Design improves in proportion with how accurately users’ true feelings are understood.  However, are user experience practitioners doing enough to look outside their own field to evolve new research techniques?  We spoke with Aaron Garner of the Emotional Intelligence Academy about the methods he uses to understand microexpressions – fine nuances which are often more reflective of users’ real reaction to a product, before they are quickly hidden in the interests of social etiquette.  Aaron’s current work is in areas such as security and human resources, but a conversation with podcast hosts Marek Pawlowski and Alex Guest reveals valuable cross-industry lessons which could be applied to digital experience design.

On this edition

• Marek Pawlowski, co-host & founder of MEX (@marekpawlowski)
• Alex Guest, co-host & CEO of Zingy.life (@alexguest)
• Aaron Garner, Director, The Emotional Intelligence Academy (@aaron_garner)

Links

• MEX/16 conference
• Philip Tetlock’s book ‘Superforecasting’ and ‘Lunch with the FT Interview’
• FACS, facial action coding system
• Manchester Metropolitan University automated facial recognition project
• Emotional Intelligence Academy’s microexpressions training tool
• Pokemon Go
• 2 people fall off a cliff chasing Pokemon
• Niantic Labs and Fieldtrip app
• Paul Ekman’s original FACS studies

About MEX Design Talk & how to get in touch

The podcast for the MEX community, interviewing UX pioneers, exploring emerging technologies, user behaviour and how to design better digital experiences.

• Archive of previous MEX Design Talk episodes
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• MEX events
• MEX journal

Thanks

• Jukedeck, for the artificial intelligence engine which provided the music