Week 11 - Usability

Usability, within the user experience field, refers to the " ease of access and/or use of a product or website." A design's features and content determines it's level of usability.  As a UX designer, it is my job to design for usability. Stephen Krug argues that the only way to ensure a site, application, or product is useful is by testing: 

“If you want a great site, you’ve got to test. After you’ve worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can’t see it freshly anymore. You know too much. The only way to find out if it really works is to test it.”


When working on any project, Krug argues we should test as often and as soon as possible. Testing too late or even too early could pose potential threats to the usability of the design. Krug also argues that as a UX designer, I should never make usability design decisions off the basis of my own judgment. If I believe a user will prefer one design decision over another, the only way to be sure is by A/B testing. That will settle any confusion and dismiss any prolonged design decision arguments.

Life Update 

So the coronavirus has seriously derailed everything - graduation, job searching, grad school, etc.

As of right now, my plan is to simply finish school here @ Baylor and hopefully find a UX job in Austin, Seattle, or Las Vegas (fingers crossed).

Meanwhile, I'll be working on the interactive album project and the Seidel Interest web application project as well.

Once those are finished and complete, I'll update my portfolio with the appropriate case studies.

Let the madness begin.

Week 8 - PORTFOLIO!

Whew! It's been a crazy few weeks. If you haven't heard by now, the coronavirus has not only suspended in-person lectures for Baylor, but it has also caused graduation commencement to be postponed until August (not like I really wanted to walk anyways).


I'm just hoping this isn't a zombie apocalypse waiting to unfold. #CueWalkingDeadThemeMusic

In other news...

MY PORTFOLIO IS FINALLY UP!!!!

I am proud to say that after 8 weeks, I have constructed my first UX portfolio detailing two (2) of my projects: 1) Register BU - a class registration assistance tool for Baylor University students),  2) Learning UX Design - an open online course (OOC) for those looking to learn the fundamentals of UX Design. 

My plan is to begin applying to entry-level UX roles within the Austin area within the coming week, and hopefully lane a full-time role (fingers crossed). 

As always, I'll be sure to document the process as it continues. 

In the meantime, check out my portfolio here. 

Until next week, 

EM 

Weeks 6 & 7 - More Good News

Hey, world!

I know I skipped a week of blogging...

I'm sure you didn't lol

Nevertheless, I am back and have some amazing news and updates to share with you all...

Update #1

After just 7 weeks into my journey learning UX, I have been accepted into my second graduate program. The University of Baltimore's Master of Science in Interaction Design and Information Architecture "ranks among the Top 50 Best Value Interaction Design/UX/HCI Graduate Degrees of 2020, according to Value Colleges." Through discussion of advance topics and hands-on practice with industry-standard design tools, this program will allow me to connect my background in computer science with humanities and art perspectives holistically. 

I am excited and honored to receive this acceptance, and look forward to wealth of information shared by this program. 

Update #2

I am almost finished with v2 of the high fidelity wireframes of my Baylor registration assistant project. After some much-needed design decisions, I redesigned the dashboard to simplify the "Today's Schedule" section with self-evident user interaction. 

"Registration BU" - Home

"Registration BU" - Profile

"Registration BU" - Create Schedule

In an effort to give my design some fresh eyes, I plan on taking a break from the project for a week with hopes to finalize these high fidelity prototypes by March 15th (end of spring break) and begin conducting user testing. I am excited to get some more honest and much-needed feedback on the state of the design and determine areas of improvement from this point. 

In the meantime, I will continue with my UX course as the syllabus follows as I migrate into a better understanding of user behavior and visual design principles. 

Until next week, 

EM 

Week 5 - Good NEWS 🗞 !

This week, I am going to step off my user experience soap box, and share with you all some really exciting news. 

But.... 

What's good news without a little back story. 

(Disclaimer: Okay, I lied. Back to my soap box 😎) 

When I first began researching what user experience truly entailed, I came across this Medium post that questioned whether aspiring UX professionals truly needed a master's degree in UX. It helped me answer a lot of the questions I had concerning why would I want to spend money and time pursuing a graduate degree in UX design: 

1. To gain new skills and academic wisdom and do a deep dive into particular areas of the UX.
2. To get exposure to new things, ideas, viewpoints, and ways of thinking about design.
3. To work on [my] own thesis or project with total control and freedom.
4. To improve [my] researching, writing, and analyzing skillset.
5. To enhance your professional network.

These reasons coupled with mentor recommendations and advice ushered me into more research. I began searching for graduate programs that met my academic and professional needs. I knew I wanted to begin working immediately after graduation, but I did not want this to hinder my academic pursuits, so a fully online program was definitely something I needed. I also wanted to maintain some flexibility in my schedule while I pursued my Master’s so that I could still enjoy life outside of work and school (travel, conferences, etc.). 

After a great deal of research, I discovered Kent State's Online Master of Science in User Experience Design program and was quickly drawn in after noticing how the program's objective aligned with my future academic aspirations: to establish a competitive portfolio, and to build a transformative career within the user experience design field by mastering design and information architecture principles and standards via graduate studies. It did not take me long to begin preparing and collecting the necessary admissions requirement materials. 

Only a couple weeks after successfully getting my application in, I am pleased to announce that I have received my first acceptance letter into a user experience graduate program. I believe this particular Kent State program ensures that its graduates leave with a rich understanding of the psychological motivations and desires that draw users to particular products or services. I truly look forward to learning about advanced topics in the field of user experience design, and improving my design and user research skills through coursework assigned throughout the duration of the program. 

Week 4 - User Experience Research

Fresh off the heels of a week devoted to understanding the psychology and culture of a user, I dived a bit further into UX research (sometimes referred to as design research). Understanding the importance of user experience research and how it can ultimately improve my understanding of my audiences' needs, goals, motivations, and behavior will holistically prevent me from designing for one user -- myself. User research provides insight on who the users are, how and why they intend to use the product/service, and what they need the design to do. 

According to Joel Marsh, there are three (3) basic types of question that can be answered by a user: 

1) open questions, or questions that allow the user to elaborate on their thoughts, ideas, or opinions 

2) leading questions, or questions that instruct the user to answer a specific idea, thought or feature highlighted in the questions, and 

3) closed/direct question or questions that can be answered with only binary options (yes/no, good/bad, smile/frown, etc.)

Constructing the ideal blend between these questions allows you to discover areas of interest or concern for the user in an effort to explore alternative solutions that cater to the user's needs. These questions should remain consistent from user-to-user so that the information retrieved is unbiased across each medium of research (interviews, card sorting, surveys, etc.) 

In addition, Marsh revisited the topic of user-profiles (often referred to as user personas), and how it allows designers to describe the goals, expectations, motivations, and behavior of real people derived, in part, from data collected from research. When working on personas for my project last week, I had to keep in mind that I was not designing a service to support the current behavior of the user: if that was the case, there would be no need to generate a solution to an already working fix. Instead, Marsh emphasized that UX designers are trying to nudge those users toward an "ideal" version of themselves by giving them an optimal solution that hones in on their needs. 

PROJECT UPDATE: 

Derived from last week's sketch concepts or "paper wireframe", this week I successfully completed my first draft of a low fidelity wireframe which captures the basic content and visuals of the registration application. 

This lo-fi wireframe will be used to help map out the structure of the interface, its screens, and the basic information architecture. 

Lo-fi Wireframe Artboards (3 of 10)

In addition, I created my first micro-usability test plan which contains a necessary consent form, logging sheeting, user test script, a post-test questionnaire that will be used when conducting user tests next week with several users and my lo-fi wireframe. 

As I prepare next week’s task, I have been constructing a list of potential test users to reach out to who closely align with the user personas I created last week. I plan to also invite a few unconventional users as well who I believe will provide insight into areas that I may have missed.  

Week 3 -- Let's Go!

Hi, everyone. 

A little late, but I’m backkkkk.

This week was probably one of the most rewarding weeks thus far. I had the opportunity to finally jump back into a subject that I’ve longed to explore since my high school departure —psychology!

As I didactically explored the elements of psychology, culture, and emotions, I did so from a place of empathetic understanding of the user’s experience. During these lessons, I wanted to ensure that I fully grasped what it means to be a user, and how these ideas ultimately affect the experience or lack thereof, a user has with a particular product/service.

Psychology: 

Unsurprisingly, psychology plays a large role when attempting to understand the user(s)’ goals, desires, and/or behavioral patterns. Since psychology focuses on studying and understanding the human mind (especially those affecting behavior in a given context), I believe that psychology is the same for everyone (more or less) since we all function by virtue of the same machine — the brain.  Understanding psychology allows UX designers to answer things like why people share, or what leads to competition amongst users within a product/service. 

Culture: 

In contrast, a user’s culture, in a sense, can honestly be anything. Derived from achievements, topics of interest, customs, and particular practices, a user’s way of life will ultimately change and/or expand overtime “as users want to personalize or categorize things more and more” (Marsh). 

According to Joel Marsh, an experience encapsulates the following six parts: 

1. what the user feels, 
1. what the user wants,
1. what the user thinks,
1. what the user believes, 
1. what the user remembers, and
1. what the user does not realize.

These user-centric ideas usher in the discipline of psychology and the understanding of culture calling for designers to cater to particular areas of user interest and/or concern in an effort to provide the best user experience. 

Project Update: 

As I completed Milestone 2, I had the opportunity to examine competitors and perform a SWOT analysis in efforts to discover what elements within these other platforms and services are areas of interest or concern for users. 

I also had the chance to put my Needs Finding Plan into action as I interviewed Baylor students. Within these interviews, I applied affinity diagrams as my means to organize many ideas into groups with common themes or relationships. Each interviewee had the opportunity to formulate categories based on a list of various, potential features and requirements derived from my SWOT analysis. This allowed me to discover the relationship between those features from the users’ perspectives, and ultimately provided design direction to be established based on the associations presented from the users. 

In addition, I began constructing personas that catered to the audience of this particular project, and also drafted a few sketches and concepts that I anticipate will be consolidated into concept storyboards within the next milestone. 

Master Dashboard Sketch (1 of 5)

Project User Persona (1 of 3)

Week 2 - Whew!

Whew!!!! 

Week 2 was a bit stressful. Honestly, outside of this course and others, I have been committing to far too much and stretching myself thin. Unfortunately, I caused myself to get behind in school, and had to regroup and strategize again. This only reminds me how important it is to critically reevaluate yourself, your priorities and your interests often, and learn that sometimes I need to say "no" so that I can accomplish my own tasks. 

After spending some time to understand my workload for my classes this semester as well the demand at work, in my organizations, and in my personal life (#ThankYouGoogleCalendar), this week's course material only made me fall in love with user experience design even more!

Thankfully, I have been able to grasp a better understanding of how user experience is a process, NOT A METHODOLOGY. As a designer, my focus within any new project is both the goals of the user and the business; it is important that I can design a product or service that meets the goals of the business only when the user's goals are met -- not the other way around. Don't Make Me Think is really allowing me to understand the avenues of user experience design, and how I can leverage various resources, inspirational designs, and trends to provide the best user experience in any project.

And guess whattttt?

I got my first semester project assignment last Friday!

I decided that having a semester project would give me the ability to utilize the skills and knowledge I am learning in the "classroom setting," and leverage them in real-world examples. This week , I have had the ability to create my project's Brief, outline my Work Plan, as well as establish my Needs Finding Plan and Criteria, and Competitive Analysis. Though the milestone's deliverables are just the building blocks to this process holistically, I am extremely eager to see my final submission for this assignment!




This week, I plan to continue with the syllabus as follows, and continue working on my project and homework. I am so happy that I decided to take this unique opportunity, and not let it be in vain. As I continue to better understand user experience, I am going to start my application for graduate admission into Kent State University's M.S. in User Experience Design (an 100% online program). This week, I am going to take this time to prepare my Statement of Purpose, and bring it to Baylor's Professional Writing Center for review and revisions.


Until next Sunday,
EM.