toronto

A Sultry Start To This Summer

Summer TimeToronto weather never fails to surprise me, not even with its topsy-turvy weather system, possibly since I’ve anticipated nothing short of a spectacle from the skies most of the time. The alerts and heat wave warnings of the past few hours are ample proof of the abnormally balmy summer lying ahead! For a start, it was a particularly hot and humid Father’s Day on Sunday and the sultry wave persisted on Monday as well. When I checked the weather in the morning it was feeling like 39°C, though in a few hours, the complexion of the system changed and there was a thunderstorm with heavy showers. This was as chaotic as a Toronto weather could be. And talking about summer, it might come as a rude shock but the sunlight in this part of the world isn’t the same as in the tropics or India, in fact, it gets brutal due to Canada’s geographical proximity to the north pole.

Put in a nutshell, it’s not about the amount of sunlight you receive but the UV radiation which it transmits that causes skin damage including cancer. So when you move up north and nearer to the Arctic circle, you are closer to the ozone layer which is damaged owing to ‘climate change’ (the same with Antartica). The one way to protect against the Sun’s intense heat in the north pole and the direct exposure to the UV rays is by covering yourself and applying sunscreen generously during summers. This is even more critical for someone close to where I am in comparison to the deserts of UAE, although I wouldn’t dare challenge the Sun anywhere without copious protection. Besides, I learned this frighteningly quickly that I need to check the UV Index before stepping out. I am already sweating thinking about the next few months!

Weather Woes Welcome 2018

It’s quite natural to speak about weather systems in Canada, and especially about its infamous winters. So at the time of this writing as I welcome 2018, the area of Southern Ontario (including Toronto) is under a spell of extremely cold temperatures with a warning to this effect also being issued by the Environment Canada. With the mercury dipping staggeringly over the past holiday season and moving towards the new year, the temperatures now feel anywhere between -26°C to -30°C. It would come as a surprise that I am writing about the cold temperatures in the middle of the winter season, but trust me when I say this, that the winter hasn’t been so severe over the past 2 seasons. A few layers of warm clothes was all that I needed to step out in the chill which didn’t last long, however, this season has come as a wake-up call in which I have had to even cover my face from getting ‘burned’ by the frigid cold air! For now, I am eager to see some warmth, and even the slightest indication of a rising mercury would make things better.

CN Tower in Toronto

Shockingly, Toronto Isn’t An Elegant City!

Shocking because I live in Toronto, also because ‘elegance’ has an undertone of a sense of quality and character which I believe Toronto possesses in heaps, nevertheless, it didn’t make it to that list. Instead, Montreal (ranked 31) and Vancouver (46th) were the only two cities chosen from our great nation.

The ranking was conducted by Zalando, a UK based fashion label based on 3 factors, namely, Fashion, Urban, and Accessibility, and the final list of the World’s Most Elegant Cities was published with a methodology on how the outcome was derived; Paris took the pole position and I certainly vouch for that. What surprised me was that despite having a definite character in the areas of fashion, urban planning, and accessibility factors our city failed to make it to the list. Perhaps the design thinkers and urban planners of our city could scope out the shortcomings and publish a sustainable argument about how Canada’s financial capital missed out on ‘elegance’ whereas Montreal and Vancouver scored above us; I’ve lived in both the cities and they are amazingly elegant in every respect. Though I believe Toronto with its parks, the trails, and the lush waterfront is full of style and culture as well. Speaking of accessibility and the urban architecture it’d be hard to ignore the design of some of the TTC stations and the iconic CN Tower.

Zalando thinks differently about Toronto vis-a-vis elegance than me, but I took to Twitter and marked our mayor John Tory on the outcome.

Source: The Most Elegant Cities In The World

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
Co-Creation in Hiring for UX

The Role of Co-Creation in Hiring for UX

A case for using a ‘co-creation’ process for hiring UX Designers.

I prefer working in a Co-Creation design process for products, which looks like this.

DEFINE (The Problem) ⟶ ORGANIZE (The Information) ⟶ CONCEIVE & ANALYZE (The Ideas) ⟶ BUILD (The Prototypes) ⟶ DISCUSS/ITERATE (On The Feedback)  ⟶ IMPROVE (The Design). Loopback until I get to a design solution which works for the user in a co-creation process.

The purpose of a ‘Co-Creation’ session is to assemble a group of people you’re designing for and include them in the design process.

This ensures that, of all the other things, I get a chance to capture divergent insights in drawing an empathetic view of how a product could be perceived and used. So why not use the co-creation process in hiring for UX?

Continue reading…