the fish farm after we got back from school. We took small shrimps home. We couldn’t eat it but we were just happy to play and catch them. My father made me a small pond to contain my shrimps and fishes. Stupid enough, I mix every fish and shrimps there which of course the bigger fish would ate the smaller ones. I was wondering where my other fishes went when I clean the pond.

We also raise chickens. My grandparents were farmers so my parents were also raised to raise chicken as staple food. We made the chickens some kind of a house but they always prefer to sleep at a guava tree. I wonder why. Their houses were always empty unless the hen needed it for nesting her eggs. My mom kinda have a phobia towards small dead chick. She is okay with the living ones but will scream at the top of her lungs when she see a dead one. There were a lot of rats around the house. Huge ones, the black rat that might grow as big as a cat. So often we found dead chicks around the chicken house. It was either me or my dad’s job to get rid of them, until after we moved and last time I stayed at the house.

I also had a cat. A very friendly cat who ate everything that I ate whether it was tempeh, fish, noodles, even vegetables. Weird but nice cat. She never steals fish and listen to my mom. Weird cat indeed. I had a deep attachment to that cat, and apparently so was she. Like, she gave birth to her kittens……..on my bed. I was shocked when I woke up on one morning and saw blood all over my bed, like, seriously cat? lol. I don’t know why she suddenly disappear from the house.

My grandparents are farmers, as I mentioned before.  I often spend my elementary school break on the paddy field. I would woke up early in the morning and bathe the cows. They were so big, and I used a water hose to clean them up. On another school holiday, I spent it on my auntie’s place in Blitar. It was a cold place by Depok-ers standard. The morning temperature would reach about 15-18C in my memory lol I didn’t bring thermometer back then. There were also a rice field near my auntie’s house. Across the river. The bridge itself was made from bamboo. Made only for one person to walk, without any safety measurement I presume. It was shaking as we crossed. The rice field was greener there. Far ahead, there were mountain. My  mom told me it was mount Kelud, I don’t know for sure since I haven’t checked it on Google maps yet. The sky was blue with thick white clouds. I played with my cousins and his friends. They speak Javanese, I wasn’t sure if I was communicating well but it doesn’t really matter. Children always can play without any problems. It was around the harvest time so there were fishes in the rice field. They planted the rice field with fish and called it as “mina paddy” farming. I care less about that and just went nuts seeing a lot of fishes in the paddy field. There was a rule in the village, as the owner of the field is harvesting the other villagers were helping to catch the fish and taking out the paddy. The rule was the other villagers could take fishes other than the one that were raised by the owner. Suppose the owner put tilapia, he only could take tilapia and even if there were other more expensive fishes, he could not take them as its for the other villagers. There were also some payment maybe, I don’t know for sure. I only cared to take the fish at that time. I caught some little mujair fishes. I was covered in mud and happy. My auntie cooked the fishes for dinner.

It was fun.

The points were, my life has been surrounded by animals and plants. I grew close to nature.

One thing I realise when I lived in Dallas. I rarely see cats or dogs. I saw cats sometime and extremely thrilled when I saw one. I always tried to take pictures of them and sent it to my friends who loves cats too. I saw dogs, most of the dogs are owned by someone. I saw hell lots of birds which was pleasant. Squirrels around my campus. But that’s about it.

Now as I live in the blue continent. In the very first month of my live, I never see animal here. Well, in the summer I saw cows (laughs) like f- where I live now eh? A suburb, farming place. After around 4 months I lived here, I saw a glimpse of a cat near the bar in my apartment. I called out (read: meowed) to them and they ran away. That, is the only encounter I had with any cat in this country.

What an animal-less life.

 

 

Utada Hikaru

Music is a part of being human

Oliver Sachs – Musicophilia-

I have always believe that music could somehow affect human’s emotion. There must be a neural pathway that linked between those two. Oliver Sachs, a neurologist with a passion of music support this view by wrote “Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.” in his Musicophilia book.

Japanese songs has always been my object of fascination. It started with anime, of course, the Japanese culture has slowly crept inside my soul and captured it. The first time I heard and fascinated by Japanese songs was during my elementary school period. Obviously, I did not speak a single Japanese word, yet it still fascinated me. I still remember those songs, Rouruni Kenshin’s soundtrack, I can sing it because I remembered it by heart.

Utada Hikaru was one of the first Japanese singer that I like. Her songs accompanying me growing up. Her “First Love” song was my first love soundtrack. Indeed, I associated that song with my first love. Her songs accompanied me through middle school’s exam, and most probably up to my high school days. My first Japanese vocabularies might have come from her songs as well. Though at that time, I am pretty sure I didn’t know what I sang unless I saw the lyric’s translation (lol). Nevertheless, she has a special place in my heart.

Music has been a crucial part in Utada Hikaru, or Hikki, as her fans called. She literally raised with it and its in her blood. Her late mother was an enka singer and her father is a producer ( I think, if I am not mistaken). She has been writing songs since 13 and making hits after that. What I really like from her songs are her voice and composition. She didn’t sing like the most Japanese girl singer do, with a nasal-high-picthed-voice,which considered cute but quite annoying to my ear. Plus it sounds so fake for me. Why would a girl fake their voice to be considered cute, doesn’t make sense to me. While Utada, being her, strive through the mainstream and be herself. She sing like a normal girl would, but with more accurate pitch and so on (I am sorry, I am tone-deaf). She also composed her own songs which makes her have the freedom to infuse her songs with meanings. I just love that idea. Something that comes from the heart, reach another heart. As fan, of course I have super limited knowledge about her but at least that is what I see from her. I felt content just by enjoying her songs and let her works inspire my days.

Schueberfouer

Its a summer festival in Luxembourg city. Started at the mid august until today, 7 september. My friend told me about it last week and told me to come at the end of the festival because the ticket is half-price and there is fireworks afterward.

I was invited by my apartment-mate as well but since I was kinda busy this afternoon and I stayed until around 5 pm so they went ahead. I need to do some stuff before I go too so thats fine I guess.

I finally go to the festival around 8pm and arrive at the city at 9ish. Then I take the bus to reach the festival venue. There was an uproar in the bus because there was a man shouting and seems to be fighting with the bus driver. Maybe he is drunk, I don’t know. They speak in Luxembourgoise, and I can’t get a thing. Then the passangers shout as well and things become… chaotic. The bus was stopped one bus stop before my stop (do you get that? Lol). And some people from the bus company handle the man and all passangers are asked to be out from the bus. I don’t really mind since I only need one stop and it supposedly not that far.

It looks like a night market in my country or pasar malam we called it. It consists of many rides and food stalls. I take a tour around and take nice pictures

This one is my favorite game when I was a kid. I played it a lot with my dad.

And a giant ferris wheel, of course. The games really looks fun and it reminds me of the Texas fair. The games are really well done, I bet its pretty safe too. But I am not in the mood for games. I just want to stroll around and see the fireworks. The fireworks supposedly started at 10.00pm.

Well I couldn’t resist a Belgian waffle. Its kinda blur but its tasty. The store supposedly have 100 years of history (there was a small fragment from a newspaper or so). It costs 5 euro. With a bit of techical difficulty. The lady who sell it doesn’t speak english and I only speak english. She changed her language from French to German. The price was 4,5 euro but if I want to take out its gonna be 5 euro. Lucky the german lesson on numbers still stay on my mind, so yeah fünf euro. Ok. I got my waffle.

As I enjoy my waffle, the sound of the fireworks starts loudly from the bridge. Everyone walks in that direction and I follow the flow.

It reminds me of last year’s summer in Japan. Awwwwww I miss Japan.  花火だ！！

The lights from the games are turned off so everyone can see the firework. I enjoy the fireworks and the waffle while stuggling to take good picture. One hand on waffle and one hand on camera. Such wow. I took decent pics then enjoy the rest of the fireworks with the best camera in the world, my eyes. I burned the image to my mind and enjoy it to the very last moments.

Afterward, I walked home (on the roaaaad) toward the lining buses that has been arranged to take the people from the festival to the gare/station.

It is a good night.

Bonne nuit,

9/7/2016
Luxembourg

Travel Fail

I am on the bus on my way to Hamburg to meet my labmate from Indonesia. Today is a working day so I still work until a bit of the afternoon. I already prepared the maps and tickets for my trip to Hamburg, well, a night before. Then there was unexpected thing happen today, there was a new master student in the group. I didn’t feel good to ignore her so I went and have lunch. And head out to the train station at 14.55. I thought my bus to hamburg is at 5pm so I go easy on it. BUT when I checked the ticket. Its 15.15
Travel fail. Hahahahahha. It needs another 30 minutes to go to the city to the bus stop. I won’t make it. I don’t feel really well, I don’t know why. It feels like I am lacking of sleep, which maybe is. I am torn between wanting to go or just cancel eveything and go home. After I reach the grand station, I peek on the bus stop which obviously empty. Then I went to the train station to know how much it is to get a train to hamburg. Its crazy expensive, 130euro lol. I figured, I maybe able to get another train only to Frankfurt, since  I have a transfer in Frankfurt. So through DB I got the 39 bus to Frankfurt and going at 16.30 which is great so that I can take the transfer bus at 23.30 in Frankfurt. So I go ahead and get it.

Ah maybe this is mu karma for laughing my friend who missed a plane. Like how do they do that? Now I missed my bus. Dummy. Lol.
Well… not all travel went smoothly. This one started not very well. I hope everything else will be smooth after I go there.

Tschuss

Frankfurt, 18/8/2016

Understanding User Experience Part 1. Defining User, Experience and User Experience

by ulfa o. (uoctaviani@gmail.com)

User Experience  has been growing these past years but the experts have yet to agree in definition of user experience. Studies had been conducted for instance by Hassenzahl, by making questionnaire, asked opinion and input from the UX experts to reach a possible agreement in understanding what UX means. In order to understand user experience, it is essential to have deep understanding about the components: user and experience; and also the relation between the two.

1. The User

 In the past, user is seen only as a cognitive machine (Wright, 2005). This view arises form usability point of view. It is assumed that user follows cognitive goals and do pragmatic actions. This model also sees the user as individual and how they interact with computer. This model reflects on the user test, where the user sits in front of a computer and given a test to see how the user works on the task. This task-based framework is used in understanding the interaction between human and interface.

Though, current understanding of user experience expands from only looking at the user to obtain their goals but also taking into account the intention and situation around it. It is similar to how action is produced in human, from intention to reach a goal (after processing information in the brain), then the situation from environment and then action from the human.

2. Experience

‘Experience’ is the word that is most likely to express something of the felt life. According to Wright (2005), the openness of ‘experience’ is likely to become confusing unless we do clear definition, and that is quite challenging to do for a couple of reasons. First is that the experience is always present and we are always engaged in experience. Even when we tried to stand back and describe the experience to other people. Reliving this experience is somewhat living the experience of describing the experience. It nevertheless, also an experience. Secondly, we tend to believe we already know what experience is. As the result, it may be difficult to convince the reader to clarify how the word is being used (Wright, 2005).

Experience is an elusive concept that resist specification and finalization (Wright, P, McCarthy, Meekison, 2005). There is a broad understanding in experience, such as in the temporal phase, the scope or the philosophy basis. Despite of the elusiveness nature, experience has been approached and seen from different point of views such as from philosophy, engineering, design, behavior, business, or neuroscience.

Dewey (1925) tried to provide definition about experience in philosophy point of view. He defines experience as:

“… what they strive for, love, believe and endure, and also how men act and are acted upon, the ways in which they do and suffer, desire and enjoy, see, believe, imagine – in short, processes of experiencing. ….. It is “double barreled” in that it recognizes in its primary integrity no division between act and material, subject and object, but contains them both in an unanalyzed totality” (Dewey, 1925, p.10/11).

According to this definition, then experience is constituted by the relationship between self and object by concerned feeling people acting and the the material and tools they use. This definition, is closely resemble the current definition of user experience. User experience is defined as the studying, designing, and evaluating the people with interface (which may be a product, software or system) [ISO 2010].

Experience also means to put meaning into event or activity. “Meaning arises when we try to put what culture and language have crystallised from the past, together with what we feel, wish and think about our present point in life.” —V. Turner (1986, p. 33). From this definition, it making sense of experience is an effort to explain about an event that happened in the past along with the emotion and thoughts that occurred during those event.

Although the another model of user experience (Wright, tech as experience) sees experience as continuity in different temporal phase: before, during and after experiencing the event.

3.User experience

 The 1990s witness the development of technology, penetration to computer to home, influence of computer and communication technology. It is also the beginning of wireless, mobile and ubiquitous computing. The technology, technical aspect and the user are ready for creating interactive consumer products for public user.

Interaction between the user and technology start to matter. The products of technology not only need to be functional but also engaging and easy to use. User is taken as consideration when companies designing products. User experience then start to arise from this set up. Textbook mention user experience as one of the set goals in interaction design, related to but not directly included in more recognized aspect such as usability.

“The user experience development process is all about ensuring that no aspect of the user’s experience with your site happens without your conscious, explicit intent. This means taking into account every possibility of every action the user is likely to take and understanding the user’s expectations at every step of the way through that process.Garrett (2002) That neat, tidy experience actually results from a whole set of decisions—some small, some large—about how the site looks, how it behaves, and what it allows you to do.”Garrett (2002)

Software companies try to design computer and include the user experience in the process. They do pay attention and use the phrase “user-experience design” to remind the designer to pay attention to people’s experience in technology. This leads to different view in user experience; when the companies employing the phrase to indicate that particular user experience can be designed. This suggest a “return to simplicity that of a technologically determinist position on what experience is (Wright, 2005)” which neglects the importance of interaction between the people and technology.

Wright (2005) examine the experience of technology seriously and looking at the usage of user experience in the industry.  Apple Macintosh Developer page defines “User Experience” as “a term that encompasses the visual appearance, interactive behavior, and assistive capabilities of software.” This user experience definition lean more towards technology. The authors are interested in enriching user experience and they have technological vision of how this can be achieved (Wright, 2005). This make sense for their company since they need practical approach in designing user experience which may have work.

Definition in IBM website contains a richer, more transactional approach to user experience. They defined user experience as:

“User Experience Design fully encompasses traditional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design and extends it by addressing all aspects of a product or service as perceived by users. HCI design addresses the interaction between a human and a computer. In addition, User Experience Design addresses the user’s initial awareness, discovery, ordering, fulfillment, installation, service, support, upgrades, and end-of-life activities.”

Meanwhile, academia also tries to define user experience in more academic manner. Hassenzahl and Tratinsky (2006) notice that user experience has been a commonly used term in industry while rarely being observed in academia. He constructed a study to define what user experience is by survey from both academia and professional. From there, he concludes user experience as:

“UX is about technology that fulfils more than just instrumental needs in a way that acknowledges its use as a subjective, situated, complex and dynamic encounter. UX is a consequence of a user’s internal state (predispositions, expectations, needs, motivation, mood, etc.), the character- istics of the designed system (e.g. complexity, purpose, usability, functionality, etc.) and the context (or the environment) within which the interaction occurs (e.g. organisational/social setting, meaningfulness of the activ- ity, voluntariness of use, etc.).”

(Hassenzahl & Tratinsky, 2006.)

Lastly, there are also confusion between user experience and other field. One may see that there is a blurred line between user experience, usability, and/or interaction design. Until now, the author has found the distinct difference between user experience and usability. It is mentioned as follows:

“Indeed, UX develop from usability and human computer interaction. However, there are distinctions between the two. User experience goals differ from the more objective usability goals in that they are concerned with how users experience an interactive product from their perspective rather than assessing how useful or productive a system is from its own perspective (Preece et al. 2002, p. 19).”

This paper is an effort to make an academic approach in defining user experience. The author is currently pursuing the clear understanding of user experience and hopefully this paper will be beneficial for those who are also pursuing the same goal. This paper is non-peered review, thus if the reader has suggestion, feel free to inform the author.

References:

Attfield, S., Kazai, G., Lalmas, M., & Piwowarski, B. (2011). Towards a science of user engagement (position paper). In WSDM Workshop on User Modelling for Web Applications.

Dewey, J. (1925). Experience and Nature. LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court.

Garrett, J. J. 2002. The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web. New Riders.

Hassenzahl, M., & Tractinsky, N. (2006). User experience-a research agenda. Behaviour & information technology, 25(2), 91-97.

McCarthy, J., & Wright, P. (2004). Technology as experience. interactions,11(5), 42-43. Retrieved on August 16, 2016. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Wright7/publication/224927635_Technology_as_Experience/links/00b7d51e2c675e1620000000.pdf

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