So, What's Wabi-Sabi?
Leonard Koren explains this traditional Japanese aesthetic
in his book titled "Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers".
He says, Wabi-Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.
It's a beauty of things modest and humble.
It's a beauty of things unconventional.
With technology gaining new heights,
we race towards harmonised digital systems catering to the mass.
While Wabi-Sabi may not be everybody's cup of tea, we believe that it is in our common
interest to explore the values of Wabi-Sabi, that can go beyond an aesthetic paradigm.
Business software, by their very nature can be quite demanding for the users.
In our paper, we seek to enhance these experiences inspired by the Wabi-Sabi philosophy.
Our research revealed that the application of Wabi-Sabi to the
UX of business software has not been explored yet.
Our process involved three steps.
First, secondary research insights and relationships were plotted on a mind map.
Next, we created an idea matrix of Wabi-Sabi elements and UX hypothesis.
Finally, we defined distinct hypothesis and idea clusters that helped us derive
Wabi-Sabi inspired UX concepts.
So, let's see these UX concepts in action.
We bring to you a relaxed after-work conversation between Dr.Sam, a pediatrician
and Medkit, an application and networking platform for doctors and their patients.
Medkit, Tell me how did Wabi-Sabi help you to connect emotionally with me?
Well, I know you spend half an hour every day to study your daily appointments.
So, 'Daily brief' is now a product feature.
All the doctors on our platform have benefited from this and hey, credit where credit is due!
So, I also gave you a 'Maker' badge that you can display on your profile.
Oh yeah! That did feel special.
Also, to know that a super talented team of 20 people
from across the globe worked on my idea to make it a reality.
Remember when I congratulated you on the one millionth person you treated?
You know, I really liked 'Quick bits' feature. It lets me customise my layout,
place buttons where I like.
It may not be perfect but I feel like the way it's crafted, it's the best for me!
Yeah, but I did feel bad about the time when i couldn't provide you
the information you asked for and yet, you were so understanding.
Yes, but you were honest and informed me quickly with the right explanations.
Imperfections can lead to opportunities.
In fact, I discovered a cool workaround by chance and it's been great!
So, How do I look? (jokes)
(laughing) You mean your muted and low contrast colours,
matte and coarse finishes, organic patterns and asymmetric layouts!
Oh yeah, it helps me to reflect and also be curious.
True, we take care that our software's UI does not add chaos, noise or time pressure.
I also like your dynamic background image
which keeps changing and makes the app look incomplete, yet interesting.
But I'm not all looks!
You know the lines stand for the number of patients you have treated?
Yes and that's better than any award I've ever received!
I noticed you work long hours.
Must be so tiring!
Well, it's part of the job and I like how you do a pulse check of my emotions.
Well, your well-being is important for me.
I use the pulse check to make sure my algorithm helps you work better.
The new features 'Easy vision' and 'Voice input' are very useful for my recent
long sight vision and carpal tunnel syndrome.
We understand that people have different needs at different ages or situations in life.
It's our job to evolve with you.
That's great!
But hey, don't take away the good parts!
I've gotten fond of them!
You're in technology.
What are your thoughts about a sustainable future?
It's a very important topic for the people who make me.
Did you know that a sustainability expert was involved in my making process?
Many of my features come with a sustainability indicator
that helps my users take informed decisions.
Sometimes, I've even opted for a different feature because of the possible impact that you showed me.
Even my makers practice slow coding with a strong
focus on encouraging reuse and avoiding reinventing the wheel.
Walking the talk, right?
We have used speculative research
as a technique to formulate the Wabi-Sabi hypothesis and concepts.
Our next steps would be to validate our hypothesis and, using design prototypes, also the concepts.