It’s crazy to think it’s nearing the end of my undergraduate career. Looking back at my COMM 388 course, I can definitely say it was one of my favourite classes I’ve been in at UBC. Here are some of my key takeaways.

Design Method: Experience Map

As a User Experience Designer, I can say that some of the design methods that were shared with the class were familiar to me. That being said, I was really excited when I got to see them. An example would be the Experience Map. I realized through the practice of creating experience maps in class that there are many ways to going about this. On a side project I’ve working on (shown below) is an Experience Map for Anastasia Jobs who goes on a grocery-shopping trip. Through the explanation of what an experience map during class, it showed me the bigger picture of why an experience map is necessary. Through this design method, I realized that it really identifies all the pain points that need to be solved.

Video: Innovation Lifecycle

My favourite video throughout this course was definitely Innovation Lifecycle by Thomson Reuters. I found it very interesting to see so many people involved within a project. As a UX Designer, it really resonates with my role; as I get to work with software developers, project managers, clients, etc. Not only that, part of my job consists of constant iterations and improvements. Similar to the video, it goes back to the user, where they provide feedback on if the “pill” works or not.

Design Method: Empathy Map

To be honest, I didn’t know the purpose of this even after having done it before this class. My example is shown below. Luckily, after constant practice in class and hearing different groups apply the empathy map to their projects, its purpose finally became clear to me: to focus and understand users.

A little something I’ve learned:

In order for many products or services to be successful, they need to be user-focused. In order to be user-focused, one needs to know the user. After knowing the user, the product must be built for the user. And finally, after building the product/services for the user, the users will automatically come.

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At first, I didn’t know what to expect from this course. I mainly took the course because the title “design” got me interested. I wouldn’t say this course changed my thinking process, but it definitely strengthened how I like to think. Even during the course, I would continuously search for “bad designs,” and think of ways to improve them. Or even good designs, and think about how they’re good. An example would be the layout of the Rose Garden, the pattern of it encourages those who walk by to take a photo (like me) or just be amazed by its details.

I can definitely say this course helped a lot with my future career as I’m trying to make my way into UX career path. It’s definitely hard to explain what “design” is. However, I can now go on for hours of what design actually means, without being unsure what it actually means.

When I was younger, I definitely thought design as just colour and shapes, and many people still think that. They say how simple design is, but when they actually dive deep into the different steps and techniques, they realize how much researching, thinking, and implementing actually goes into one single design.

Design. It’s not just colours and shapes.

 

Cheers,

A.

This is going to be one odd topic, but I was asked to think about thinking. If that’s too confusing for you, it’s also called metacognition.

According to a lesson by Amy Carlson, she defined metacognition as:

Being aware of what you know and don’t know, understanding what you will need to know for a certain task and having an idea of how to use your current skills to learn what you don’t know.

To be honest, this definition confused me even more.

So I decided to come up with questions to helped me with this confusing topic: When was the last time I thought about thinking? How did I think that certain way? What are the processes I go through when I think?

After days of thinking about thinking, I still don’t have a clear idea what it really is, but this is what I got from it.

(Image: peartreedesigns)

As a designer, I have an eye for all things creative. I realized I tend to look for things that are quirky and weird.

Reading books and novels were always difficult for me. A reading from my business  class called Question Everything by Robert Cruger took me a good 30 minutes to get through 6 pages of text because I can’t keep my focus on a bunch of words. I’m a person who loves short cuts – especially in reading. I tend to skim through text, and I pick out the things I want to read.

Here’s why:

1. I am a lover of numbers – Whenever I see a list of items, I get captured. I try to understand each number listed first before reading anything else.
2. Any design captures my attention – This is because I am a designer. Anything out of the blue will capture me, just like the circled quote of Jane Fulton in the picture above.

However, even if I skipped all the details, I would have to go back and read the blocks of text to understand the article fully.

This is probably why I’m always the slowest reader. I realized this through another required reading in my class called Why Good Design is Finally a Bottom Line Investment. It wrote “10 Minute Read” in the top right corner, but took me a good hour to understand it. I thought I was with the norm until I asked how long it took my peers to read it – they said 10 minutes. The hour I spent reading the article probably consisted of getting distracted by the visuals and quotes. This includes searching up the meanings of all the words I don’t understand.

All the decisions we make everyday are different, then we reflect on the consequences of each action to learn from them. For example, I’ve used the different tools in this blog, such as inputting links and pictures, because I’ve had great blogging experience using them.

(Image: The Learning Cycle)

It’s crazy to think that every action that we take are almost certainly learned from things we have encountered in the past. As stated by Schön in The Reflective Practitioner:

In “reflection-in-action”, doing and thinking are complementary. Doing extends thinking in the tests, moves, and probes of experimental action, and reflection feeds on doing and its results. Each feeds the other, and each sets boundaries for the other.

Right now, I’m still confused as to how I think. Hopefully, the quirkiness and weirdness I’ve expressed here and there showed you how I, a designer, like to think.

 

Cheers,

A.

 

Citation:

Carlson, A. (2003). Metacognitive strategies: Definition & examples Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/metacognitive-strategies-definition-examples-quiz.html

Cruger, R. (2007). Question Everyday. Retrieved from http://5a5f89b8e10a225a44ac-ccbed124c38c4f7a3066210c073e7d55.r9.cf1.rackcdn.com/files/pdfs/news/QuestionEverything.pdf

Kuang, C. (2015, April 17). Why Good Design Is Finally A Bottom Line Investment. Retrieved from https://www.fastcodesign.com/1670679/why-good-design-is-finally-a-bottom-line-investment

Schon, D. (2012, December 18). The Reflective Practitioner. Retrieved from https://graysreadinggroup.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/the-reflective-practitioner-by-donald-schon/

In the past couple years, user experience has become a widely popular topic in the digital marketing world, however, many still don’t know what it is.

So, what is UX Design?

UX is short for User Experience, and there is no commonly accepted definition for this term. According to a study from the Oxford Journal Interacting with Computers:

The goal of UX design in business is to “improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction of the product.”

Peter Morville’s User Experience Honeycomb outlines the seven areas that are needed to create meaningful and valuable user experience.

The importance of UX design has escalated and many companies are investing a lot more in both research and development compared to previous years. Nowadays, having an awesome product is necessary, but it, alone, won’t put you ahead of the market. Having a good UX design is highly the determining factor that will earn you the both your customers and your competitors’ customer’s interests.

UX design touches on both mobile and web applications. According UX Passion, close to 40% of users will leave a business site if it takes more than three seconds to load. UX designers aim to improve mobile and web applications that will retain customers and leave them with a happy visit.

 

Cheers,

A.

On your website, when customers visit and takes a certain action, such as filling out a form, making a purchase, or signing up, it means they have moved down the marketing funnel.

There are various marketing funnels, such as the one shown on TrackMaven. However, the marketing funnel we will be focusing on contains four elements: Awareness, Consideration, Intent and Decision (ACID).

For example, looking at Apple’s website, they do a great job at moving customers down their purchase funnel. At the awareness stage, customers learn about the brand through a simple slideshow of pictures, nothing too in-depth, and it creates curiosity within the customer.

As they go further and look into the specifications of the Apple product, they move into the consideration phase, as they are interested in the product and willing to find out more. Apple provides specific details and a clean design on their page, making it easy for the customers to understand.

After the Consideration phase, the customer moves into the Intent phase, where they decide for themselves whether it would suit their needs or something they would like to have. A successful consideration phase would be the customer adding the laptop into their “shopping bag”, which is shown in bright blue on the bottom right corner on the Apple website.

After going through the three stages, the customer ends up in the Decision stage, where they decide to purchase the product or not by clicking “confirm” after they have placed all their credit card information.

This process sounds easy, however, it is very difficult to achieve. Ask yourself: What are the reasons why I won’t buy an Apple Macbook? Within this marketing funnel process, most customers are continuously looking at other laptop websites, such as Asus and Microsoft, to find one that matches their wants (ex: better prices). They may even decide that they really don’t need a laptop anymore. So, in the end, it is how you capture your audience, through effective and engaging strategies within each stage of the marketing funnel. With a successful marketing funnel, your customers will move smoothly from the top to the bottom.

 

Cheers,

A.

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