This November, I have done various tasks both as part of self-study and as part of my volunteer role.
Volunteer:
On the week beginning November 6, I worked in Unreal Engine for various designs I had made in Figma in implimenting them into the game, helping bring them close to functionality.
On the week beginning November 13, I did User Research for the general game itself, as well as research relating to HUD interfaces.
On the week beginning November 20, I did further development within Unreal Engine on various interfaces.
On the week beginning November 27, I worked on Troubleshooting with project-related errors, as well as Figma development and research.
UX Certificate
On the week of November 6, I began Module 2 of my Google UX Certificate course. This centered on User Centered Design, being taking the consideration of different users into account when deciding how to create an interface.
The course first reviewed the differences between Universal Design and Inclusive Design, which was an eye-opener in how a different perspective can change my view. When reading the description for Universal Design, being a single design that is designed to work for all users, I failed to see fault with it. However, the lecture then pointed out that a simple single solution is extremely hard to achieve, due to the assumption that a wide range of users needs can be covered at once.
Then, we looked at Inclusive Design, a design process bringing in representitives of multiple different backgrounds, in order to and a subset of it, Equity-Focused Design, which focuses on building designs for groups who have been historically underrepresented, providing different levels of opportunity to support fair outcomes. For example, the option for someone to manually input their gender in a census form over a simple tagline of "Other" helps to not just include more users, but helps gain a more accurate spread of data.
Additionally, I also learned that Google Voice Assistants initally struggled to respond to voices that were beyond male native speaking english, as it had only been tested with that approach. With further testing of a wider variety of backgrounds, Equity-Focused Design helped to create an experience that made accomodations for everyone, and how diverse perspectives can help overcome problems.
I then completed a short quiz on this, defining definitions in relation to the topic and relating it back to scenarios.
Finally, I watched lectures on Platforms, and the different considerations needed designing between them. For example, there is a different amount of average time spent on a website between someone using a phone (72 seconds) and computer (150).
One consideration is the size of text and icons between devices, how much of a user's screen is blocked and what considerations you need to make, for example, large "trolly" icons on shopping websites for mobile apps to avoid the user to have to navigate through sub-menus to access their shopping basket.
I also learned about Responsive Web Design, a technique applied by google where the size of a website changes automatically depending on screen size, while making showing essential information a priority, for example, side columns of a google search would all be compiled into a single column in the middle of the screen, so information isn't squashed and hard to read.
On the week of November 13, I continued through the second module of my Google UX Design Certificate. This focused on User-Centric Design, being putting the user before anything else in designing a product, and learning more about users themselves in order to know what considerations are best to make.
This was learned through the pipeline of "Understand -> Specify -> Design -> Evaluate"
In designing around the user, I learned some considerations to take into account that linked back to the previous week's topic of Equity-Based Design, in taking into account how someone who may struggle with disabilities, for example, would need special considerations, such as an option for larger text for those with visual impairmnets. Additionally, what level of assumption would you need to make in creating a product that users may not be familiar with, in what should be clearly stated to them.
Another interesting point I learned about from these lectures is Digital Literacy, which is where different users have different levels of proficency in technology. To take into account for this, calls to action for simple actions that may be assumed by most users should still be spoken about in clear, consise language to avoid reliance on assumptions.
I also learned about Assistive Technology, technology designed to help users with disabilities in streamline daily activities, such as stair lifts and electric wheelchairs. I also learned about different types involved in many different User Interfaces, such as the ability to increase the contrast of colours on a screen in order to make something easier to read, or use voice to navigate interfaces, all coming together under Equity-Focused Design to make the user's goal easier in having their background accomidated for.
Finally, I completed the second module, that tested me on definitions of the different forms of User-Focused Design, as well as the reasoning behind each different design.
On the week of November 20, I began the third module of the Foundations of UX Design part of the Google UX Design Certificate Roadmap, known as UX design framework.
UX Design Framework is a guideline developers follow in order to achieve a product's intended goal; how to solve a problem.
The pipeline itself is known as EMPATHISE - DEFINE - IDEATE - PROTOTYPE - TEST.
Through the lectures, I learned more about each role's different part to play, as well as how each stage is not a solid point and can be revisited from each part of the pipeline.
In further lectures, I learned about the different kinds of research that goes into the UX Design Pipeline. This is inclusive of;
Foundational Research, questions that are asked before development in developing a plan for the project and what problems they aim to solve, involving interviews, surveys and focus groups.
Design research, asking the question of how it should be built, done through the Ideate stage of the project, identifying pain points that user's have with your product so it can be fixed before launch, held through bringing products to public places, such as a coffee shop, to gather feedback, or A/B Testing, putting out two different versions of an interface to see which is better recieved and why.
Post-Launch Research, answering the question you originally asked, finding out through customer reactions that if success was met and why or why not, and what can be learned for future projects.
I then completed a practise quiz on the topic, though I do plan to revisit it once I have completed the four modules to achieve a grade higher than 90%.
Additionally, we covered Design Sprints, a challenge typically lasting 5 days where developers get together to solve a specific challenge with a design. It follows similar phases to the UX Design Framework, being "Understand, Ideate, Decide, Prototype, and Test"
We also learned what goes into planning them, with User Research always being the first thing that is considered and information gathered for, even if a specific problem hasn't been detailed out yet. Talks with industry experts are also often planned, held during the "Understand" phase of the sprint. Following this is booking a suitable location, one with places to record ideas, and establishing rules, such as a ban on gadgets to create a distraction free zone, and holding introductions between people taking part in the design sprint.
Finally, I completed this module, with the exam focusing primarily on Design Sprints and what can be learned from them.
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