The rice User Experience

When one is travelling cheap in Latino America, one can get easily bored with food. In fact, the local cuisine features very simple recipes. Main (and sometimes only) ingredients in latin countries are white rice (arroz), beans (frijoles) and some corn-based tortilla-like bread. As I was not used to eat so much rice, I developed a love-hate (mostly hate) towards the rice. Many days I would ask for the fixed menu with no rice, sacrificing 2\3 of the amount of the food and, consequently, starving later. In addition, I have found out that my stomach is not able to process rice properly, which got me many problems and lead me to avoid it as much as I could.Still, rice taught me some good UX lesson…

The importance of imprinting

Talking to locals, I realise that they did not get what I meant when I was explaining my problems with rice. In their mind, it is important eating rice every day and they would not even think at anything different from that (doest it sound like many Italians with pasta, right?). A nicaraguan man commented one day: ‘I would not feel full without eating rice and beens three times a day’. The truth is that they grew up with this diet at the same way I grew up eating bread. So this is what we naturally look for and we are used to. This concept is very well known in psychology as imprinting.

Imprinting is any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior. It was first used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some stimulus, which is therefore said to be “imprinted” onto the subject. (Wikipedia — Imprinting (Psychology)

Of course I do not believe we are like Pavlov’s dog. We change our habits and behaviours all time according to the environment, our history and the experiences. What it is definitely true is that we have tendencies of behaviours. When we are under stress, we react using them as background safe behaviours.

Conventions may not be that conventional

This part is connected to the previous point. If one asks ‘what it is the perfect, or the most common, side dish’, many mediterraneans would immediately reply ‘bread’. But what the answer would be in other part of the world?Is bread the perfect side dish? Of course it is for me. I love bread and I would eat it many times during the day. Actually it is what I miss the most in this trip. Said that, bread IS NOT the perfect side dish. For many people it is rice or potatoes or even pasta (yes, I know, hard to understand for Italians). Whatever we like or not and whatever we think, as designer we should take into account that what we think it is a truth it may be not for people coming from a different cultural background. User research always helps in that, right? Know your user and never ever take anything for granted!This is the basic of user experience, however I have met so many so-called UX that never do user research (causing me goose bumps).

The same thing changes depending on the use

I am currently writing this post from Singapore. One of the most popular local dishes here is the Chicken rice. You can imagine my trouble before trying it. I was waving between my feelings towards the rice and the curiosity of how it may taste like. Thanks God the curiosity won!Briefly, I loved it! Why? Because of the way it is cooked! The rice is cooked with so many ingredients that give the rice a nice flavour.As designer, we should not be affected by the bad experience using one element if that element had been used in a different context, with different users or in a different way. As usual, user testing helps. Include it in the design and then see how people use it. The results of the test may surprise you! The use changes according to the environment (availability of spices), the culture (cooking habits), a specific need (fighting local diseases like high cholesterol). I made up this last three examples but it is for the sake of understanding.

And that’s it for now! Let’s keep travelling and learn new things! Thanks for reading! Every comment is more than welcome!