If you get a chance, check out this Pinterest Board, Eating Apples. You will see babies eating apples, Beatles eating apples, and even Marlon Brando chowing on an apple during a break on the set of “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951).

What you won’t see are those little stickers that need to be peeled off, often taking some of the apple with them before being rolled up and flung into oblivion. We don’t see them, because we barely notice them anymore.

As part of my Reflective Journaling assignment for my UX Principles & Concepts class, I was instructed to write a short post about something that stuck with me from this week’s activities. The stickers on our apples is just that.

I watched a TED Talk by Tony Fadell who discusses the process of habituation, where we became numb to everyday things… like not even thinking twice about pealing off that sticker before eating the apple.

So what does this have to do with UX Design? His point was that often habituation stops us from noticing, and fixing, the problems around us. So he urges us to look broader, look closer, and think younger. I believe I will revisit this advice often in my UX career as a reminder to be empathetic, creative, and sometimes to look at the problem as my 7-year old self, unabashed from asking ANY question.