INSIGHTS FROM FIRST UI WORK
Six months into the design industry, I was experimenting with Graphic Design and Motion Graphics until this UI work was assigned to me. I have always wanted to explore every discipline of digital design and this turned out to be a valuable opportunity for me to test my skills in User Interaction Design and learn more about the process behind it.
THE WORK
“The awards Report Bee has won has to be displayed in the home page of its Website”. This was the work, or to be precise, this was what I understood. But I later understood that the real requirement/work was to “Capture the attention of the person who visits the website by showing them the accomplishments of Report Bee.”
In this blog, I don’t want to explain the process of how I arrived at my final design, I want to jot down all my learnings.
#1 : Understanding the Requirement
In layman’s terms, a requirement is directly what is needed to be implemented and what we expect to get. The requirements are crucial when starting a project if you want to achieve a desirable result at the finish line. Requirement is the notion/purpose behind which the requirement was built upon. One must always find the purpose behind the requirement to understand the requirement.
#2 : Design Research Method
My design mentor Jack Anto once told me that, every designer subconsciously does Guerrilla Research before he starts to design. Since this research happens at the back of a designer’s head, an amateur designer like me would not be able to explain the reason for the arriving at the design solution clearly. To avoid this and to have a tangible research data, follow one of the research methods and collect data to support your design decision.
It was this blog that helped me understand design research methods and what I was really doing.
#3 : Jakob Nielsen’s Design Heuristics
Following the 10 design guidelines by Jakob Nielsen helps improve usability, utility and desirability of one’s design. Why follow these? Many of the biggest companies like Apple, Google and Adobe does this and I don’t think it’s not a bad thing to follow pioneers in field of design. These design heuristics are important and accurate because they were established in the year 1994 and are still followed.
This can help us understand more about Nielsen’s principles.
#4 : Deadlines and Communication
It happens to the best of us. The design work I thought would take two days took much more time than I expected. Missing Deadline is one thing but communicating about it is more important. If you think that you are going to miss a deadline, giving a notice as much earlier as possible is very very important and a brief explanation is necessary. The other most important thing is “It should be rare”.
This piece of article actually helped to handle deadlines in my future projects.
These were all the insights that I gained from working in this project. Looking forward to more interesting experiences and sharing those.
PS: I am an engineering graduate from SSN college. I was working as a full stack developer for one year in a startup. To explore more and pursue a field where I encounter creatively solving problems, I ventured into the design industry. After 6 months of internship, I now work as a Visual Designer in Report Bee constantly experimenting and exploring.
