Putting All the Pieces Together

Understanding is the key to strategic user experience design.

Proper planning, listening, viewing, testing, reporting, designing, iterating, and so forth, can only be successful if they stem from understanding the user’s tasks, overall goals, current processes, etc., from the start of the project.

Making the right moves

In order to move forward, we need to know the moves that the user has previously made. We also need to understand our own moves, and convey them to the stakeholders in the project.

Each piece plays a key part in the larger production. In some instances, we can feel stuck, as if we were playing a game of chess, cornered and powerless in checkmate. However, as user experience designers, we know that it is not only the understanding of our own work, but that of understanding and being open to the opinions of others.

Checkmate

Standing still in checkmate can be alleviated by listening to a team member’s opinion, one that opens doors and windows for your approach, allowing you to move freely again. Throughout this semester, we have worked with our groups and teams. This interaction has helped to broaden and push the boundaries of our own personal limitations, to create the best work possible.

Looking back and forward

This past week, we combined all of our key pieces, looked at our past moves, and then built a portfolio piece looking to our futures. This will help to enhance the understanding of our work others. One of our key roles as future user experience designers is to communicate and clearly convey our findings, so that our research-driven improvements can be made. The portfolio project helped to validate all of the work we have put forth this semester and show all of the layers and thought that goes into the user experience process.

It was a true UXD in Practice.