Macro vs Micro

What is macro UX in my mind?

I was asked to think about what is Macro UX in the workshop.

For me, macro UX means looking at the things from a broader scale. It is kind of like jumping out of the frame and start to think about the things behind it, instead of looking into the details of the things. Take prototyping for example, when you are doing a prototype, Micro UX is like thinking about the material, the form and even the colour. Whereas Macro UX means taking one step back and thinking about the meaning of doing it and what you are going to express.

My understanding of "sleep"

The short video “powers of ten” by Charles and Ray Eames illustrates Macro vs Micro in a more objective way. The change of the focal distance decides your sight, and the things you think big becomes invisible after ten seconds when the lens moves. The video continues to zoom out when we cannot even see the sun. However, when you are finally lost in the big universe, it starts to zoom in reversely. The video reminded me to think in an overall way, changing between Micro and Macro from time to time, and leave out the very details when I am framed by them.

Video "powers of ten"

When it comes to my project “sleep”, a quite Micro thing happening inside the body, the Macro aspect of sleep turns to the social, cultural and even historical meaning of sleep. Sleep is then a cross-cultural and cross-time topic that we feel hard to intervene. Relatively, the Micro aspect of sleep means neurological activities happening in one’s body while sleep, and there are already tons of scientific findings existing, like sleep stages (light sleep, deep sleep and REM) and other sleep research.

But still, it depends on how you frame “sleep”. When we zoom in a little bit, the Macro sleep is how people affect each other’s sleep, between mother and baby, couples, or even among strangers, for example. When we zoom out a little bit, the Micro sleep is just what I said about Macro sleep. When we treat body as a system, it could be Micro and Macro at the same time… Whether one thing is Micro or Macro is relative and decided by the frame one made.

It is more about navigating through big and small. For example, when we are focusing on personal sleep, we can think about whether the relationship, and the environment will influence his sleep and how, and this is so-called macro. Then we can still look further into the more bigger aspect, like the society and culture: how would different culture influence personal sleep, and even history. Then we go back to the personal sleep again.

Macro UX is connected with Micro UX all the time. These two things cannot exist alone and they are connecting with each other. We cannot separate one from another simply, however, we could think about why they are always connected and apply the connection to our design.

It is more about thinking from one to another, and looking at questions in a more free way. Pay attention to the reasons behind it and ask why.

There are two things I learned from this. One is that we should try to think about the frame before doing things and sometimes it is good for us exercise deciding the frame. The other is that we should always remember to look out of the task and change scope between Micro and Macro now and then while design, so that we would not be limited and focused on the task only, and be more aware about the different aspects of design.

Brainstorming: 100 ideas in 100 seconds

—Brainstorming in 100 seconds and then categorise and categorise

Group brainstorming about "what is sleep"

Group brainstorming about "idea for sleep"

My brainstorming about "idea for sleep"