Being the son of an architect and an engineer, I grew up with design thinking all around me. Something I realized after many years of being a design practitioner was that there is a design vernacular that we often take for granted.
In architecture, they speak of the vernacular as the structures and spaces that are not formally designed under that discipline. These are what we typically think of as traditional structures like huts, stilt structures, and even some sacred spaces. What they are getting at is that there is an underlying natural logic to design from which disciplines, such as architecture can arise.
Extending that concept towards defining the UX vernacular, one begins to realize that there are plenty of things all around us that encompass the concept. Any time that we customize something for ourselves, or find some kind of a workaround to improve the user experience with an object or space, we are drawing from an innate sense of design.
If you look around your living space or work space you will surely find plenty of hacks that you have made to objects, such as using a binder clip to manage cables on a desktop, or putting tape around a pen to make it more comfortable to write with.
As UX designers, not unlike architects, we have grown from this underlying design logic, and created our own context for the definition of process and guidelines for creating generalized user experiences. These experiences are improved upon because they take into account the content of the piece being designed, as well as the context in which it is being used.
However, in creating better generalized user experiences, we must also make room for the individual vernacular that will allow the end-user of the objector space to truly make it their own. After all, how many of us buy a pair of jeans in our preferred size and find that it is always a perfect fit? We design pants with belt loops to customize the fit, not just to accessorize.
So, next time you design something or modify something to make it a better user experience for you, remember that you are engaging in the use of the UX vernacular.
