UCD Charrette Processing

The goal for this class was to introduce the specific processes that a UX designer goes through when designing a product. At the start of class, we were given a topic, a vehicle, and we had to pair it with a user of interest. We got into small groups and randomly received a vehicle and a user to work with that was generated from someone in the class; our group received a “hot air balloon” as the vehicle and an “adventure seeker” as the user.

With our group, we came up with a scenario that the user would use the vehicle for; our scenario was that the user would jump out of the hot air balloon for the purpose of getting an adrenaline rush. Afterwards, we switched up group members and came up with a design solution to the scenario we previously created. Lastly, we presented our final product in front of the class in a short 1-minute explanation.

I had a difficult time brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly since it was my first time having done an activity like this. But the process a designer goes through seemed relatively simple judging from the first class. Which makes me wonder, how in-depth do professional UX designers go with each process? How important is the ability to work with other people apply in the real world? and how long does it take UX designers to go through the whole process of creating a product?

I really liked how interactive this activity presented itself to be. Every kind of idea was accepted and considered. I personally enjoy interacting with other people and this class absolutely requires that kind of ability to be successful. I also enjoyed the creative aspect of this class. Not many classes encourage and require out-of-the-box thinking from students.

I think almost everything requires a certain degree of teamwork and human interaction to create a useful product. For people who want to make a website for their business, they can use the techniques we learned in class to make an excellent website. By thinking about what kind of audiences they are trying to attract, coming up with different scenarios and making a solution to the scenarios will help the website be successful. Projects that involve a lot of human interaction would work well with this strategy. However, projects that will not involve a lot of human interaction will not find this strategy useful.