Design as Translation

Before entering my current profession as a User Experience Designer, I was trained and worked as a language translator. In literary translation, we have a saying that you can either bring the text closer to the reader, or you can bring the reader closer to the text. With the former, the text is translated in a way that does not push the reader outside of their comfort zone. Derogatory terms may be exchanged for a softer word, certain names and geographic locations may lose their original spelling and so on. With the latter, the reader is encouraged to step outside of their comfort zone and engage with the story in a way that is more authentic to the original version. The same concept can be applied to design. You can bring the design closer to the user, or you can bring the user closer to the design. I would argue that the former applies almost exclusively to user experience design. Digital products are meant to be user-friendly. My goal is to extract solutions that will help designers create products which allow users to naturally immerse themselves in the experience.