This is part of my last assignment for completing a more-than-a-year-long Coursera specialization that I signed up in summer of 2015. This specialization focuses on Interaction Design and after this essay is published, I shall receive my certificate.
As for any good-intention teaching, the question of what ‘did I actually learn from the whole thing’ provides good insight and feedback to continually improve the Speciaization going forward; therefore, I will do my due diligence in giving this insight as honest as possible.
First, I like to state my intentions of completing this specialization. There were 3 of them — 1. I like to understand UX better for my job as a product manager. 2. I use this as part of training on my discipline (there were countless last-minute Sunday night assignments that I cursed endlessly but eventually powered myself through). 3. Finally, completing this specialization is part of my annual goal at work and shares as another credential for my qualifications.
Now that we have gotten those out of the way, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details,
- Design isn’t all that creative — many people may have the impression that UX is all about creativity; unfortunately, what many of us learned in the courses is that isn’t true. Bottom line is, a design is considered good if the users can understand the intended purpose, easily navigate to what they are looking for, and quickly complete the desired tasks. Creativity only matters if it tests well with users.
- Use the tools — the courses were great in introducing the tools that we may not be familiar with but can be relevant to our UX design process. Tools such as UserTesting, Invision or POP, Soundcloud, and Google Docs are helpful in capturing, sharing, and evaluating a design.
- Understand the users — If there is one thing that we learned from the 2016 US presidential election is that people are different. Too many of us make the assumption that just because it is totally obvious to us, it must be so to everyone else. Unfortunately, the reality has proven this wrong time and time again — both in politics and in design. The key reason here for designers is that learn and understand your key user demographic.
- Start early and iterate — This one is dedicated to the procrastinators and over-analyzers. I know many of us can be either too hesitant to take the first step or simply too lazy to start. One of the key lessons from the Specialization is that we should start small and iterate as we go. Do not overwhelm ourselves with what will happen 3 weeks from now; the key thing is to get through the rough sketches so that they can be improved over time.
Here I provide my design process from storyboarding, to sketching, to prototyping,
5. Set milestones — This is more like a mind trick more than a design-related lesson. As I mentioned previously, this specialization has been helpful in injecting must-needed discipline that I sorely desire; by meeting these deadlines, I build confidence over time that would be useful in both my professional and personal endeavors.
In conclusion, this has been a good learning experience in both UX design and a personal accomplishment,
