UXDi W1: Intro to UX, Research, Sketching

Primer: I am a design student in General Assembly SF’s 10-week full-time User Experience immersive class. Currently I am in week 4, and finally have a chance to catch my breath- whilst keeping a weather eye on the horizon (shameless POTC reference).

Week one went by so quick, I blinked and it was over. The expression “hit the ground running” has never echoed so true to me. We started on Tuesday, day after holiday, and began our journey into user experience.

Having already taken UX and interaction classes previously, a lot of the theory presented in the lecture was familiar (and still continues to be). However, the class provides numerous amounts of skills practice and guidance which continues to help me refine my design process.

We started with an introduction into the subject.

After discussion, we analyzed the public transportation experience. Later as an exercise we re-designed the ticket purchasing experience.

The following day we were given an overview of our first project — an exercise in rapid ideation and user research. We were to create an app that would solve pain points of our user (one of our fellow cohorts), which were to be determined through our own research. Project duration was 4 days.

Talk about rapid.

The rest of the week was a balancing act between project work, theory lecture, and skills exercises. We went into detail about user research, sketching, and presentation design.

Time management definitely was a challenge, however meticulous planning and goal-setting was a great aid.

Indeed, we learned many lessons through this initial project/week.

We learned to quickly put ideas on paper, so we can get to the best solution sooner. Design is an iterative process, so quick and dirty can get the ball rolling.

We learned the value of feedback, and to keep those lines of communication and collaboration open.

Lastly, we learned that no matter what, all roads must lead back to the user. And to know which roads to take, requires insightful research.

And just like that, we presented our projects on Friday, and our first week was finito.