Week 5
Week 3
Week 3 - Imposter Syndrome
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Week 5 - Design Activities
Category: Prototyping Phase
Blog post 6: Figma Difficulties
This week has been a bit more relaxed than week 4 and 5 because during those past weeks, I was still in the ideation phase which was full of confusion and uncertainty. However, after setting the groundwork of my project, it has been smooth sailing for the most part.
Facts
Last week I finished the lo-fi UI drawings of my app called IntervAR. The lo-fi drawings took a bit of time to get me going, however, it was not difficult as I only had to draw and did not need to use any softwares. After the lo-fi drawings were done and got some user feedback I moved onto the wireframing. As I have done wireframes previously it was pretty straightforward and did not have any issues. However, after the wireframing I started the hi-fi prototyping on figma, which was more difficult than expected. I have used figma before so I thought it would be simple, but I was wrong. While I had the lo-fi prototypes to go off from, it was hard to choose the exact placement, colours and themes. I wanted to go for a design that I have not touched before as it is my final year project, which may have influenced the difficulty of the design. I also did some Guerilla and user testing in areas that I was unsure of which really helped me keep me on track. Before I started on figma, I had hoped that it would not be difficult, which did not go to plan. I am still prototyping the home page, but I am pleased with how it is coming together.
Can’t believe it's the final week before mid sem break! I am always surprised by how fast the weeks have gone by. I feel like I am making steady progress on my capstone project and hope to keep up the pace until I finish my project.
Yuka Ochiai | Friday 23rd August | 3 min Read
Note: Iteration of App prototype on figma
Figure 1. Figma prototype of IntervAR
Note: Wireframe on miro
Figure 2. lo-fi Prototype
Note: lo-fi Prototype on paper
Note: Iteration 1 screen capture from figma
Note: Iteration 2 screen capture from figma
Figure 4. Iteration 1
Figure 3. Wireframing of IntervAR
Figure 5. Iteration 2
Feelings
When I started prototyping on figma I experienced feelings of confusion and stress as my ideas on paper and on a device were completely different. It took me the whole entire day just to finish the home page. I was a little scared as to whether it would actually look nice and usable for users as it was something that I had never designed before. Sometimes I felt like redoing the whole thing, however, even when I felt like giving up I kept going and reiterating the designs to see what was best. When I had asked other people to user test on so that I could get a different perspective, sometimes I would get positive or constructive feedback which really helped me to feel more confident in my designs. Personally my highlight was when I would get positive feedback from my peers, I felt more motivated to design more. However, when I had to fix some things I felt tired but I still kept going
Findings
The user test and constructive feedback really helped me keep on track and not to give up. Getting feedback worked out as being able to hear different perspectives and hearing from someone with fresh eyes was eye opening. It gave me guidance on my design when I was really stuck and did not know what to do. I was told during my internship to test early and frequently, which is what I did and it seemed to have helped me a lot. I could have just not gotten any feedback and just stuck to my own designs but the outcome would have been really different and less user friendly. There was one thing that I regret not doing is choosing my themes and colours beforehand, instead of doing it right before and during the designing on figma as this is one of the parts where I spent lots of time on. Having a clear and concise design style would have been very beneficial to me. I would have liked to get more user testing and feedback from different types of people. Such as people who are unfamiliar with UX design and people who are very familiar. Some of the valuable feedback that I got was using a visibility checker to see if the white words would stand out with a blue background. The initial colours did not match so I had to change it to a darker colour.
Future
Moving forward, I plan to incorporate the lessons I’ve learnt into my design systems such as choosing key styles earlier on. By doing this I can streamline the design process and avoid getting stuck on these choices later. Additionally, I will continue to emphasise the importance of regular user testing and feedback every step I take. The insights gained from different perspectives were valuable and I can recognise what needs to be fixed and what I did well on. I will make it a point to find input from a broad range of users, which ensures that my design is accessible to everyone.
I also plan to incorporate more tools in the future. Such as visibility checkers as it will allow me to catch potential issues before they become more problematic. Hopefully this will make it more user friendly to everyone.
In the future I will build a more structured feedback loop into my projects. This will be done by regular testing, and setting a time frame for this testing. This regularity will help me stay on track and make necessary adjustments before any issues become bigger and make it harder for me to fix.
Figure 6. Gif of iteration 3
Note: Final iteration of the intervAR app home screen
