Additional Portfolio Examples
From Aug '18 - Feb '19, I completed a series of design courses:
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UC - San Diego
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Human-Centered Design
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Principles of UX
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General Assembly
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10-week full-time UX Design Immersion
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I have highlighted two training exercises from these courses:
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The Quiet Way
From Dec '18 - Feb '19, I completed a full-time UX Design Immersion at General Assembly in New York
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Part of the curriculum was a 3-person Passion Project in which we designed a mobile app called The Quiet Way
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Please click below to see each step:
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Initial Brainstorming
We brainstormed as a group on passion areas (both positive & negative):
Concept Refinement
The concepts that rose to the top were introversion + navigating city life
Competitive analysis
We explored apps already helping urban introverts navigate their worlds, and made a matrix of product features:
A few competitive apps no longer exist:
Hypothesis
We formed a hypothesis articulating how we might help urban introverts:
User Interviews - Screening
We sent a screener to potential interview candidates, looking for those who met two criteria:
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are based in a large city
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have characteristics of introversion, such as:
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find crowds & socializing tiring
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need time alone to recover
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User Interviews - Interview Questions
We scripted questions to understand the experiences of introverts
Some examples:
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What do you find most difficult about living in a big city?
Walk me through a recent example where you were surrounded by people and how it made you feel.
What sorts of people & situations do you find exhausting?
Walk me through a recent example of feeling like you needed to be by yourself.
Affinity Mapping
We next organized the interview responses into themes:
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Refinement into major themes
We further bucketed the user interview talking points:
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The places people found most stressful tended to be public, loud, crowded & chaotic
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Involuntary activities & events that they were forced to attend were stressful
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Strangers, individually and in large groups, caused anxiety
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Leaving those stressful environments and spending time alone was generally sufficient to recover
Design Studio
We then each sketched ideas for a product, factoring in all Research:
Feature Prioritization
We then whittled down ideal features for our MVP (Minimum Viable Product), based on Design Studio + Research:
MVP features
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Reports of obstacles & surprises relevant to user
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Find the best route to escape the crowds
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Scheduling ‘Me Time’
For future iterations
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Breathing exercises for stressful situations
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Calming sounds & music
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Music app integration
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Decibel meters for gauging & reporting noise
Map of app features
We put the flow of the app into an Omnigraffle diagram:
Round 1 - Medium-Fidelity Design
We then turned to designing mobile screens in Sketch, in mid-fi, with each of us contributing
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Here is a cross-sample, with a few screens showing the basic flow for the mobile app:
User Testing
We then tested the app with users, using a combination of Optimal Workshop's Tree Testing + our witnessing in-person execution of tasks
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Some key issues revealed in testing:
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Several users were confused by the label “Recovery”
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Several users found the design "cluttered"
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Several users were confused by the many options for finding the emptiest route
Below is a performance summary:
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Evolving Round 1 Design
Based on User Testing results and design decisions required by going from medium to high fidelity, we made the below changes, in Sketch:
Final Prototype
We put this in an Invision clickable prototype, shown in this video:
Conclusion
Were we to continue with this project, we would pressure-test our design & feature choices, and delve further into the competition to differentiate The Quiet Way.
VirginAtlantic.com
From Aug - Dec 2018, I completed two online design courses from UC - San Diego:
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Human-Centered Design
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Principles of UX
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I began a Heuristic Analysis of VirginAtlantic.com in the first course, and proposed site re-designs in the second course
Heuristics
Heuristics is a process of evaluating a product's usability
The more usable a website is, the more compliant it is with Heuristics
Heuristics vary, but mine are based on Scott Klemmer's modification of Jakob Nielsen's original rules:
Heuristic Analysis
I inspected the US site of VirginAtlantic.com for usability issues, using the concepts above, and with this rating scale:
Issue 1 - Difficulty in switching to US site/US $s
Heuristic: Clean & Functional Design
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Defaults to UK site
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Switching to US site/US$ isn’t obvious
- Requires selection of the tiny UK flag icon to the upper right + selection of the local site/currency from the drop-down
Issue 2 - Technical error in country selector
Heuristic: Clean & Functional Design
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Technical error on website
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The country-selector drop down menu froze on screen; I had to exit and re-start the process
Issue 3 - No option to type dates on homepage
Heuristic: Flexibility
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You have to go to a second screen and scroll through a time-consuming drop-down calendar
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Additionally, you have to do this step twice—for departing and returning—and 3+ times if you select multi-city
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Issue 4 - Confusing second calendar in date selection
Heuristic: Clean & Functional Design
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The same travel dates are shown left and right
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The only reason for the second calendar is the highlighted end date—which could easily be incorporated in the left calendar
Issue 5 - Jarring layout in "Refine Search"
Heuristic: Clean & Functional Design
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After modifying the departure/arrival city, at the top, the "Refine Search" button is not nearby
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The natural/better location would be to the right of the from/to boxes, rather than the bottom right of the screen
Issue 6 - Laborious process for selecting fare/no shortcut for "experts"
Heuristic: Flexibility
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Selecting a fare/class from the results screen—the purple fare, below—you cannot click it and proceed to booking; only after reading to the bottom can you proceed:
Issue 7 - Difficulty in Calculating Baggage Fees
Heuristic: Clean & Functional Design
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Calculating baggage fees requires multiple steps & screens, as shown below:
Issue 8 - Fares expire without notice
Heuristic: Show Status
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Fares expire without countdown clock or notification
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This is especially likely during baggage fee calculation
Selecting areas for re-design
Looking at the 8 Heuristics issues above:
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those with a rating of "1 - Cosmetic Problem" weren't worthy of re-design
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the one "3 - Major Usability Problem" wouldn't be fixed through re-design--it was a technical error
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of remaining issues, I chose two that could be fixed by re-design + were part of the same flow:
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simplifying calculation of baggage fees
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adding a count-down clock before far expiration
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Re-design
Below is my re-design, featuring the improvements above:
CONCLUSION
Because this was a training exercise, there were no further steps.