This time we are required to write a blog post to review the UX Malaysia Meet Up with the focus on "Good UX Impact for Businesses" so here are some points I had taken during the session held on 21 April 2018 at Seek Asia.

Firstly, the organizers did not consider the background of people attending and I was one of those with no knowledge to this area. There was no introduction given on this meet and what UX was and also what the meet up was meant to achieve. So then I had to ask what is "UX" to a friend, to which he responded its "User Experience". The definition of UX from a simple google search on Wikipedia states User Experience (UX) refers to a person's emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system or service. It includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human–computer interaction and product ownership. Additionally, it includes a person’s perceptions of system aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency. User experience may be considered subjective in nature to the degree that it is about individual perception and thought with respect to the system. User experience is dynamic as it is constantly modified over time due to changing usage circumstances and changes to individual systems as well as the wider usage context in which they can be found. In the end user experience is about how the user interacts with and experiences the product.

A formal definition of UX issued by ISO9241-210:2010: “A person's perceptions and responses that result from the use and / or anticipated use of a product, system or service” is ambiguous and needs to be refined. (Law & Abrahãob, 2014). In order to have a good UX in anything, design plays an important role. The development of designs should be carefully done by the businesses as it will influence the UX point, therefore as pointed out during the discussion feedback is an important element for design to ensure it works well with the users. One of the questions thrown to the panel was to have or not to have a design team, one of them responded that it is not priority during an early phase of setting up a business, efforts are concentrated on marketing, operational and putting management teams in place. Market acquisition is more of a focus, as start ups needs to obtain good data and market research where people are needed to test it. For certain businesses, User Interface (UI) is needed but not for UX, as business can still survive without a design team.

For a B2C, it was stated that they need to have a design but not necessarily to have a design team in place at the start as it is costly, what is usually done is a company uses a template and employ a part time designer to get things moving. Until such time they know the market and start acquiring it, only then will they spend money, time and effort to perfect it. A problem should be known before starting the business and in order to sell the product created, businesses should know how much people are willing to pay to solve the problem. One of the panels stated that B2C is not a lucrative business but B2C is, however tools are built for both platforms in order to have a reach towards both areas.

When you employ a consultant, they should know the entire business and provide clarity to problem solving.  Businesses should provide structure or space to explore the problems. It was noted that a design should serve a business purpose, most businesses are afraid of research as data can tell them that the business was conducted in a wrong direction or such, but this is a good thing as businesses can then steer away and manage the problem earlier instead of later, after suffering losses. Most of the time, people within the business or organisations are the designers without realizing it. They are the ones creating value for UX, therefore, engaging the teams within the business is the best way to solve a problem and come up with a design that will benefit UX. According to (Brajnik and Giachin, 2013), UX covers at least the following aspects; aesthetics, emotions, perceived usability, hedonic attributes, cognitive load, interactivity, social responses, persuasion and acceptability. An on-going process of improvements, transfer of knowledge and sustainability of processes are a good way of managing the design puts in place by an external consultant. It enables the business to survive and tweak the design as and when required without having to go back to a consultant. Businesses should aim at an experimental validation of the effectiveness of design factors that are expected to bear upon UX, usability and accept- ability (Brajnik & Giachin, 2013).

Therefore, in order to have a good impact on UX, businesses should focus on ecosystem building i.e. good platforms, partnering on data, research analysis, have a personalise data experience and use the user persona and information sharing to build the ecosystem and platforms. A design should be performed to reach a desired ROI.

I generally do not pick up unidentifiable calls, unless I am expecting a call from a party with an unknown number. My job doesn't require me to connect with anyone using phone calls and my life has been pretty much stable with no requirements to pick up unknown numbers, the best way is to leave me a message and I will respond if need be.  This all started when I started getting calls from sales reps be it insurance agents, unit trust agents or training sales people. There is just too many of them calling and it takes up my time having to refuse them politely, the best way is to just not pick up. If I need them, I will look for them, there are lots of them on linked in these days. 

But I am sure this not picking calls thing doesn't apply to all, mostly people with jobs like mine maybe, but for those in sales and phone calls are their source of income, they will still run to their handphones if its not with them in their pockets :)

What are your thoughts? 

I have been ranting about assignments in the previous posts and little did I know I missed an assignment that was due yesterday, thank god it wasn’t just me who missed it, in a class of 4 students, only 1 submitted, so not so bad la haha, anyways now I have to catch up and submit this assignment within the next two weeks. Also we have made up our minds on our CSR project and will be finalising the finer details for engagement with my organisation.

Next week is a week without classes for me! yeay! It's been difficult to get weekends with no classes since mid of last year ever since I signed up for 4 subjects per semester. My husband and I have made plans to go for a wedding in Jakarta :). It’s an Arab wedding on my husband’s side. The last one I attended was interesting, different that how weddings in Malaysia i.e. Reception are conducted. We here have tables and chairs for dining whether its lunch or dinner reception, but there, it’s a cocktail concept and it’s not finger food but heavy delicious food. It’s a norm for them but not for us to eat this kind of food while sanding around in the crowd. And just to add, it’s a grand wedding. Noticed the same when I went to India for my cousin’s wedding. We were eating biryani sitting my the curb of the hotel’s walkway as we didn’t know how to stand and eat that kind of food :D

Other than attending the wedding, I am actually looking forward to going for the Spa's! Shopping not much but massages is a must. If anyone has any good recommendation for amazing spa's in Jakarta please do leave a note. So, what else to do in Jakarta? Hmmm

I am writing this post while I am in class, somehow my mind wonders off and I decided to pen down some thoughts and get a blog post out of it (read: we are required part of our assignments to submit a blog post on a weekly basis for the Digital Marketing Doctoral Seminar). Since I am late at posting, I am trying my best to catch up with my blog postings this week.

Today 7 Apr is the date, 2 years ago 2016 my husband saw me at dome..that's how we kinda met.

Well, he didn't approach me then as I was with my friends, but he also said he wasn't the type to approach directly although his friends told him to walk up to me and talk to me then and there..he didn't.

By Allah's grace, he saw me in Linked In the following month, and guess what, he only saw me because we were already connected on Linked In. And recently I found out that he had added me somewhere in mid Dec 2015. He doesn't even remember why he added me, and I just accepted anyway and left it. No communication at that time. So he saw me in 10th of May 2016 in Linked In and sent me a message :) and I replied within an hour and we started talking.

It was different for me, I don't generally reply to messages on linked in or anywhere, but that day, reading his message I just felt like responding and it went on and by the end of the day, we were already chatting on whatsapp.

Here's the full video of our love story that I put together for your viewing pleasure :)

Assignments are all that piles up when you enter into a DBA, well thats what I feel now that I’m in my fifth semester DBA. This semester I decided to take 3 subjects and the independent study where i’ll be going for my proposal defence on my chosen topic, Basel III - Managing the Liquidity Ratio’s for an Islamic Bank. Truth be told I shouldn't have signed up for Independent study because I still haven't finished my coursework, but because I deferred a semester end of 2016 when I got married, I just felt that I need to catch up and my research period also has started and it requires me to collect data i.e start doing interviews beginning June 2018. If I can finish my proposal defence by then, at least i’ll know that my data collection wont go to waste i.e that i’n on the right track if I make it through this semester. 

So this 3 subjects, well it’s quite taxing too, there’s just too many assignments, group projects, case studies, individual publishable papers, gosh it feels like I’m drowning, but then again I always feel this way and I somehow manage to pull through by the end of the semester. I hope this semester will be the same.

Today my coursemates and I went to visit one of the homes for our book donation drive i.e to building a mini library for a deserving home. We are required to come up with a CSR program and engage a company to work with us on this. It sounds simple enough but its really a lot of work. We have managed to engaged a bank for this project and also gotten some funding, thank God! 😃 Now its time to execute this within the next month..wish us luck! By the way if any if you want to contribute, just leave me a note and I’ll get back to you with the details. These homes need food stuff all the time so yeah thats something you can contribute too if not directly giving funds. Hopefully I will have more to update on this initiative in the next post. 

Good Night Malaysia 💕

Last weekend, my siater got married and I made a surprise appearance and gave a speech together with bebo our childhood family friend..also my husband joined me so bebo could appear as a surprise in surprise kinda thing..and it worked! She cried during our speech..anyway..I wanted to keep the speech text somewhere and decided i’ll just blog it! So here it is :)

Shaz & Zein:

Zein:

Assalamualaikum & Good Evening Ladies & Gentlement

We want to start off by thanking everyone for being here to celebrate Natasha and Max’s very special day. On behalf of the family, we are honored to have all of the most important people in our lives here with us today. And even if we don’t get the chance to tell you all that individually, my family and I mean it. Thank you.

For those of you who don’t know us, my name is Zein, Natasha’s Brother In Law and Shaz, my wife & Natasha’s sister. I’m gonna pass this over to Shaz, and lets hear from her what she has to say about her sister.

Shaz:

Hi everyone…

I hope our dance didn’t spoil your appetite earlier. Nat Im sure you didn’t expect me to give a speech and I know you are jealous you couldn’t be part of the dance.

Growing up together, we always had a love hate relationship. Despite that I’m always her favourite sister and I know that. Being a fickle minded herself, I would like to emphasise, she has made us change her wedding theme like 22 times. Like how our father always say.. TAKDAK DISIPLIN!

Aaaaandddd.. her forgetfulness.. OMG! Max… you better keep track of her things like her kunci kereta(like always), her watch, her handbag tapi handphone takkan pernah lupa. Goodluck with that Max.

However, growing up together, we always complement each other through the bad and good times. Well.. we cover each other pretty well especially when it comes to mischievous things we do behind our parents backs.

As you probably know, weddings are not the easiest to plan, and Natasha isn’t always the easiest to please, so the Zain’s household has been pretty crazy these last few weeks. With all the madness going on, it was easy to forget the reason for it all. Now that the chaos has ended, it has finally hit me that my little sister is getting married. Looking at her right now, I can’t help but get a little emotional. My sister is the most beautiful woman I know.

Max, I want you to know that my sister loves you more than anything in the entire world. Trust me, she would not be marrying you if she didn’t feel that way. My sister is a perfectionist and doesn’t settle for anything or anyone, so in her eyes, you are as close to perfect as they come. I couldn’t imagine a better fit for my sister, only someone as calm as you can handle her sassiness all the time.

I’ll leave you two with a little advice. Love isn’t perfect. It isn’t a fairy-tale or a storybook and it doesn’t always come easy. Love is overcoming obstacles, facing challenges, fighting to be together, holding on and never letting go. I hope you can both look back on today as the moment you loved each other the least. I love you both. Welcome to the family Max.

Natasha, remember the part when you said Bebo can never give a speech. Well now she actually has something to say….. Come on up Bebo.

Bebo:

Good evening everyone and Hi Nat and Max.

For those of you who dont know me, my name Bebo, Natasha’s childhood friend.

So a month ago nat asked me if i can give a speech at her wedding to which i replied NO. Three days ago she asked me again so I randomly gave her some points to which she stopped me halfway and told me “bebo u better not give a speech at my wedding, its gonna be the worse ever” —> that moment I decided I must give a speech!

My dear nat.. this day has finally come. The day you have been waiting for. It finally happened. Remember in  the past few days you were like.. omg 2 days to go... omg tomorrow is my wedding, this is really happening and You're married now. I can’t believe my favourite oldie is married! Well I call her OLDIE because im so much younger than her.

We have been talking about this day since I can remember. I remember looking through colours that were possibilities for your special day, rolling on the floor laughing at our friends bridezilla-ness and reminding our self not to be like that, our emotional days at Taman Tun Padang, our crazy days and hours of deep talk until past midnight. I still remember, everytime we were out, uncle din and aunty khatijah would text you asking where are you and what time you will be home.. and you will be like OMG, my dad is calling to which you replied either ON THE WAY ! Or I ALMOST HOME, stucked in TRAFFIC JAM and we will still continue talking after that.. our stories can never end. Well By now..Uncle Din & Aunty khatijah would probably be thinking if that was my idea of excuses all this while, uncle and aunty i can confirm to you.. those were always her idea. She is very creative.

That secret padang will always be in our memories even after you are mother of 5, when you have trouble handling your screaming kids, your tantrums kids.. don’t worry, I’ll meet you at the padang for another story session. Oh and I’m not gonna tell you where  the padang is , Max.

Nat, we’ve laughed, cried, laughed until we cried again and know more about each other than we probably care to. We’ve been through some of the hardest times of our lives together and have been grateful to have each other through some of the best. My dear Nat, I sincerely thank you for always being by my side.

I remember when I first learned about Max, Natasha would go on and on about him. She told me how handsome he was, how intelligent he was, how wonderful it was to talk to him. I remember so perfectly when we were in Phuket the day you told me you are getting married.. I remember the look on your face, the emotions that spilled out of you when you told me! I couldn’t be happier for you. You truly deserve nothing but only the best.

I’m so glad you found the one who makes your heart and soul happy. I seriously couldn’t have handpicked anyone better for you than him. I see the way you light up when you are around him, the way you smile when his name is mentioned, and how excited you are when you talk about your future together. I am beyond excited to watch you marry the love of your life. I have no doubt that the next journey that life has for you two, together, will be nothing less than an amazing adventure.

My darling nat, I’m always proud of you, happy for you, thankful for you. And I hope this day is everything you had imagined. I love you.

Thank you.

It's 2018! I haven't blogged since 2011...gosh time flies!

Okay so now I am back because I am required to write this blog by my Prof, as an assignment to brand myself in this DBA course "Digital Marketing". So now you guys will be seeing me post at least once a week coz that is the expectation and requirements to this course for this semester. 

Well, now that I have grown up and gotten married, oh yes I finally got married end of 2016...well didn't really expect that to happen to me but it did 😁, I kinda have to manage expectations of people around me. I can't really be that single happy go lucky person I think I was before. 

As I am writing, the Prof just told us that the minimum words to write today is 300 words, and yes I am in class right now and am still wondering what to write on this topic of managing expectation. So back to being married, I used to have this life of staying at office until late doing work (yeah a boring life) before being married but now that I have a husband that has slightly changed because he expects me to be home when he is. Luckily a lot has changed in the office arena since 2011, I now have 2 staff and a great boss since 2014, and I have learned the art of delegating and teaching my staff all that I know. This has allowed me to move on to doing other things in the Risk area of the Bank. I have to say my learning curve has increased since and I am happy where I am although people do tell me being 9 years in a same company is not really good. Oh well I am happy and I think the grass is not greener in the other side, I have heard enough stories on that and if I am learning and contributing at my current position, why move yet?

Anyway…reached my required words for the day, it’s difficult to write! see you next week.