My first UX/UI design project is done, and I think I am onto something good
I entered these studies with a Marketing, Psychology and Sociology background, along with a range of other random studies over the years in event management, fashion and costume design. Quite the motley crew of study areas. Plus while I use parts of all of my studies in my daily life, career wise, I have found it difficult to utilize them and combine them into an exciting career. Until starting this course! My career path is now becoming a little more clear and I am realizing that all of my experience is incredibly relevant in UX/UI design.
What, who, how, why do we want to study?
The team and I kicked off our project by selecting Culture and Heritage as our topic. While we all have a genuine interest in the topic, how much we were about to learn would soon be revealed. We began our secondary research, and quickly noted some common trends. Namely, that youth (18–40 year olds) attendance to museums had been declining for years, and this trend is replicated in a number of countries, including the USA, UK, India and Australia.
At this stage, we had uncovered some potential attributes of our user, however we needed to know more. Therefore we developed a list of questions to find out more about why this decline might be taking place. To get our answers, we went straight to the horse’s mouth so to speak, interviewing our target group directly. These questions took us a long time to develop. We took our time with this, and I am glad that we did, as our answers gave us revealing content as to the pain points of our target group and their museum attendance. We asked all five participants ten questions, including the below questions, which gave us a range of insights.
I learnt a lot going through this process. In particular, how difficult it is not to compliment someone on their answers or agree with them when doing this kind of interview. I almost had to be cold and not react at all whilst also building rapport, but I understand the value of this. Also, ask negative questions before positive ones and don’t finish on a negative question!
Affinity Diagram
We next moved onto our Affinity Diagram. At this point we collected all of the interview data and arranged them into themes. Of the themes generated, the most common were that our user doesn’t feel engaged in museums, due to the old fashioned format of just putting old stuff on walls and in boxes. They think this information is not clear or interesting enough, leaving one user to report “I feel frustrated that I am going to miss out on something”. Put simply, they want artworks to be displayed in different formats. A second theme, and an extension of the first, is that our user wants to be part of an interactive, immersive museum experience. They want to be engaged, as one user said, “I want to be part of the visit”.
The problem statement …
The problem statement became a rather epic saga. It took us at least three to four tries to get our final outcome. When we thought we had fine tuned out ‘user’, we realized we hadn’t addressed their ‘needs’. When we addressed their needs, we realized we hadn’t clearly identified ‘why’ these are our users needs. We spent a lot of time on this, and for good reason. The result was a clear user, with clear needs, and clear reasons for those needs. Boom!
Our user persona and user journey
These sections felt a little more relaxed. We were able to get creative and use all of the data we collected to envision the absolute archetype of our ‘user’. We settled on Alessio, a digital nerd who works in sound design, loves art and museums, but believes the way content is presented is boring, and he isn’t engaged with it. He is a millennial who uses his phone for everything, and he likes to be exposed to learning in different ways, not just text near a painting.
Alessio’s user journey could be something like the below, whereby he has ups and downs. Of note is the up period after finishing work and having free time, then down again when he thinks of going to a museum, but then remembers they don’t have anything in there for him.
Ideation
We had a little fun in this part as well, combining all the information we have gained to identify some ultimate solutions that ‘Alessio’ will love. Our most popular ideas centered around the way information is displayed, and giving our users more options to learn and be engaged with the artwork. Secondly, we focused on interaction. How to promote an exchange between our user and the artwork, and between our user and other users. Did somebody say engagement?!
User flow, wireframing and concept testing
As our project came to an end, we needed to fine tune our ‘user flow — happy path’, our wireframes and then test our concept. All three of these felt very rushed and we didn’t finalize our user flow — happy path. It was important for us to do this, because the final user flow informs both the wireframe and the resulting testing. We got all of this done, but did we really get the flow as precise as it needs to be to give our user what they want? I am not convinced.
My role and challenges
All in all, I had an absolute blast. I enjoyed the group work immensely, and can really see how valuable it is. We had ups, we had downs, we had laughs, we had insanity. We also had solidarity with each other and where someone fell short, someone always picked it back up. In terms of my role in the team, I was deeply involved in every step, at least right up until the end. I contributed heavily to the content we received, how we interpreted it and idea generation. Generally, I also felt quite active in keeping our team on track, checking in, managing time etc. I fell short however in the very final stages, namely the mid-fi wireframing and concept testing. I didn’t contribute much to making the mid or high-fi wireframes. Due to the time constraints, I felt it better to let my colleagues who is faster at figma do these parts. However I really like figma and have confidence in my design skills, so I am determined to manage my time better to ensure this doesn’t happen for the next project.
Among the other challenges, timing again was a big part. We went through all the steps in a very logical order, never skipping anything and we were always on time. However the final stages were very rushed, everyone was off doing their own thing, and as mentioned previously, we didn’t come back together as a team to work through these parts, as we had successfully with all other stages. Lesson learnt! If we have the same amount of time for our next projects, I want to leave more time at the end for user flows, wireframing and concept testing.
Next steps
Aside from completing the mid-fri and hi-fi wireframes and testing the concept, my desired next steps would be to investigate some of the pain points that had the next most instances. For example, we also identified that our user doesn’t like going to the museum when it is “too crowded”. Additionally, many others reported that they wanted to see more specialized, one off, focused exhibitions and special events. I would like to use this information and more to uncover a couple of secondary personas, so as to attend to their needs as well.
I hope you enjoyed this read, feel free to give me feedback, ask questions or take a deep breath after reading this 8 minute article.
