Yk_C - UX & UI Pathway

Certificates July 2020 Certificates User Experience Principles Self-Assessments
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1

Week: Beginning of July Internship Session to 8/5/20

Overview of Things Learned:

  • Learned about various methods for user research
  • User Interviews - best practices, user insights and analysis
  • Affinity mapping
  • Empathy mapping
  • User personas

Technical Area:

  • Conducted user research interviews; gained experience in gleaning information from users
  • Learned how to compose user personas, empathy maps, and affinity maps
  • User insight analysis
  • Draft and revise How Might We statements

Tools:

  • Used Mural as a brainstorming and mapping tool.
  • Slack was used and was a valuable communication tool for team and group collaboration.
  • Paper was used for quick sketching and wireframing of ideas.

Soft Skills:

  • Collaboration
  • Communication; I learned to better express my ideas and thoughts during team meetings.
  • Organization
  • Note-taking; taking detailed and clear notes from user interviews
  • Attention to detail - I learned to observe and value the little consistencies within our user research and during the exercises which were carried out during meetings.

Achievement Highlights
I extended my knowledge of the UX design process from user research to prototyping, which will be explored in this current week. Furthermore, I learned about UX research.

Meetings attended
7/16, 7/22, 7/24, 7/28, 7/30, 7/31, 8/4 Unfortunately, I encountered significant technical difficulties during a few of these meetings.

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Settle on a How Might We statement; narrow down issues
  • Prepare lo-fi wireframes
  • Design an interactive prototype of our solution to the selected issue via Figma

Tasks Done:

  • Along with a partner, Emily, I analyzed and took notes from user research interviews.
  • In groups, we assembled a number of problems based on the results we gained from our interviews.
  • Brainstormed solutions to the issues found, using Mural as a collaboration tool.
  • Revised and drafted How Might We statements
  • Reviewed empathy maps, affinity maps, user personas.
2

Week: 8/5/20 - 8/10/20

Overview of Things Learned:

  • Low-Fidelity Prototyping; Ideation and Revision
  • Communication and scheduling

Technical Area:

  • Finalized How Might We statement
  • Finalized issue of focus
  • Learned and implemented basic design principles in low-fidelity prototype (visual hierarchy, content, proximity, similarity, continuity, focal point, simplicity etc.)
  • Designed low-fidelity prototype using Figma, then came together as a team to build a team prototype using ideas from each person.
  • received insights from usability testing

Tools:

  • Used Mural as a brainstorming and mapping tool.
  • Slack was used and was a valuable communication tool for team and group collaboration.
  • Paper was used for quick sketching and wireframing of ideas.
  • Figma was a vital tool for designing, building, and animating low-fidelity prototypes.

Soft Skills:

  • Collaboration
  • Communication; I learned to better express my ideas and thoughts during team meetings.
  • Organization
  • Scheduling
  • Empathizing with users
  • Presentation and public speaking

Achievement Highlights
Applying design principles, I designed my own low-fidelity prototype for the STEM-Away mobile platform, then worked together with my group to incorporate ideas from our individual prototypes into one team low-fidelity prototype.

Meetings attended
8/6/20, 8/7/20, 8/8/20, 8/10/20

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Present low-fidelity prototype to STEM-Away stakeholders; receive feedback
  • Design a high-fidelity prototype for the STEM-Away mobile platform

Tasks Done:

  • Created and revised low-fidelity wireframes both on my own and as a team
  • Usability testing
3

Week: 8/11/20 - 8/18/20

Overview of Things Learned:

  • High-Fidelity Prototyping; Ideation and Revision
  • Communication and scheduling
  • Moodboard construction and applications
  • Presentation techniques and strategies

Technical Area:

  • Continued to utilize techniques in the design process to create a working high-fidelity prototype for our solution
  • Learned to create, iterate, and utilize a moodboard for branding and design consistency
  • Continued to implement basic design principles in high-fidelity prototype (visual hierarchy, content, proximity, similarity, continuity, focal point, simplicity etc.)
  • Used inspection tools in my local web browser to retrieve design elements such as fonts and colors
  • Received and considered important feedback and concerns from stakeholders

Tools:

  • Used Mural as a brainstorming and mapping tool. Also used Mural to create moodboard.
  • Slack was used and was a valuable communication tool for team and group collaboration.
  • Paper was used for quick sketching and wireframing of ideas.
  • Figma was a vital tool for designing, building, and animating both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes.
  • Safari web inspection tools were used to retrieve design elements such as fonts and colors from the current STEM-Away platform’s CSS

Soft Skills:

  • Collaboration
  • Communication; I learned to better express my ideas and thoughts during team meetings.
  • Organization
  • Scheduling
  • Empathizing with users
  • Presentation and public speaking
  • Adaptability

Achievement Highlights
My group incorporated feedback gained from our preliminary presentation session with stakeholders within our high-fidelity prototype.

Meetings attended
8/11/20, 8/13/20, 8/15/20

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Finalize high-fidelity prototype of the STEM-Away mobile platform
  • Present high-fidelity prototype to STEM-Away stakeholders; receive feedback

Tasks Done:

  • Worked on moodboard for design consistency
  • Rehearsed presentation to optimize clarity
  • Finalized low-fidelity prototype; draft high-fidelity prototype