My UX roadmap

I’m not gonna lie, I’m confused. In the beginning everything is chaotic, overwhelming, there is too much informations to process. So I need a plan.

As always, there are two separate but simultaneous ways for learning almost anything in life: theory and practice.

I’m already reading a lot about UX designing, usability testing etc. here in Medium, but also in books and blogs. I attend User Experience Design classes at my university as well. All this gives me a decent dose of theory and it’s all fine, but I have to act.

So, I was wondering, what is the most important element of this puzzle, what is essential. What will provide me with a solid foundation on which I can build my experience.

What if I could learn while doing something?

Therefore, I came up with a plan, my UX roadmap. Well, it’s not as big deal as it sounds, but hopefully it helps me get more organized and more efficient learn flow.

If you need cool diagrams, this is the place — http://designfuckingthinking.tumblr.com/

As shown in diagram above, idea goes first. But after that you actually need to build something, transform thoughts and data into working product.

First of all, I need to learn how to prototype.

But no one will entrust me with the preparation of an existing project for an existing client, so I’ll fake it all. Fake project but with real needs of real customers. I’ll do some research, analyze data, draw conclusions and try to come up with solutions. Then, I’ll make my very first prototype and I’ll share it here.

It would be great if I found some tools to test it remotely, I could gather not only feedback but also interesting data to improve the prototype. If you know such tool, write me in the comments!

After prototype testing (hopefully) I’ll need to understand feedback and implement it in my prototype. And then test it again.

Second, analysis of existing interfaces.

I don’t know if it’s a good or bad idea, but this is how our brains learns new habits — by repetition. So, if I recreate several projects and learn through the process, that’s a win! But it doesn’t mean only thoughtlessly recreating of existing interfaces, I’m thinking about making profound analysis, taking notes, observing. Copying apps and websites it’s also a good software practice — I already like and use Adobe Xd, but I need to know Axure and Sketch.

I hope that my daily dose of theory and those two approaches to practice will result in a range of core skills which then could be improved and complemented with experience.

Plan for the next few weeks:

1. Fake client but real needs
2. Research, personas
3. Insights, brainstorm
4. Very first prototype
5. Usability testing (remotely, if not — with friends)
6. Learning what went wrong
7. Fixing it.

That’s it. I hope I make it even if it means making many embarrassing mistakes. If you want to keep up with my progress, follow me here to get all the fresh stories. See you next Monday when I’ll start the process.

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