UX blog

Day 4 theme was "Design for systems". We looked at a bunch of UI elements and how to use them to make user experience more inviting and as stress-less as possible. We also looked at common obstacles such as unpredictable canvas size or constricted view port and how to deal with them - - following breakpoint rules , - following edge based rules - scaling - stack and scale - recommended minimums  - hinting A big portion of the day we dedicated to working on our prototypes.

Today we were dealing with Information architecture. I say "dealing"  because I personally find this topic incredibly interesting, but also extremely frustrating. Interesting - because as a somewhat spontaneous person I LOVE organizing. There are certain things and processes in my work practice  that I prefer to do in a naturally chaotic and rather messy flow - such as early stage planning and gathering ideas, and some I never let lose - such as filing or documentation. Frustrating - because I find it quite difficult sometimes to rely on somebody else's system without knowing their background. (Except those cases where design thinking is so brilliant that the structure just speaks for itself). The challenges of the day were: - Identifying content type  & c reating a content model - Sketching out a site map - Identifying navigation tools - Practicing open card sorting using theguardian.com   website as an example. Identifying content type & ...

Today was all about designing for people. The challenge was to design a solution to one of the problems that we identified based on our user research and assumptions from yesterday (for the sake of this exercise assuming that our assumptions are accurate and that the research results are based on a bigger number of participants). We grouped some of the common behaviors of bus riders into groups and picked two most interesting ones. One of them was a really common behavior anxiety about getting on and off the bus,  and another one conversely was a very specific unique anxiety or need about ability to have dogs on the bus and as a consequence not being able to use the bus services as much as they would like to. The next thing we did was coming up with the point of view statements for Getting on and off the bus  - I am anxious about getting my snapper out on time - I forget to get my snapper out on time - I am anxious about missing my stop and for A bility to ...

Today we learnt about different methods of user research: - assumption mapping - observational research - survey - diary study - observational interview We also put two of those methods into practice: observational research and observational interview . Assumption mapping We split into groups and tried to assume what a person would do if they had to get from point A to point B by taking a bus. What went well: We got into a lot of details and made a lot of what seemed to be good assumptions. What didn't go well:   We forgot to consider those who actually take the bus on a daily basis. Observational research We split once again into different groups and went on a mission to get coffee from the railway station (or somewhere nearby). We were given new snapper cards and 25 dollars (20 for topping up the snapper and 5 for the drink). The participant's main task was to get to the station by bus and the researcher's task was to observe thei...