I recently attended an online lecture on sake etiquette. Here are a few notes from the lecture.
In 2020, the Japan Society’s Annual Sake Lecture & Tasting was held online. View
Normally the Japan Society holds an annual sake lecture and tasting, which I’ve missed in previous years. Due to the restrictions on large groups, they didn’t hold an in-person event but they still held an online lecture on sake etiquette.
The lecturer was Timothy Sullivan, founder of UrbanSake.com. He was very knowledgable about sake etiquette and sake. He had a long sake list, with tasting notes, which you can find on the Japan Society website.
Here are a few tips from the lecture.
Sake Etiquette Tips
Here are eight tips for enjoying sake, if you want to have proper etiquette:
Tip 1: Don’t pour for yourself. I’m not sure if this is bad luck, or bad manners, but this was the Number 1 tip our lecturer made sure to share with us. He later explained that “O-shaku” is the manner of pouring for others.
Tip 2: Keep the Wa. Wa (和) is a Japanese concept of peaceful unity and conformity in a group. It focuses on harmony. In general, it’s rude and/or impolite to disturb the wa – including in sake etiquette.
Tip 3: Use 2 hands when pouring for others. Our lecturer compared pouring sake with 2 hands to the way business cards in Japan are received with 2 hands, too. I think this practice holds true for more formal situations, but it’s considered more polite.
Tip 4: Don’t “slam” your sake when drinking. Although the small sake cups resemble Western shot glasses, that’s not why they’re small. The smaller cups allow you to pour for more people.
Tip 5: When pouring for other people, only fill the glass about 80% full. It’s considered rude to do this. When it’s full to the brim, it makes it difficult to actually drink from the cup without spilling.
Tip 6: Offer to pour for someone else, to get someone to pour for you. Getting back to the first tip, if you want more sake and your cup is empty, offer to pour for someone else.
Tip 7: When receiving sake, use 2 hands to hold your cup. One hand holds the cup, while the other supports from below.
Tip 8: Don’t drink before the kanpai. Kanpai is like the group cheer and it disturbs the wa to drink before the kanpai. At formal gatherings, often the sake will be already poured so that they can do the kanpai quickly and no one has to worry if everyone has been served.
Drinking Styles
Kenpai/Henpai
This is a style of drinking and sharing sake in which two people of unequal social or professional status actually share the same drinking cup. The junior person pours for their senior, who drinks the sake. Then there’s a large dish of water that the sake cup gets rinsed in. Then the senior person pours for the junior person. This style of sake etiquette is apparently restricted to only one region and discouraged when anyone might be sick (like now).
Mokkiri, overflowing style
This is more for casual drinking settings. In this situation, a taller clear glass is set inside one of those wooden sake boxes. The sake is poured into the glass until it overflows into the wooden box. The lecturer recommended lifting the glass and drinking from that, first. Then when the sake level has gone down, pouring some liquid from the box into the glass.
Finally, one last tip…
In casual settings, the rules relax a little. But, even in a casual setting, it’s polite for everyone to drink the same drink. For example: don’t ask for sake if everyone else is drinking beer. Remember: don’t disrupt the wa.
When we all started isolating, I immediately thought of a few films that captured different aspects of social isolation. If you find yourself with a desire to reflect on isolation, here are 3 movies and a tv series to watch.
Physical Isolation: The Wall
In German with English subtitles — 2012
In this movie, a woman on a weekend retreat to the country finds herself suddenly and inexplicably trapped by an invisible barrier that separates herself and everyone else. She learns to adapt and cope with her isolation. I saw this movie in the theater, I think at the IFC Center. It’s a movie I think about from time to time, and try to think about the invisible barriers I put up for myself.
Domestic Isolation: Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
In French with English subtitles — 1975
Jeanne Dielman is a single mother who goes through her days completing repetitive and mundane domestic tasks. Although many scenes were choreographed, the director filmed many of these scenes so that they appear real-time, slow, deliberate. Jeanne chooses her daily activities, from shining shoes, to making meatloaf, to turning the lights on and off, but she is essentially trapped in her domestic life of repetition. It’s clear she puts in focused effort as she carries out these tasks, but does she enjoy it? Does it matter?
And there’s something about watching this older movie, which came out in 1975, with no cell phones, no internet — you just feel the pressure of domesticity closing in on Jeanne. There are definitely some surprising plot twists in this movie, though.
I think about this movie often, like when I’m washing the dishes or cleaning the bathtub. I believe I saw this movie on Hulu, back when a Hulu subscription came with access to the Criterion Collection. I hope to watch it again.
Cultural Isolation: Walkabout
In English and an Australian indigenous language (not translated) — 1971
Opens IMBD in a new window
In this movie, a white adolescent girl and her younger brother find themselves abandoned in the Australian outback. Eventually, they meet an Aboriginal adolescent boy, roughly the same age as the girl, out on his ritual Walkabout. The rest of the movie tracks their physical journey together.
This film is a masterpiece. It stars Jenny Agutter, and was the film debut for David Gulpilil.
Despite the sister and brother being thoroughly dependent on the Aborigine for their physical survival, the sister, in particular, remains unable — unwilling, really — to break out of her cultural frame of reference and the trio remain alone together. I suppose the Aboriginal boy also seems to lack the sense to realize that sticking to his cultural traditions alone isn’t enough to connect with this sibling couple.
“The movie is not the heartwarming story of how the girl and her brother are lost in the outback and survive because of the knowledge of the resourceful aborigine. It is about how all three are still lost at the end of the film–more lost than before, because now they are lost inside themselves instead of merely adrift in the world.
…there is a wide range of experiment and experience that remains forever invisible to us, because it falls in a spectrum we simply cannot see.”
Despite the pessimism of this film, I really love the soundtrack for this movie, which was made for the film by composer John Barry. The song, Who Killed Cock Robinis set to a minor key and slow tempo, with orchestra and a chorus; a beautiful effect. You can hear it toward the end of the video.
Marital Isolation: Scenes from a Marriage
Swedish with English subtitles — 1973
Scenes from a Marriage is a 6-part, Swedish miniseries. The series follows a husband and wife, starting from what seems like marital bliss and over time their marriage slowly falls apart. It’s been a while since I originally saw it, but I remember wondering if these two were every really connected or if they were still in their own world but together. They do argue, but it still seems somehow measured.
Anyway, this movie was directed by Ingmar Bergman, and stars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson; good reasons to watch.
An attempt at a plot development technique called “The Escalator” — from an online creative writing course, focused on plot.
Many years ago, I took a continuing education in creative writing at Rice University. I never took another one, until recently when I got it in my mind to try again. This time, I wanted to look for an online course.
Despite most online courses these days centering on coding or engineering, I found an online creative writing course, focusing on plot development, on Coursera from Wesleyan University. Because I’m not a paying student on Coursera, I cannot submit my writing, so I’m going to share it here.
The assignment from Week 1 is called “The Escalator”. The instructions are below, but the goal is to move the plot along by the use of certain words, like ‘tiger’ and ‘appliance’. It feels a little contrived, but actually these action words really help move things along.
Assignment: The Escalator
Write a scene of 250-350 words featuring a character with one concrete want (a table, a moose, a toothbrush, anything physical is fine!) and one weakness. Use these two features to drive the action of the plot. Set up the story where every other sentence is a rising action. To help you come up with rising actions, use one word from the following list of twelve words in each sentence that has a rising action. In other words: Write your first sentence introducing your character. Make the next sentence a rising action using one of the following twelve words. Write your third sentence, which may introduce the weakness, then write your fourth sentence with a rising action that includes one of the remaining eleven words you haven’t used. And so on.
trick
memory
aboard
tiger
pretend
carrot
appliance
cage
rings
crow
filthy
explode
You must use at least 6 of the 12 words, but you are encouraged to challenge yourself to use as many of the words as possible while still meeting the word count.
Submission: Gold Ring
Abby had recently started a new job after a long period of unemployment. As she found herself in the jewelry department of Bloomingdale’s, she could feel a small part of her explode with pride that she had finally secured full-time work and start living again.
In the past, Abby had purchased earrings or a necklace to celebrate a new job, but since she wouldn’t get paid until the end of the month, she didn’t have the money to buy anything new. She tried to pretend eagerness in buying the set of pearl earrings the sales girl was showing her and smiled when she looked in the mirror.
As she looked around she noticed the jewelry department wasn’t that busy, but it wasn’t that crowded. She had an idea to somehow trick the sales girl and get the jewelry — by stealing.
She’d never stolen before and could hardly believe she’d formulated this idea on her own. But after those many months of unemployment and self-doubt —- pinching every dime, and eating rice and lentils every night —- she finally felt like she’d escaped her cage.
Well, she told herself, if she was going to possibly get caught stealing, she wanted to make sure it was worth it. She moved around the glass cases like a tiger stalking prey, making notes in her head of pieces she liked and didn’t.
Finally she came to a case of rings and asked to view them closer. When the rings were placed in front of her, she cocked her head like a crow, this way and that, trying to eye both the sales girl and the rings.
The ring she chose to try on was a simple ring of rose gold and opal. She admired how it looked on her finger and tried to remember the moment to form a memory in her mind.
She hadn’t figured out exactly how she was going to steal it and began to feel her confidence waning. Suddenly, what had been a loud murmur at the other end of the jewelry case exploded into a commotion. A well-dressed man and woman began to yell and scream, hurling filthy insults at each other.
All of the sales attendants immediately hurried over to the couple, including the sales girl who had been serving Abby.
Like a tiger, Abby pounced at her lucky opportunity. She put her ringed hand in her pocket, picked up her bag and began quickly walking, almost running, towards the door.
Just as she reached the door, she heard a voice call out to her, “Oh, Miss! Oh, Miss!”. But Abby didn’t stop.
I wrote last month about Week Notes, and in the following weeks I forgot to share what I’d been noting. So here are some week notes, work and personal, from the past few weeks: April 5, April 12, April 19, and April 24.
Week ending April 24
Work
Another client meeting that reviewed work and ended on-time with no outstanding feedback
Redesigned mobile wireframes for a section of account preferences, presented updates, and created desktop versions after receiving feedback
Presented desktop wireframes for mobile wireframes from previous sprints
Incorporated client feedback into wires and sent updates
Included a table within the wireframes to map processes between systems, for better messaging for the customer
Added arrows between wireframes that are part of workflows
Took notes from a final client meeting to document decisions and status
Had a very successful client presentation of overflow work from a previous sprint – (4/13)
Reflections on why the meeting had such a good outcome
My thoughts: We had at least 3 requirements meetings for our sprint, and we really got into the detail of the features. We also reviewed workflows and made adjustments in real-time. I think all of that helped create accurate designs, which led to few/no questions
Another team member: Everyone was on the same page because the client team finished up their requirements and walked everyone through them. The client team knew exactly what they were looking for from the creative team.
Virtually met new team members located in Minneapolis and Dallas, (4/14)
Presented additional wireframes and workflows to client but wasn’t able to present all work during the meeting
Took screenshots from GAP account pages to explore messaging, and noticed extra options
Opened the radiator, again (and now dealing with the unfortunate rattle, again).
Week ending April 5
Work
Reviewed requirements for payment method sections of account profile, for in-scope and out of scope functionality
Updated workflows for payment method sections of account profile, to accommodate removal of out of scope functionality
Collaborated with internal project team on which updates and recommendations to share with client
Held a design share with client and presented workflows on order tracking
Presented workflows on how to reset password, for different user flows
Updated shared notes regarding changes to previously approved designs
Uploaded screenshots taken with Simulator to inform discussion of designs using 3rd-party, plug-in, for address completion.
Initial state for Sephora’s form field
Sephora uses a 3rd-party plugin for address completion
Completed address
Sephora’s formatting of saved addresses.
Personal
Wrote a blog post on last month
In-between books…started one, but didn’t finish
Created a spreadsheet to help track my deliveries and shopping lists
Personal (undated)
I can’t remember when it was, but I rearranged my furniture in April. My desk is now in the living room, behind the couch. The TV is back in the living room. The sofa is angled to face the living room and divide the desk area from the TV area. And the bedroom now has a little reading nook. Although, most of the books I read are audiobooks and I listen them all over my apartment.
Image credit: Schrijvende vrouw, Willem Wenckebach, 1870 – 1937, brush, h 321mm × w 248mm – View at rijksmuseum.nl
As a freelance UX Designer for Publicis Sapient, I worked with a small team to redesign the e-commerce website of a luxury retail client.
Summary
The goal of this project was to redesign e-commerce sites for a NYC-based luxury retailer and partner sites. The sites would be migrating to a new backend platform.
Challenge: The challenge for the design team was that all sites would be migrating to a new platform. Solutions needed to work for all three. And they needed to be mobile first.
Team: I reported to the Associate Creative Director (UX). Other team members included the Design Director (Visual design), and two art directors. The project manager was the final core member of our team.
Phases of Work: Our work was completed in 2 phases. In phase 1, we focused on identifying best practices. In phase 2, we focused on completing the design.
Publicis Sapient calls itself a "digital business transformation company". Its headquarters are in Boston, MA.
Phase 1: Best Practices
The early UX phases of the project centered on finding examples and best practices for e-commerce websites. Many best practices came from the Baymard Institute, as well as other expert sites like Nielsen Norman Group (NNG.com).
Home page for Baymard.com
The best practices were organized by page or section, such as home page, product detail pages (PDP), and checkout.
We presented the best practices with screenshots of example sites, the current sites, and “out-of-the-box” functionality for the backend platform.
Surprising Finding About Quick View: Don’t Use It
One best practice that surprised me involved the use of Quick View. Baymard Institute identified that around 48% of websites utilize Quick View on product listing pages. However, their research concluded that “Quick Views are often symptom treatments for poor product list designs.” Therefore, the priority would be to create strong designs for the product list pages rather than create a new design for Quick View.
Baymard Institute recommends avoiding ‘Quick View’ overlays and advises focusing on building better product list pages.
Early UX Collaborations with Visual Design in Phase 1
Starting out, the visual design team concentrated on UI foundations, like building a pattern library and exploring typography, etc. We collaborated in a few of the following ways:
Depiction of whiteboard exercise.
Shopping Journeys: As a team, we also discussed various shopping journeys to address specific requests from the client.
Information Architecture: We also discussed information architecture and iterated on multiple sitemap options, reviewing the current site, similar sites, and consulting with the tech team.
Phase 1 Conclusion
Phase 1 concluded with a focus on aspects of the product page, shopping journeys, and best practices.
Phase 2: Design Sprints
Depiction of sprint planning.
Our goal starting Phase 2 was to complete several rounds of sprints. The work would include most of the site, starting with PDP. A few highlights from the start of Phase 2:
Design-Pairing on PDP: In the first month, I closely collaborated with one of the art directors on an early design of PDP. We discussed various options for page elements, like product descriptions and reviews. I gave feedback on functionality and usability.
Annotations for Visual Design: I also supported the visual design team that first month by creating annotations for visual designs, which were uploaded to Confluence.
Responsiveness & Functional Limitations: Throughout the project, I worked with the development team on understanding functional limitations and keeping the layout responsive.
Mid-Project Refocus Towards Global Nav and Framework
As with many projects, plans changed and our work refocused:
Refocus on Global Nav and User Profiles: We redirected our efforts towards the global navigation and user profiles, instead of the shopping journey. The work would now include global header/footer, sign in, account creation, favorites, purchase history, password, etc.
New Client UX Lead, Refocus on Design Framework: On the client side, a new UX team lead with a focus on longer-term goals — including a design framework for all three brands to use.
How Initiative and Collaboration Helped Build a Design System:
At one point in our sprint cycles, the client requested the team start building a design system. The request came with a prioritized list of components from the branding team. As the team reviewed the list, it became clear that the naming convention used by the client created some confusion and made it difficult to get started.
My experience with design systems comes from using or playing around with tools like Basecamp, Foundation, or Tachyons.
Bootstrap
Tachyons
When I saw the list, I started thinking about how to break down the designs into smaller elements, so that they could be combined again in increasingly complex ways. Rather than explain my ideas, I thought it best to show the concept.
I created a Sketch document that showed how even the most complex component could be created from combinations of individual elements, as long as they obeyed certain functional rules. The outcome was the design team was able to use my document in establishing a base for the design system. At the end of the sprint, we presented our concepts together.
Outcome
Eventually the UI and UX teams split into two. The visual team supported the design framework/UI and the UX team continued the product design/wireframes.
The UX team focused on screens associated with user profiles, including purchase history, favorites, communications, user registration, address book, etc. We spent a lot of time iterating on form design and mobile layouts.
Screenshot references
Initial state for Sephora’s form field
Sephora uses a 3rd-party plugin for address completion
Completed address
Sephora’s formatting of saved addresses.
Newsletter sign up for Dune London, a UK based retailer.
My Week Note blog posts document some of the tasks I completed in Phase 2. They can be found for March, April, and May. A few highlights are below:
Created wireframe desktop layout options for account profile dashboards in Sketch
Created workflows to map proposed account profile functionality, including update address from account profile and checkout, communication preferences, and expired cards/payment methods
Worked with the visual design lead and UX associate director to prep for a client presentation on wireframes and visual design of requirements
Included a table within the wireframes to map processes between systems, for better messaging for the customer
If you visited this blog post from my website, you can jump back here.
Sidenote
It sounds like science fiction, but right in the middle of this project a new and deadly virus spread across the United States. A global pandemic was declared. The city of New York became the hardest hit locality in the United States. In the early weeks of March, we stopped travel to the client’s location and the main office. For 2-3 months, all work became remote.
However, back in 2017, I wrote this blog post with tips for better conference calls. The remote work affected some members of the team more than others, but we were able to find new ways to collaborate using online tools and lots of patience.
