SharedUX.
October 2018
Skills Used
Communicating with UX Research Lead
Analyzing existing research
Creating mid-fi and hi-fi wireframes in Adobe XD
Creating new iterations following team critiques
Designing a desktop application.
Problem Overview
In a 2 year, workforce degree program at Austin Community College, a UX design student spends 45-60 credit hours or only 700 hours (or 4.5 months) of in-class time learning the multi-disciplinary responsibilities of becoming a UX Designer. The amount of UX Design resources online are more than 376 million results (Google). How can a UX Design student keep up with the onslaught of information to learn during their education and beyond?
User Research
The user research was conducted by a UX research lead. I was provided with the UX Lead’s interview questions and empathy maps. In order to properly synthesize their findings I asked questions about the users interviewed, how they developed their interview questions, what research was conducted prior to the interviews, and where the interviews were conducted. To understand the user and their needs I listed out characteristics of the user, their goals, and specific pain points in navigating information relevant to their studies.
Who is the user?
Austin Community College UX Design Students
In a 2 year certificate degree program
The customer of this product is ACC administration who would purchase the application.
I was told initially to design for ACC UX Students. Along the way, I discovered that ACC UX Professors would also be a potential user. I decided to prioritize UX students when designing because they have the most to gain from the application.
What is the user’s goal?
Find credible resources
Complete class projects
Save valuable information to reference at a later time.
Do well on class assignments
Search keywords/images
What are current solution pain points preventing user from reaching their goals?
Having to sign up/subscribe to platforms in order to access information
Feeling bombarded with results from Google search
Coming across conflicting information
Users are finding workarounds when saving information to reference later
Examples
Emailing resource to themselves
Sharing on Slack
Bookmarking to browser
To focus my design, I wanted to develop a solution which would allow UX Design students to search keywords, find vetted information, keep track of their progress, and have a consistent way to save resources.
Brainstorming
I listed possible solutions to solve each of the user’s pain points I wanted to address.
Low Fidelity Sketches
Team Critique
I participated in team critiques of my low fidelity sketches. The critique revealed navigation issues in my design.
Additionally, I explored a global search solution vs. a page based search. I decided to implement page based search because I wanted to allow a UX student to have option to search the database and also search within their course folders. I felt a global search with filter options specific to each function would become too cluttered.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
TEAM CRITIQUE
After adding color to my mid-fidelity wireframes I participated in team critique to get feedback on how effective my use of color was to indicate whether the user can interact with certain UI elements.
High Fidelity Wireframes
RETROSPECTIVE
I found it beneficial to iterate and get team feedback on low-fidelity sketches initially to work out high level navigation issues surrounding the search bar. Also, attempting to solve only 3 user pain points allowed me to focus my design.
I had difficulties deciding what should be on the user’s dashboard after logging into SharedUX. User testing and feedback would help clarify users’ wants and needs.
In the future, I would give myself more time to brainstorm and explore more than one possible solution in low fidelity wireframes.