Author: hienphan1299

UX – a Demanding Industry that Demands Everyone’s Behaviors and Time

In the past decade, UX/UI is the trending field in design. According to Design Mortals Academy, in 2020, design teams were expected to grow by at least 21%, resulting in 8,000 – 24,00 UX/UI job openings worldwide. More jobs and more tech development on earth, which is fabulous. However, when we understand that UX/UI is the design targeting to adjust the behaviors of the whole community to meet the productivity of the market, it is not so great. You may realize that your timeline in a day is distorted by your habit of using some well-known mobile apps.

The more frequently people use a product, the more successful it is in the market.

According to Statista, there are 2.9 million apps available on Google Play Store, which compete to gain as many using time from consumers who have only 24 hours each day (they need to sleep on average 7 hours as well!) Let’s think about such rough competition: these apps need to be designed as to be activated as much as it can so that they can promote their products or services to users recklessly.

Among the great, functional application, Netflix is probably everyone’s favorite portable theater. Yet, its UX design is keeping us up at night. While the prime time to television viewers is between 8-11pm, the peak time to Netflix subscribers is 12-2am. 148 million of Netflix customers definitely have the ultimate freedom to watch whatever they want, instead of planning for the network’s schedule of shows as in the traditional broadcast television. As the goal of a streaming service to keep their subscribers’ eyes on the screen, Netflix’s goal is to keep its consumers awake during midnight.

New era of television has put consumers into the new culture of enjoying the shows – binge-watching. There we have an endless list of shows and movies to watch at any time, preferably on bed or sofa, as long as we have a digital device in our arms. Although 71% of binge viewing happens by accident, Netflix makes a record of it and test the user behaviors for the upcoming deliberate mistakes. The homepage is personalized to your taste and Netflix even came up with multiple artworks for a movie thumbnail to test which version is most effective to which type of viewers. Whenever the play mode is on, viewers can no longer see the clock on the laptop or the tablet. Quitting the show is even a harder task then entering the series of movies. Then, whenever an episode is coming to the end, the upcoming one is automatically waiting to be up next. It is such an endless journey of watching stories and, of course, sleepless nights.

The UX setting of Netflix somehow reminded me of the failed Soviet time experiment in 1929.

The time perception of workers were reformatted by the use of nepreryvka.

To most everyone, a week is made of seven days, 168 hours, but to people in the former Soviet Union, in a short period of time, it only included five days or six days.

To boost the productivity, the Soviet Union government decided to launch the nepreryvka, in which workers were divided to multiple groups and took turn to enjoy the days off. Each group worked seven hours a day for four days continuously and then have a day off. At any time, 80% of the workers were at the factory while 20% remained at home. This way, the factories were working constantly in the effort of maximizing the output.

Workers had their own routines of working and resting yet they did not enjoy the time off together with their families. The machines were burn out as having so little of the resting time. All notifications, reminders, and calendars events were marked on the nepreryvka, which dictated the lifestyles of workers at the time. They did not have an option to customize and rest mentally. Thankfully, in 1940, the “evolutionary” in time management was abandoned and people went back to the original calendar (7 days a week with 6 consecutive working days and 1 common day of rest).

We all need a break from the time-hunters of all kinds.

The similarity of the Soviet Union at the time and the mobile app is their persistent time-hunter in human’s daily lives. To be honest, they both aim to reach their own goals of maximizing the productivity yet it is not the only goal of human. We live to thrive physically and mentally. A complete break is much needed, when we are not dictated by any form, either a streaming app or a boss yelling at 11:59pm on Thursday night.

“What if I watch one more episode?” For the next time, when you think like that, let’s hold back and think of the streaming service also as a UX hunter, and your body as a rest-demanding object, biometrically.

Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” – its Lifetime of Shaking Our Hearts Remains There.

Recently, I have been listening to Sam Smith, whose songs brought me back to the high-school years when “Stay With Me” was so popular. I just found out that the song was a song of the year in 2015, when Smith was awarded 4 Grammys.

The song hit more than 1 billion of views when it was published in March 2014. In comparison, Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off had more than 3 billion views since August 2014 and Despacito hit more than 7 billion views since January 2017. Why did Smith’s song receive such love and recognition? And it is still.

With piano and drum sounds at the background, Smith’s voice was deep, thick, and emotional; but I know that the value of the song was more than just the simplicity in instruments and the singer’s voice. There is a story of Smith’s love life beneath the lyrics. It was about the moment he woke up after the one night stand, realizing that he needed the other to stay with him. Although he knew that it wasn’t love, it was hard to enforce the feelings to the mode on/off or right/wrong.

The song was probably relating to the countless number of hearts and souls. Sometimes, people were in the flow of fun and attraction by the others, and they decided to roll in the peak of romance 419. Deep down, they were mostly strangers, sadly, literally or in terms of lifestyle or perspectives, they were different. Deep down, it was the temporary matching game of the two lonely, or sometimes bored, souls. People knew what they were stepping into but could not help demanding another period of temporary satisfaction or caring. Smith’s song, thus, described such conflicts in emotions and the uncertainty in one’s heart.

The vague will last long. I would not go further to the beauty of sorrow in “Stay With Me” to leave it in the shaking hearts of Smith listeners and lovers.

P.S. I’m not a professional in either music production or music performance. This article, thus, is a sole reflection of a random Internet surfer who listened to Smith’s music accidentally and turned out to love his songs.

About Saigon Teu – the first and recently the only standup comedy group in Vietnam

2020 was such a year to anyone on earth – so was it to Saigon Teu (meaning the Humorous Saigon). In March 2020, no one came to the night shows of Saigon Teu, except the group members’ friends. In April 2021, the Youtube channel of Saigon Ten has more than 247,000 subscribers with 84 videos while there are more than 694,000 people following their page with approximately 2,700 reactions to each of their show schedule.

How has Saigon Teu come to these days?

Saigon Teu is a group of the young people who are passionate in standup comedy. The youngest member is currently 20-year-old college student while the oldest is the owner of multiple startups in Vietnam. The prominent members, also co-founders, of the group includes Uy Le, the talented standup comedian who was awarded internationally; Phuong Nam, the newbie, trendy comedian on social media, and Tung BT whose cafe shop was the first place Saigon Teu put on their show.

Standup comedy was started in Vietnam probably a decade ago. It is not a new thing but it did not attract the public attention as much as in the COVID time. One of the oldest standup comedians here is Dua Leo (meaning Cucumber, yep!) He joined YouTube and repost the first clip of his show in 2009. He is currently more known as a YouTuber rather than a standup comedian (although Dua Leo is still active with his role as a comedian in multiple events and shows)

Why is Saigon Teu attractive to the young people in Vietnam?

They are more than a group of artists (comedians are artists too!) – they are a group of friends who share jokes and would love to encourage others to practice jokes. Vietnamese obviously love jokes! No one in the country does not know Truong Giang, Tran Thanh, Hoai Linh, or Xuan Bac – they are MCs who are well-known comedians. Yet, they interact with their co-workers when performing in the show – audiences are the third party watching the fun most of the time.

To Saigon Teu, their audience are potentials of being standup comedians. To them, being humorous is a lifestyle in which one needs to observe the life and enjoy the tiny, spectacular moment of life. Phuong Nam once shared in his show “How to fall with prestige?” His girlfriend once fell when walking on the street with him. He joked “I decided to simply lie on the street with her. Then one guy came and rolled his eyes saying what we were freaking doing. I asked whether he wanted to lie down with us, too, cuz the street is the public asset. We did not mind sharing it with him, you know. Chill until my girlfriend was ready to stand up back.”

Whoever has fun when staying at home all day through weeks and even months? No one, literally. Being a bit humorous and sometimes sarcastic to such boring long-lasting time would somehow make this time memorable. I think that is why Saigon Teu is popular – they are spreading the positive, weird but fun lifestyle. They run the weekly shows, put up comedian challenges, and come up with lessons of Standup Comedy in Vietnamese. Why to survive with the normal perspective when life puts us on the swing all the time?

Saigon Teu = passionate young people in Vietnam

Saigon Teu represented the group of passionate young people in Vietnam who were willing to promote the field that not everyone dare to walk into. 2020, somehow, was a spectacular year to the group when they gained the recognition that they deserve and spread the literal joy to more and more people.

Learn more about them via their first anniversary video.

Why #StopAsianHate Recently? From a Perspective of an Asian.

When was it started – the movement #StopAsianHate? Back in May 2020, when the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and the black squares fulfilled my Instagram newsfeed, I thought someday, people might post hashtags relating to other races or religions. Now, that day came, even before the mass shooting in Atlanta overwhelmed the news.

Back to the history of anti-Asian in America

Since March 2020, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, anti-Asian hate crimes increased by nearly 150%, mostly in New York and Los Angeles. Another study showed that the term “Chinese virus” in use actually resulted in the shift in perspectives of people in the U.S. towards Asian American.

Social distancing policy in most states resulted in the decrease in opening hours of all local restaurants and business. Yet, Asian businesses are the most vulnerable during the national economic crisis. The news of Asian elderly being attacked were repost and shared on my Instagram newsfeed more frequently since then.

And then, all emotion and silence were pushed to the edge when 8 people, including 6 Asian women, were killed in the mass shooting at Atlanta. The 21-year-old suspect believed that he had a sex addiction and attempted to eradicate the spa. To be honest, the other 2 victims were not Asian – one seemed to be Hispanic man and another was a white lady. The media and the community “decided” to labelled the crime as racial hate crime, rather than sex crime.

The reaction towards #StopAsianHate

My initial reaction towards the hashtag when the news was spread rapidly was “What are they thinking when framing the crime with the racial hate? The police did not say that. Neither did the suspect. Killing Asian should not be treated differently from killing human in general, regardless of the suspect’s reasons for shooting.” I am 100% Vietnamese, an Asian who might have been hated by her Asian community if she had spoken out loud.

However, now that I trace back to the history of AAPI, thanks to such exaggerating label, I would say, the movement #StopAsianHate has been recognized and spread more rapidly than ever before. Ever since there was a flow of Asian immigrants, there was a conflict in interests among different communities. The movement we are having now was rooted from the Chinese massacre of 1871. The Page Exclusive Act of 1875 was the first restrictive immigration law at the time to prohibit Chinese women from entering the U.S. – which resulted the long-lasting bias perception of American towards the Asian American community.

Stereotypes is the quickest way for people to perceive the world as in groups, yet they limit us from understanding others as individuals. No, not all Asian women were sex slaves at the time. No, not all White American are White Supremacist. Asians are different from the White and the Black by color skin and the body size; For the rest, all of us are basically the compilations of tons of possibilities that are shaped by environmental impacts. The hashtag #StopAsianHate is much needed at any time to encourage Asian American community and their friends to raise their voice and ask for the deserving rights. It is not only the fight for racial equality – it is the attempt for human empathy.

The social movement worth fighting for

I am Asian. I want to stand by those who are disadvantaged – for this moment, they are mostly Asian American. Donation, petition, and physical help – little by little to fight for a better world that we all live in. Learn more here.

Obsessed with Sugar? Let’s Try Cutting Them Down.

Sugar can be found in almost any food, naturally in fruits and vegetables or as added sugar in almost any snacks. However, eating too much sugar negatively effects your health. On average, American consumes 68 grams of added sugar per day, breaking the daily limit that some experts recommend for women (25 grams) and men (37 grams).

You cannot quit sugar immediately and completely but you can try the following tips to reduce the habit of eating sugar. The infographic was sourced from Healthline.

Is Walmart Grocery Delivery Worth Your Budget?

Walmart is always in the top lists of convenient grocery shopping. With the existence of website and app, customers can choose from a wide range of products, varying from food, kitchen wares, to household appliances. Despite the unexpected COVID-19 outbreak, Walmart has stepped up for no-contact shopping services for customers, including curbside pickups and grocery delivery, which even threatens the convenience of Amazon shopping. Yet, is it really worth trying and subscribing to the service when it comes to fresh produce shopping? 

The following infographic (sourced from Heathline.com) will help you understand one of Walmart’s highlighted services in 2020 – grocery delivery. Let’s dig in. 

As you can see, Walmart is a rising start in grocery deliverers but probably hasn’t been the go-to deliverer when it comes to eco-friendly and long-term food quality. Whether Walmart is worth you budget, you decide!

Reactions to the best 3 Vietnamese Restaurants by Nashville Scene

2020 was tough, which no one would disagree with. However, numerous restaurants in Nashville are trying their best to survive the pandemic with new dishes or the increase in food deliveries. According to the readers’ poll of Nashville Scene in 2020, Vui’s Kitchen stands out as the best Vietnamese restaurant, while Miss Saigon was voted as the runner-up, and VN Pho & Deli as the third place.

Now, let’s take a closer look at these restaurants, from a perspective with a Vietnamese living in her home country in more than 20 years, to justify the poll.

Vui’s kitchen – the American perspective of Vietnamese food

4 RED PINS ON THE MAP BELOW

Since 2017, Vui’s Kitchen was voted as the best Vietnamese restaurant at Nashville Scene. There are 4 branches of the Vui’s Kitchen in Nashville alone, with high ratings in great services and ideal outside dining area. People come to the restaurant to enjoy the food with nature, which is mostly the best option to hang out with friends during the COVID time. Although they offer online orders via Doordash and their website, they no longer accepted orders through phone calls.

In Vietnamese cuisine, every time we have a piece of egg roll with fish sauce or Bun Thit Nuong, there is an explosion in flavors – umami, salty, sweet, and sour, with the dynamic textures – crunchy on the outside and chewy, soft at the inside. However, here at the Vui’s kitchen, the flavor was not as we expected in authentic Vietnamese food. They were pretty pale, probably because some Americans don’t enjoy the strong bombing in flavors. The price, in general, is higher than that of other Vietnamese restaurants.

Miss Saigon with a long menu through time

1 PURPLE PIN ON THE MAP BELOW

Miss Saigon was opened since 1996, probably one of the oldest Vietnamese restaurants in Tennessee. It is probably in the go-to Vietnamese restaurants of those who plan for interstate road trips. Both American and Vietnamese enjoy the dishes here, which means that the food is not 100% authentic but delicious enough for those who miss Vietnamese cuisine. While Com Tam (broken rice dishes) is their Vietnamese customers’ favorite, people also come here for Pho, vermicelli, and corn milk.

You might be amazed by the number of items in their menu – around 70. They are highly active on multiple online delivery services such as Uber, Grub Hub, their website, and even phone calls. They currently offer a free dessert when customer leave comments on the Yelp profile of the restaurant. However, the big minus of the restaurant is the inconsistent quality of the service – sometimes, the food comes up right away while you might wait for your Banh Xeo for more than 30 minutes. Also, be aware of $15 credit card minimum.

VN Pho & Deli, a small, cozy restaurant

1 BLUE PIN ON THE MAP BELOW

On the same road Charlotte Pike, before turning to the corner to get to Miss Saigon, you can see VN Pho & Deli. Vietnamese customers agreed that they probably serve the best Pho in the state. It is the small restaurant with specials of Duck dishes on Friday and Sunday – Bun Mang Vit and Mi Vit Tiem. They serve unique Vietnamese dishes in the state with the reasonable prices. Hot news to boba-lovers: their taro smoothie is recommended.

When coming to VN Pho & Deli, remember that you need to pay with cash. They have the in-house ATM and the owner is flexible in receiving payment via Zelle as well. Bad news for lazy customers: you gotta come to the area to enjoy the food as they, so far, do not offer food delivery.

Food tells personality. You may experience the best Nashville Scene Vietnamese restaurants differently, but then you would know which one is worth the compliments.

The funny, plot-twisted “Mr. Queen” will make your day, promised.

<Ladies and Gentlemen: SPOILERS ALERT> 

COVID time brings me a whole lot of spare time and I decided to make a huge movement in killing the time – watching “Mr. Queen”. It’s been years since the last time I watched a K-drama – they were so good yet so lengthy for me to follow with my busy schedule of a college life. However, in my mind right now, there are only scenes from the now K-drama “Mr. Queen”. 

Mr. Queen is a time travel of a dead man’s soul (Jang Bong-Hwan) from the modern South Korea to the body of a future queen (Kim So-Yong) of the Joseon dynasty. The hilarious situation took place as Bong-Hwan was a womanizer, yet the queen was in a complicated relationship with the king (Cheoljong) – simply a political marriage. So-Yong’s family represented the Kim family who focused on maintaining its monopoly by controlling the King for years, instead of enriching the country. So-Young resented the fact of her family and realized that she didn’t want such a harsh meaning-less life being her family’s CCTV of the King. 

An independent, free person is the most attractive. 

The series was not done yet, but I enjoyed lessons from such a funny series. The fact that Bong-Hwan’s soul in So-Yong’s body and changing her identity in others’ minds helped me sum up the values of an attractive person. The old So-Yong hated her role as a CCTV so much that she pretended to be an evil queen who punished her servants hard – her emotion was pressed inside whether it was joy or love. 

On the other hand, Bong-Hwan expressed himself freely, even without respects towards the King. His alpha features as a man pushed him towards the heroic actions of telling the truths whenever the King doubt So-Yong’s actions. The new So-Yong took care of her servant, managed the Royal Kitchen and assisted the King whenever his plan was about to be destroyed. The activeness and bright characteristics in Bong-Hwan’s role was such a refreshing wind to the Palace. 

Plot twists yet tell the true-life stories. 

Bong-Hwan was a man who loves women only, but within the body of So-Yong, he had a feeling for the King. The mutual understanding plus the chemistry every of their moments builds up the relationship that is bloomed with respect, responsibility, and joy. Bong-Hwan in So-Yong’s body was walking on the pathway of such relationship with the King – love.  

In the past, I probably would say “eel” when hearing a straight guy loved another guy – it was abnormal and unacceptable to me. Now that I have experienced and observed the loving process, I realized that such love is so precious that lovers feel empathized and respected. Isn’t that the beauty of love already? 

The series is coming to an end – Bong-Hwan and the King are on the same boat. They are loving each other while on their pathways of finding their true selves despite the chaotic palace. I’m thrilled to watch the final two episodes, while promising to the angel of ethic: “I will devote 100% of myself to classes after this series ends.” 

P.S. The series is not available on Netflix, folks. 

The role of algorithms in the economy and society

“Algorithms” is such a broad term that it covers any guidelines that describe how to perform a task in a daily life. It can be an instruction in a textbook or a viral Thanksgiving recipe on the internet. However, to the aspect of technology and internet, the understanding of “algorithms” is confined to computer math:

Algorithms are mathematical procedures that are performed in a controlled fashion on data in order to be able to present an output in the shape of other forms of data.

Simon Lindgren

Algorithms are behind the scenes of the majority of internet operations. Any input onto the website, for example, a click on an item to purchase, another output in correspondence to the input would display on the screen, such as a number of items in the cart would increase by one. This is because a certain set of rules have been added to the program to obtain the expected output from the given input. It is the magic player of interactions on social media, marketing ads, or online stores.

Obviously, algorithms helps human organize things and interact efficiently. For example, Amazon is a giant online retailer with all of its items set up and decorated beautifully on the website. Imagine one day, Amazon became a rich old guy with a large number of employees, how can he and his employees meet their customers from all over the wold, with thousands of transactions a day? Algorithm is there to save the labor effort, time, and money for Amazon; therefore, various algorithms from simple to complex are set up as to serve multiple purposes else online marketing and selling.

Just in one click, with one word, and then the result is displayed on the screen as a list with all items related. Algorithms sort through the massive amount of information, which helps us navigate the most matching data that we are looking for. It is also behind social media, obviously. News are fed continuously in the reverse chronological order, stories of friends are listed in closed-friend priority, and hashtags are for people to search for the theme that they are interested in. Algorithms, with the support of AI, is the main element to keep us getting involved in the social media.

Society is changed by algorithms. Google has been a great part of human life in news updating and self-instructing. Also, people confirm info accuracy more often and easily. Via Google, online users access multiple links, yet in a personalized order of interest order. Algorithms are created and adjusted by the host so as to interact with people, via which algorithms could be set to collect data. A huge amount of information from users as in the possible instructions in algorithms can be a threat to personal security. Also, when we head towards personalized data search, we might not have chance to step out of the comfort zone and discover other sources, unless we specifically ask for them.

Hold on tight, algorithm is not limited to the internet. It is operated on multiple platforms that use technology: radar, machine operation, transportation, health service, and many more to come. It keeps growing up in human’s orders and interact or combine with each other to produce the result. The video below would clarify algorithm more in a thorough, scientific, and social perspective.