Today I had to do my presentation. I was a little nervous but felt a lot more confident after my pitch for IXD302 went successfully.
Here’s the finished presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/162Se0g7PyzMz4T5mhihEUfYd8QPDJ7Gjdebbd9jOKPw/edit?usp=sharing
Kyle was happy with it and said that I’ve been keeping up well despite skipping into year two which was such a relief as I have been a little stressed about falling behind as I came onto the course a year late. It’s just motivated me to work harder next semester and learn to my full potential.
At the beginning of the course I was initially really overwhelmed as the first week was straight into assignments. I had never designed a website before so I was really intimidated but I was glad that it was included in a module as it is something that will benefit me outside the course, in terms of finding a job or placement for next year.
Using webflow was a struggle initially, but I think where I went wrong was that I went straight in trying to match my mockup rather than following a tutorial first. I ended up getting really stressed and frustrated that it wasn’t working so I decided to scrap it and start again from scratch once I watched a course on how to create a portfolio website. I think if I was to do another website I would definitely learn how to do things before going straight in, and break it up into smaller steps so it’s less confusing and overwhelming.
Overall I’m happy with how the website turned out. I think my favourite aspects of it are the visual style and font that I chose, as I wanted it to have a chic feel without feeling too decorative. I think the minimal colour palette works well as it lets my work shine through more which is what I wanted. In terms of things I want to change/add in the future, I’d like to make the ‘About Page’ a little more fleshed out with imagery and sections, maybe pictures of me doing work at a desk.
I found the Elements project so enjoyable. I was excited to start this project as I knew I would be able to use my creativity more. I missed creating illustrations so I wanted to try and incorporate this into the project.
I feel like the research I done really influenced my work and gave it more of a thought out design. This was probably the first time I designed something that had this much UX research. I initially struggled to create something for my target user, as with projects I had done in the past I was usually the target user so I knew what would work well. Whereas this time I didn’t really have a clue so the research was vital in creating a relevant design and positive UX experience for 10 year olds.
I think what I’d do differently with this project if I were to do it again would be to have a more detailed user flow before designing the prototype, as I feel like it changed a lot along the way as I was designing, which slowed me down a little. Overall though I’m really pleased with the app I created and I like how it looks visually. I’m very new to app design so I wasn’t great at transitions or animations but I feel like it was a promising start and I’m really excited to see how I improve in the future because I really enjoyed the entire UX process.
One thing I would love to do with this project is extensive user testing, as I unfortunately have no close family around the age of 10, and with Covid it was really difficult to find users. I think it would help me improve the app so much more.
All in all, I’ve learned a lot from this module and I’m feeling really motivated to put my all into next semester. Although there were some stressful times throughout the last few months, I’m hoping the hard work pays off.