In our May 2023 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Brittney Samuels and Janice Alexander, of UX Designer Network Jamaica, the panel discusses: What does it mean to become a digital society? The importance of local context when implementing technology in the Caribbean; and the digital customer experience problems in the Caribbean region.

 

This episode is also available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music and Stitcher!

If there is any underlying theme in this month’s Community Chat podcast episode, it is disabusing the notion of the ‘quick fix’. Across the Caribbean region and in various quarters, there is often a focus on being expedient, quickly putting something in place, which upon closer examination, does not fully solve the problem at hand. As a result, we either tend to struggle with what we have put in place, though it may not be as efficient, effective, or progressive as we had hoped, or if the solution is truly deficient, we admit defeat, abandon it, and continue as we had before.

However, before we get into the topics we discussed for the May 2023 Community Chat, allow us to introduce our guests.

 

Introducing our guests

Janice Alexander is a Lead UX and Systems Designer at First Caribbean International Bank, dedicated to creating seamless and user-centric digital experiences. With a background in marketing, she successfully transitioned her career to focus on UX design, combining her understanding of user behaviour and business objectives to deliver purposeful and enjoyable experiences to customers.

In 2021, Janice founded the UX Designer Network Jamaica, a community-driven initiative aimed at advancing local UX practices and building a strong network of UX professionals. Through this platform, she actively promotes knowledge sharing, collaboration, and professional development opportunities within the UX design community. With her ongoing work, community-building initiatives, and unwavering commitment to continuous improvement, Janice’s vision is to shape a future where user experience takes centre stage in shaping digital products and services throughout the Caribbean.

Brittney Samuels

 

Brittney Samuels is a UX professional who currently is the Manager of Sagicor’s UI/UX design team. For more than six years she has been dedicated to solving problems through effective and simple design. Brittney has helped several companies in Jamaica design innovative solutions to meet the needs of their customers. Her UX practice combines product design, design thinking, research and experience strategy, all with a constant focus on the end user. She leads her design team with empathy and enthusiasm, all while really loving what she does.

 

 

Community Chat topics

In this Community chat episode, the following topics were discussed:

  1. What does it mean to become a digital society?  The impetus for this topic was a recent article in one of the major Jamaican newspapers with the title, Jamaica Closer to Becoming a Digital Society.  However, the article led to more questions being asked about how far Jamaica is from becoming a digital society and whether we are underestimating all of the elements that must be successfully addressed in order for a digital society to be fully realised.
  2. The importance of local context when implementing technology in the Caribbean. When implementing technology in the Caribbean, we are quick to use off-the-shelf solutions and not what we need from scratch. Though there are benefits to trying to apply readymade solutions, typically these solutions have developed to serve a broad client base. As a result, though we might be able to integrate the product or service into our business, there tend to be gaps, which in turn limits its effectiveness in our organisations.
  3. Digital customer experience problems in the Caribbean. Although UX (user experience) has become a crucial area when developing products for the market, or even just when serving customers. However, UX is more than just having an aesthetically pleasing website or mobile app. And it is more than just social media engagement, or how popular a business appears to be.  The UX Designer Network Jamaica conducted a State of UX study on the perceptions of UX and consequently, the implications for organisations.

 

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Also, if you or a member of your network is interested in joining us for an episode, do get in touch.

Let’s make it happen!

 

Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Images credit:  J Alexander;  B Samuels; UX Indonesia (Unsplash);  Antoni Shkraba (Pexels);  UX Indonesia (Unsplash)

Music credit: The Last Word (Oui Ma Chérie), by Andy Narrell

Podcast editing support:  Mayra Bonilla Lopez