Reflective Journal
UXO720 – User Experience Design
Week 12: Reflections
Phew…. Made it… This has felt like a long, tough module. Keeping up with weekly content, writing blog posts, learning new concepts and progressing my project adequately has been a struggle. Every week felt like a race to the finish line to produce content without...
Week 11: Case Study
In the interest of time and my sanity, I had already completed the case study document by the time week 11 rolled around. However, rationalising design decisions is a familiar concept, and I didn’t feel hindered by jumping the gun. Due to my experience presenting...
Week 10: Content
I love to write, so diving into the world of content and UX writing in particular was really exciting. What I found most surprising about this week’s focus was learning about the difference between UX writing and copywriting, as I had always thought they were the same...
Week 9: Web Design
Grids, responsive layouts, accessibility and compliance are the focus this week. These topics are foundational aspects of UI design and form the bedrock of our final products (Cooper et al. 2014; Krug 2014). As the concepts of visual design and web design are so...
Week 8: Virtual Design
Now that we’re getting into the pretty part of designing, I found myself stuck. The weekly challenge was to consider how our prototypes use the six principles of design (Venngage Inc. 2020) and to start considering colour and typography. Despite the apparent...
Week 7: Usability Testing Analysis
For reflection on the usability process, please see Week 7: Usability Testing.With usability testing, I used the opportunity to recheck a few assumptions. 92% of participants stated they had used meetup products before. 38% of participants thought verified accounts...
Week 7: Usability Testing
Turning our sights to usability testing and hotspot prototypes this week was an exciting development in the weekly content. I started off by identifying three goals for usability testing that would be represented by three prototypes. Create a verified account Find...
Week 6 – sikfan glaschu
A brief review of sikfan glaschu, the book that started my project. Ok, I just finished reading this delight of a poetry collection. The poems are simultaneously full of longing but completely irreverent. For me they really represent the difficulties of finding...
WEEK 5: IA – The Reflecting
The time has come to study Information Architecture (IA)! As this is a weighty topic, I will split this blog post into the Doing and the Reflecting. Please continue reading for the ‘Reflecting’ post. Onboarding Flow Before starting our onboarding flow, we took a...
WEEK 5: IA – The Doing
The time has come to study Information Architecture (IA)! As this is a weighty topic, I will split this blog post into the Doing and the Reflecting. Please continue reading for the ‘Doing’ post. Onboarding Goal of UX prototype: To facilitate IRL friendships amongst...
Week 4: Wireframe feedback
Peer feedback is directly related to improved performance and user research should ideally be conducted at every stage (Gielen et al. 2010; Pernice 2022). Following the advice of my betters, I developed a few sketches and sent them out to fellow students with some...
Week 4: Sketching
The most important aspects of my product are the verified accounts to improve user safety when meeting strangers. Accountability is also essential, and my product will aim to help users maintain connections (or let them down gently) to reduce ghosting. Gamification We...
Week 3: Know your User
Leading on from last week’s interviews, I took a closer look at understanding my users. I started with the persona. Having just completed the research module with more than 80 responses full of data from which to make my personas, I found this tricky! I was lucky...
Week 2: User Interviews
I was lucky enough to interview five people about their opinions on the challenges faced by queer people in new cities. Despite being very early in the project, conducting early user research is essential to ensure the resulting product represents your users...
Week 1.5 – Brief Development
As promised, I sent my brief to my tutor, and instead of giving ‘traditional’ feedback, he replied with the following questions:Can you reach both sides of the bridge? You need their help to do the user research.What is your plan for user research? (Research goal, Any...
Week 1: Orientation
It’s the module we’ve all been waiting for: UX Design! As someone with a design background but not a graphic or art-based background, I’m a little nervous about this one, but we’ll see how it goes! Kicking off with a brand new brief, I found myself needing more...