IXD301 – Designing with content

Web design, Wireframing, Branding, User research, and much more.

Rapid7

What are they? A high tech security company

Headquarters – Boston

Belfast office

The Belfast headquarters is an innovation hub – named one of the leading places to work at.

Set up in 2014 with 1 employee, now they have over 300 employees.

The teams building owns all of the company flagship products.

They have an awesome reception, makers space and library, main café and a gaming space.

Placement program

  • Interns become valuable members of the team from day 1.
  • About 80% of the interns receive employment offers to return to work with them after graduation.
  • Around 150 interns have come through the process since it started in 2014.
  • Some of the initial interns are now Lead Engineers.

Jordan – previous intern

  • Started 7 years ago.
  • 9 Interns entered the office with a full time staff.
  • In the chaos he learned and became able to apply knowledge from university into his designs.
  • Has travelled all over – from being sent to courses, company kick off in Belfast or Boston.

Questions:

  1. What was your training before you went into Rapid7 Jordan? I’m just wondering if there’s a preference to what type of education background you’re coming from.   –  He went to Jordanstown not knowing real word experience. EAGERNESS is what they are looking for, don’t worry about feeling that you are not really. Prove that you are ready and willing to learn.
  2. Internships make a huge difference in building up your skill.
  3. Experience will not be a factor – they know we have just started to learn.
  4. There is room for transitioning between roles; even between different UX roles.

Opportunities available for me –> UX design & engineering and product management  5 going to UX design and 1 to product management

What to expect as an intern

  • Opportunity to work on real production code from the very start.
  • Formal training program to help you settle.
  • Learn lots of new technology.
  • Be treated as a regular team member.
  • Be assigned a mentor – guidance and assistance. Helps you learn at a pace that suits you best within the company.
  • We will give you an experience as valuable as possible, setting you up for a successful final year.
  • Offer to return as a graduate if you have been successful.

What do they expect from me?

  • Good attitude and aptitude.
  • Passion for learning technology.
  • Experience is not necessary they will provide us with the tools to learn and be successful.

Erin – previous intern (engineering)

  • She did not have the instill training interns get now.
  • Joined in 2016.
  • Only girl in the team – never felt like it though.
  • She was able to write code from the ground up and architecture information, take part in meetings.
  • Studied in Queens.
  • Questions were always welcomed.
  • Types of technologies she is using now – pretty much everything was new to her. Java, and really any new product or software that is relevant – you are constantly learning. Its a great way to mature in your career also.

Advice:

  1. Ask questions.
  2. Learn through your mentors.

Benefits

  • Attractive salary about £20000.
  • 24 days annual leave and bank/public holidays.
  • Private health, life and travel insurance.
  • Company pension plan with generous (7%) employer contribution.
  • Company shares plan at 15% discount.
  • Employee assistance program – mental health support.
  • When in the office, snacks and refreshments available.
  • Pool table, table tennis and board games available.
  • Regular office gatherings with breakfast, lunch or dinner provided. Monthly they do Belfast time hall to hear what everyone is working on and welcome new hires.
  • They have a speak easy pub in the office.

Next steps

  1. Apply!!!!!! closing date 29 October.
  2. Candidates will be contacted to schedule their own 15 minute pre screen interview with one of our engineering managers – COME PREPARED – big about CV, yourself, company and interest surrounding industry.
  3. If successful, you will be contracted regarding a technical interview. 90 mins – Check spam folder pls  These will happen in November. Puzzle you must solve with the team to see how you would work together.
  4. All interviews will take place via Zoom.
  5. the talent acquisition team will be in touch with applications outcomes and offers.

They have a take home challenge – get a design problem and solve it with wireframes and prototypes then get 15mins in the interview to explain it.

TIPS for the design challenge

  • Be prepared.
  • Do research, explore their products.
  • Avoid a vanilla CV.
  • What will make you stand out (in a good way).
  • Take your time with the design challenge. Don’t just show a polished design, show your thought process.

Final reflections

  • They will look to see when you join them what roles makes the most sense to your skills and designers and natural abilities – They will ensure you are doing the role that is best suited for you. Transition is an option.
  • Big JAVA house. C++ and Python.
  • For UX development they use HTML, SASS, react, vanilla ds.
  • UX design – figma, miro.
  • They are not super strict when it comes to time. As the norm expectation work from 10 – 4 or 9 -5. Really whatever works best, just use some sense and work in a productive way and in a time that works with your team.
  • Still working from home but they don’t know what will be happening next year.
  • Design challenges – hard design challenge of scale.

Rapid7 placement talk

Speaker: Mike

Date: 28/10/21

Who is Rapid7?

  • Service protection/security company.
  • Protection.
  • Prevention.
  • Security.
  • We are the force behind the people who protect you everyday – securing your connection online, making sure your connection, passwords and data is secure. They build this software.
  • We protect the tools that protect society: Cloud security, threat protection (Use AI to anticipate threats), Security automated, vulnerability management, application security, Incident detection and support —> could consider this a novel cause.
  • We are powering the cyber protectors.

Why does UX matter in Cyber security?

  • We are designing the critical experience for our users. It must be powerful, reliable and extensive. But they are nothing if they are not usable – they must be user friendly.

3000 staff across the UK, Japan, US, Amsterdam, etc.

Design system:

  1. Discovery:   Brief –> 5 whys (Is it inline with user wishes, is it technically feasible, do we have the people to do it?) –> Heuristic review –> feasibility review (talk to some engineers, product managers before suggesting it) –> Competitor review (Help or support pages are great to show how they explain their process) –>  Tooling (What tools will I use to achieve this? It’s about choosing the right tool to create prototypes easily to then present it to the team – what is the tool quit of my team?) –> User research (what are your users really saying? User centered) –> Analytics () –> Market landscape
  2. Design: Insights –> Design principles –> Design system integrations –> Brand experience –> Artefacts –> Exploration  –> Progress review –> Prototyping
  3. Build: Learn at least the basics of HTML and CSS and Java so you can have an educated talk with the developers.
  4. Test: Prototype –> Peer test –> User test –> Device test (Put your designs in as many devices as possible as they will look different depending on their settings) –> Quality assurance (Don’t mark your own homework – you are not impartial) –> Accessibility test (Make sure whatever you create is accessible) –> Performance test –> Benchmarking (against other experiences – eg how many clicks does it take? How quickly can a user get through it?) –> Done criteria (Are you ticking off the criteria boxes? Can we automate this? Is it successful? … Ask for the definition of what being ‘done’ will be for this project)

They work in an agile way (2 week cycle for UX design).

At the end of the design system something gets pushed live.

What they are looking for:

  • Think in a problem solving way.
  • Accessible designing.
  • Being a great UX practitioner also means being a great storyteller – Tell them a good story of how you reached your design.

Design in an art. UX is a science

  • UX process can be learned.
  • Design is products solving, creating something that is aesthetic and usable.
  • Learn by doing it, living it and practicing it. Get your hands dirty. Learn through doing.
  • Understanding the why and testing ideas.

What to say in interview:

  • Want to work for this company as I believe the work they do is a novel cause that protects those that protect us.
  • Talk about design systems – how UX and UI should be implemented across.
  • Waterfall vs Agile design system – Agile is better but research it and make a blog post.
  • Be ready to tell the story of your work.
  • Be ready to tell your story.
  • Help design the critical experience and empower the protectors.
  • They like slack as a social platform.

Application process dates and info

  • How long until we hear back: Couple of weeks – November 8th.
  • They review websites as soon as you submit it #screed.
  • Remote and onsite work.
  • It will be a 10 month long placement.

At the careers fair event I had a few 1 to 1s with some of the members of the Rapid7 team – what I was able to learn is that they are a great company, that would offer any placement student a nurturing place to learn and grow.

Here are the notes I took:

The winding road to design

Organized by Ladies that UX Belfast

Speakers

  • Rick Monroe
  • Conaill Hyndman
  • Anna Murray

New Ladies that UX leaders

  • Sam Nelson (design research lead at Deloitte Digital)
  • Rosie McKenzie (Service design consultant at EY Seren)
  • Eve McCann (Senior service design consultant at EY Seren)

I love solving problems for real people through my work.

Conaill Hyndman

  • How he became a developer to designer
  • UX/UI designer at Deloitte Digital
  • Joined as a front-end developer
  • 2 years as a developer
  • Always new he wanted to work on design – this was made apparent when he would work with designers
  • Fiona Sloan (UX lead at Deloitte digital) his sister – might be a good person to email asking for a job

Training:

  • Udemy courses on how to use Figma
  • Adobe Certified Associate in Photoshop 2017
  • UX/UI podcasts – Pablo Stanley
  • Accessibility – attended FE accessible courses

Learning on the job:

  • Trial and error
  • Allow for mistakes
  • Group design critiques
  • You will never be fully comfortable unless you get stuck in

Top tips:

  • No one starts out as an expert
  • Mistakes make a better designer
  • Make time to learn – do this before moving into the role
  • Ask questions, it’s never a silly one
  • Your pathway is your personal journey – always changing, always learning
  • Enjoy your experience

Rick Monroe

Connecting the dots

  • Use your experience to react better to situations

Career

  • started off as a graphic designer – he was focused on style
  • Then became an interaction designer where he started working trying to create engagement and interactions
  • Got involved with UX – He started designing as an investment. He found his value. Started seeing his work as delivering values
  • Where he is heading – wants to deliver impactful outcomes.

The roles he has had since graduating did not exist when he first graduated, the industry grew and changed and he developed and adapted with it to change where he was an to become something different

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future” – Steve Jobs

Book recommendations:

  • Managing oneself – Peter F. Drucker

Success … comes to those who know themselves – Peter Drucker

This is how you learn, work with others, what your values are, how you work with others and your contributions. Self-awareness – learning as well as learning about yourself never stops. You can’t have self awareness without self reflection

  • The humble designer written by Rick Monroe – blog post
  • Quiet by Susan Cain – The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking

Introverts have more empathy …

“An introvert is not a failed extrovert” – Susan Meindl

You are not a failed version of something else. Think long-term

Insert r4 image here

It is important to be kind to those (even yourself) who have not yet learned or experienced as much as others. Practice humility and self awareness and recognize when you are at the top of your game. Never be afraid ro ask for help and learn from people who have made it to the top.

“It’s all experience, son.” – Rick Monroe’s dad

Anna Murray

  • Works at EY Seren’s service design practice
  • Learning design on the job
  • Do not compare yourself to others
  • Asking for advice is a strenght not a weakness
  • Having different backgrounds in the room other than a pure design background always bring a wealth of value.
  • Testing and iterating is part of the process – we expect our product or service we are designing to need several iterations before it’s right (and even after that it’s a continuous work in progress) so we should look at our own journey like that too and be willing to test things out and have patience with the process.
  • A ‘typical’ designer does not exists!
  • “User need Enthusiast”
  • Celebrate and promote diversity of thought
  • Encourage others and ourselves to share our knowledge gaps
  • Actually be more comfortable with ‘failing fast’ or ‘failing at all’
  • Challenge the inclusivity and accessibility of design
  • Variety in experience and diversity of thought shouldn’t be limited to your CV, I also believe it’s life experiences, personal opinions, thoughts etc.

Things MT liked

  • Being able to pivot and transition
  • Willing to go away and learn
  • “User need Enthusiast”

Reflection

Because of this talk I now understand more about the importance of design accessibility and how I should consider this at all times when designing. Even small things like colour contrast, typography, alternative text for images are so very important to ensure everyone can enjoy and see the content as best as possible.

FinTrU

UX placement opportunities 2022 – 2023

Speaker: Damon Rodgers (UX designer)

Who will be conducting the interviews?

Andrew Rossborogh (Lead UX/UI designer)  he will interview for the role; he is a good mentor and was in Kyles university class.

What does he want to see?

Research –> Analyze (crazy 8s) –> Design –> Prototype –> deliver, test and reflect.

Who is FinTrU

  • Finance and security.
  • creating solutions for Investment banks that will be used throughout the world.
  • employer and company of the year.
  • Mental health support.
  • Hybrid working.
  • Coffee bar.

What we get

  • How to combine UX thinking with design execution.
  • Planning and running user tests.
  • Designing and prototyping elegant solutions for complex problems.
  • Supported by an assigned mentor.
  • Employee assisted program – they will fund you to study after degree.
  • Performance related rewards.
  • Training and development.
  • Competitive salary.
  • 23 days and 10 bank holidays off.
  • Can skip 1st year graduate program.
  • Comprehensive health and wellbeing strategy.

Placement students

  • Patrick Boutilier

Who are they looking for?

  • User research (survey, interview and usability testing).
  • Passion for quality.
  • Prioritize and plan your work.
  • Attention to detail.
  • Figma.

Portfolio

  • Examples of work including screen designs/prototypes.
  • How you can frame the problem you were trying to solve – research.
  • The process – decision making.
  • Ability to talk through your portfolio with confidence.
  • Ability to reflect on what you learned and how you grew.

How to apply:

Go to FinTrU website and apply there – apply to portal – then they select who they interview – then look at portfolio.

Interview question

  • Can you tell us your UX process relating back to your portfolio.

I also attended a career talk given by FinTrU; here are the notes I made:

Instil

Speaker: Jason from Instil is the head of design at Instil.

Lessons he wishes he knew at the start of his career:

  • Play exploding kittens they do it – Good team building exercise, it would also be a talking point for an interview.
  • Think of your career like a game.
  • Don’t be a control freak.
  • Being a designer is about convincing the people in the room that your ideas and concepts are the right one.
  • Everything is a remix (Talk by Kirby Ferguson) talks of imposter syndrome and inspiring yourself constantly. We put pressure on ourselves to design in a vacuum when in reality this does not tend to work. Gather inspiration from every aspect of life and bring it into your designs. Ample ( has an inspirational blog), it’s about documenting your inspiration. Hot potato by Brad and Dan Frost is another great blog for inspiration.
  • Have a creative outlet – a project that you are passionate about outside your 9 -5. Think of how you get sick of the food in the place you work at. You need to mix things up. Jason’s creative outlet is his blog fathers father.
  • Your career development is a game, so have fun.
  • You will not be able to control everything if you can’t control it – move on, don’t sweat it.
  • Leveling up – know your worth.
  • Cheat codes – you do, you. Look up other designers work and get inspired. Steal my dear. Work in whatever way works best for you.  Don’t take your feedback so personally, find people in your life that understand good design and that will tell you if your design is rubbish when it is.

Instil the company

  • 16 yrs old.
  • They are a holistic product based company.
  • They have a design team of 2 and external help.
  • Consultancy – get to work with clients in a long term basis eg 2yrs.
  • Room for moving and improving different skills eg UX and also improving UI.
  • Website is a work in progress engineering one not a design one.

IDEA: design a few ideas for new ideas for their website for their interview.

Placement

  • Split time with marketing and project work – agency and product experience.
  • Small company.
  • Paid placement.
  • Can be offered a job before leaving placement year, if get a 1st honors then get £5000 bonus when starting.

Soft skills they like

  • Empathy
  • Shared interests
  • Think big picture
  • Being able to articulate design as you will be in a room full of engineers – you need to make them understand why your idea is the best for meeting their needs.
  • The blogs will be seen as part of your written communication skills as the case study area in your portfolio is only a snapshot of your work.
  • Why is design necessary? think of building a house but not involving an architect – it simply would not work.
  • Read tragic design – this book has some great insight for inexperienced designers.
  • jasonk@instil.com is his email – they are happy for us to reach out to them and have an informal chat about the company.

How to design for everyone

Hosted by: UX Belfast (online).

Guest speakers: Regine Gilbert and MT McCann.

Topic: Universal and inclusive design.

What is the difference between accessibility and inclusion?

“Accessible design focuses on the outcome or end result of a design project. … Inclusive design is closely related to accessibility, but rather than an outcome, it’s a methodology for how to approach design. It’s a process for creating a design that can be used by a diverse group of people ” – Cameron Chapman.

Intercultural communication

This is a discipline that studies communications across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. This is something we must think of as we are now dealing in a global scale as designers.

Culture and language

  1. Identity management: This is the way individuals make sense of their multiple images concerning the sense of self in different social contexts.
  2. Culture: This is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities and habits of individuals in these groups.
  3. Self reflexivity: This is a process of learning to understand oneself and one’s position in society.
  4. Learning about others: The study of culture is the study of people. Be user centered.

Discussion questions

How do electronic means of communication (e-mail, internet, social media, etc.) differ from face-to-face interactions?

  • No body language
  • Less cues
  • Easier to be distracted
  • Misunderstanding
  • Tone of voice
  • We can communicate without actually talking
  • People are less inclined to step up

How do these communication technologies work?

  • Some cultures send emails in a very brief and to the point others more formal and detailed.
  • Harder to be more nuanced.
  • We should try to suppress cultural norms as we don’t know hoe they will be perceived.

Universal design

Coined by Ronald Mace and a team of architects, product designers and engineers in the 90’s. Originally designed for buildings but is now applicable to the web.

Seven principles of universal design:

  • Equitable use color contrast.
  • Colour contrast is the number 1 problem in the web and its something that we as designers have total control over – be mindful!
  • Flexibility in use – basically a way the user can expand or find what they are looking for and allow them to focus in a specific area. This is our job as designers. WTF = What is the focus.
  • Tolerance for error – allowing users to undo and redo. We don’t want to let users get stuck.
  • Low physical effort- think forms and how tedious they can be. Make forms that don’t require more information than is needed.
  • Size and space for approach and use – think of all your possible users, they could be anybody.

Temporary, situational, permanent disabilities – you need to consider all of these.

Web accessibility

Why is it needed? To ensure that users with disabilities can view the material like everyone else. It’s basically a basic right in our day and age.

Tools and preferences:

  • Assistive technology: these are software and hardware that people with understanding and viewing information.
  • Adaptive strategies: techniques that people with disabilities use to better access digital information.

Think about who is viewing or using what you create: think of ability, age, gender, ethnicity, etc…

The problem with the slide is that the contrast is too low, many people may not be able to even see it! what even?! The text is very hard to read due to the low contrast and therefore it is not accessible.

Good accessibilities practices

  • Left align text
  • Avoiding using all caps
  • Adding alternative text
  • Incorporation of inclusion and accessibility from the start of your project.
  • Get to know who you are designing for.

Who is accessible design for?

Do not think that thoughtful design is just for the elderly, or the sick, or the disabled, it is for everyone – think of for example of people who are less educated.

It is good to try and keep things as simple as possible, don’t use language that is too specific with your field of work. Keep things as simple as you can, so everyone can understand.

Thomas Logan (started equal entry and a11y design meetup and accessibility meetup in New York) He  helped designers gain a better understanding of the issues faced by people with disabilities.

America on tech is an organization that helps black and brown youths learn technological skills and gain internships whilst at highschool.

UX Belfast ESO

speaker: MT McCann

How and why she is putting a large emphasis in putting accessibility into eso

Their mission is to make a difference – to improve community health and safety through the power of data.

Ted Lasso is an inspiration for MT.

“Life might not be fair, but that doesn’t give you any excuse not to be.” – Elizabeth Jackson

We as digital technologist have a very serious responsibility to make the web accessible to everyone; don’t contribute to making anyone making feel left out.

The main focus of the design team at ESO is the humans that use the software (user centered).

The design is large and clear so that it is easy to tap with gloves in the field, moving ambulance. The interface is clear and easy to analyze.

Disabilities can be

  • Permanent: Colour blindness (This is particularly important for eso), hard of hearing, hurt in the course of their job. if the software can not function for people with permanent disabilities then they could loose their job.
  • Situational: Bumpy ride, lights on, sunny day reflecting off the screen.
  • Temporary: Required to retain a lot of information whilst in a tense situation is incredibly difficult so the software has to be appropriate to the situation the user is in.
  • Designing for our future selves: Our abilities naturally deteriorate as we get older.

Who’s job is it? – Everyone’s!

We NEED to create a culture of accessibility across the web to make sure everyone who works on, delivers or supports the services and products is part of the strategy.

Design system

Three specific motivations for upgrading to an accessible design system, now:

  • Efficiency
  • Onboarding
  • Scale

ESO Accessibility strategy

  • Design team training.
  • Make our design system accessible.
  • Implementation of inclusive designs (new documentation and annotation artefacts).
  • Run internal education accessibility sessions (Cover SDLC areas).
  • Encourage wider software development team training.
  • Create an internal champions team which has a wide variety of people from across the organization who are in the know.
  • Have a tactical and strategic plan of which products to tackle first and how deep to go
  • Hiring for accessibility skills.
  • Get marketing teams on board, ensuring our materials are designed with accessibility in mind.
  • Review our response in tenders.
  • Training and implementation teams and materials (Help content).
  • Support teams ~tag with accessibility issues.
  • Due diligence with 3rd party software purchased (WalkMe).
  • Inclusive design research methodologies and planning and recruitment of people with disabilities.
  • Reporting and governance eg. Accessibility issues found over time, hires with accessibility skills, internal sessions held.

Tips to get started

  • Get training so you can internally educate confidence.
  • Big orgs move like supper tankers not speedboats, focus on small wins.
  • Convey the risk you can carry to your legal team by being inaccessible.
  • Get senior support as aircover.
  • Run internal sessions early to convey the benefits and build internal advocates.
  • Push to get accessibility skills added to your hiring specs.
  • Start crafting your wider strategy.
  • Keep fighting the good fight.

Great ways to learn and get certified:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” – Maya Angelou

Becoming an interview pro

My current attitude to interviews is mainly nervousness and fear of not being fully prepared. This is something I am working on fixing.

I believe that attitude can play a big part of how good a first impression you give an employer so I would like to go from looking like the guy (Jim for the Office fans) above to being excited and happy to have an interview and maybe even approach it as a learning opportunity weather I am successful with the application or not.

As part of my placement research and preparation for future interviews I decided to attend this talk to help me improve my skills to hopefully help me land my dream placement position when the time comes.

Speaker: Eilis Spence, Employability advisor

 – 

Link to the recorded talk can be found here.

In this session I was given top tips to help me prepare for interviews, learn about the type of questions to expect at interviews and how best to answer them. I noted down some of the things that I felt might come in useful later on. This talk helped me understand the different types of interviews, how to use the STAR technique and offered me some ideas on how to better prepare for an interview. I have outlined some of this information bellow:

Things to consider

  • What technical skills/qualifications have been asked for?
  • What transferable skills/competencies were mentioned?
  • How might these be assessed

Questions to ask the interviewer:

Always have a couple planned!

  • The organization – what are the likely future developments
  • The work and training

Things I should do to be best prepared for:

Before the interview

  • Find out as much as you can about the type of interview you will be having
  • Find out who will be interviewing you
  • Learn about the company
  • Prepare answers to possible questions
  • What areas do they value the most?

On the day

  • Show confidence – consider your body language
  • Keep good eye contact and smile!
  • Listen to the questions and think before you answer (provide)
  • Be positive
  • Remember to be articulate

Online interviews

  • Make sure you know if it is live or pre-recorded
  • Choose a suitable location
  • Make sure there are no distractions
  • Become familiar with the software
  • Prepare using an interview simulator like:  Interview 360 tool in Aventegro

I think that overall attending this talk was a great way to start my research journey as it gave me a starting point and some insight. Some of the things I would like to do is research and maybe come up with some more possible interview questions more specific to my degree. I would also like to do some mock interviews maybe with my classmates, tutors or even some of the careers advisors at the careers university service. I am less nervous about the many interviews I will hopefully be invited to and the prospect of having to explain my strengths and weaknesses. I would like to keep researching and learning as I think it will help me success.

Portfolio

It is easy to get lost in the infinite sea of information so I decided to make this a little easier to view by listing all my research blog post links and other relevant links here to keep things nice and tidy. I will also be organizing it by week.

Here is to hoping it works out!

Project 01 brief – Portfolio

Portfolio site and content strategy. Your Instagram, LinkedIn, Slack must be active and functional and professional ASAP – they should all match, think brand recognition.

This year I will need to create a new portfolio site. The portfolio should be simple and functional. A bit part of developing my website will be focused on research and learning from other more experienced designers.

emilyussher.com

Portfolio part 1

Week 01 – research conducted between 23/09/21  to  30/09/21

Portfolio part 2

Week 02 – research conducted between 30/09/21  to  07/10/21

Portfolio part 3

Week 03 – research conducted between 07/10/21 to 14/10/21

Portfolio part 4

Week 04 – research conducted between 14/10/21 to 21/10/21

Portfolio part 5

Week 05 – research conducted between 21/10/21 to 28/10/21

Something that really stuck out to me during this process is that feedback is gold, accessibility is a must, starting on paper is necessary and that a website is never fully finished and perfect and while my current website serves my current needs (showcasing my work for employers offering placement) it will have to grow with me as I grow as a designer. I have made small but good changes since having blogged my process. My website is changing along with me.

Puppet

An introduction to Puppet

Rick Monroe @monro

Now working at Contrast security

Who is Rick Monroe?

  • Started working at Tibus (one of the first 2 web developer agencies in NI) now a network organisation. They morphed into Zesty – They work on websites and apps. It is a fast-paced agency. Monroe introduced the UX design idea to this agency. Agencies make their money by doing as much work as possible as fast as possible.
  • Then went to FATHOM a dedicated UX agency. Top 3 UX agency in NI. They built up a client base by consulting with them on usability.
  • Whilst at FATHOM he worked at an app called MyWallST he worked around 3-4 times with them as they would run out of money and he was just part of an agency. They then won the award for the Irish startups. But while working at an agency its very short term, you don’t stay with a team.
  • Puppet – a US company starting an agency in Belfast. He started of as a UX engineer. Puppet users can interact with code in either a code-based system or a design based system. They have worked with Intel, Nasa (their system is used in space), Cern, SONY, Apple, Disney (Puppet facilitated the management and success of Disney+, it allowed the streaming quality and demand to be appropriately supplied.)
  • Contrast: US form in Belfast – no placements atm. Creates self-protected software. Cybersecurity is the start of a hige wave, there is tons of money in it atm

Don Normal – the design of everyday things book. First person to have the UX job title at Apple. Living with complexity – book of his.

“Every application has a level of complexity that simply cannot be removed.”

 

What are companies looking for in students?

  • Go to the companies website and watch a summary video on their website to try and start learning the problems the company solves.
  • They are just trying to make/design tools that will make peoples lie/work easier. In the world of cyber security that is.

Placements:

  • Rapid7 is a big organisation that will take a large amount of students
  • Go to their website, understand what the industry is about and from there understand which company you want to learn from
  • Big motive – invented NI covid app.
  • Some companies may have a too structured
  • Go in armed with questions into an interview – ask what design probrems the organisation solves? Can you show me a product you have worked on and any improvements you have made? Do you have a plan in place for interns? What will I be doing? Who will I met and can I meet them? How much exposure will I get from different areas of work? What does a year look like for placement students?
  • Work I need to show – Don’t think quantity. Talk about your process. State very clearly what kind of problem you were trying to solve with your work. Don’t be afraid to show them the roughest of work if it aided you work. The elements of user experience – BOOK – talks of how you think through the layers and how you talk about it to show you knowledge and process. Do not focus on the UI and the pretty parts of it, focus on the nitty gritty.
  • Don’t be blinded by perks in company open days, focus on development and opportunities. Don’t jump at the first option, compare and contrast.
  • Rapid7 is super strict, rigid and organised, an agency is more disorganised and wild west if you will.
  • Still show branding even if you want to work in UX as its still problem solving and a way of communicating. Talk of improvement and constant iterations

Design should solve problems

UX Belfast – LOOK up – 18/10/21 online 6pm register at uxbelfast.org

IXD301 – Critique and elements overview

As designers we have to understand problems so we can try to solve them.

The brief: to design and create a digital product to explain the elements from the periodic table. the content is scientific to be used in the scientific profession. Nevertheless what about children or undergraduate students. Is the content aiding or confusing their understanding …

this project will ask you to look at the content of the periodic table from the micro packets of information in each cell.

In some type of device … but which? This is your choice eg TV, VR, Tablet, phone, smartphone.

Eg kids expect things to be touchscreen and they work best with iPads.

Do a competitor analysis, look at other apps that do similar things and do user stories and jobs to better understand your audience.

Think outside the box – is it a VR experience you  can walk into.

Project requirements:

  1. A branded homepage containing your version of the periodic table
  2. At least 5 additional elements pages aimed at 10 year old audience and bellow OR
  3. At least 5 elements pages aimed at undergraduate chemistry student
  4. A style guide, visual grammar and brand

To proceed:

  1. Design first
  2. Start on paper
  3. sketch/figma/Invision
  4. Final product Adove XD/Figma/Invision
  5. Also consider the visual grammar …

Think typical UX workflow

  1. discover
  2. plan
  3. text design
  4. sketch
  5. visual design
  6. prototype/build
  7. test
  8. discuss
  9. deliver but keep learning

Previous students

  • Antechamber – he created a website for this also. He interviewed undergraduate chemistry students. Visually very interesting. Visually very strong but kept it safe
  • Dan Gold – impressive from coding point of view. Visually nice and technically proficient. He focused on undergraduate students
  • Sarah Couples – Deadly elements. Used Beano style. For kids. Showed how elements are created and broke down the science of it. Showed how they could be combines to create an element. Looked at elements that could kill DR Bob – the avatar – and added the info next to the illustration.
  • Science lab The element. used nice call to action (Lets learn). For children.
  • Hope McCilroy – 118 elements street. Made it as a house. You can navigate through the house and can find diff things that represent elements in the periodic table. Science discover. Kids had to search and find things. Very nice and interactive. Looked at the products first then matched the elements to them.
  • Jemma Ferguson – Metal monster.
  • Detective Dimitri – Alex McCormick. She took a very different and cool approach. No mention of the periodic table yet subtle hints.
  • Scott McKee – undergraduate VR project were you could take a picture of anything in real life and it would tell you what it is made of.

Things to consider

  • Group
  • appearance
  • uses
  • Discover date
  • Discovered by

Why it is important to think of the audience:

  • managing disparate range of content
  • Organizing content into logical structure
  • Presenting content coherently
  • target content to specific audiences

Taxonomies

A method for groping and organizing content.

eg Tiny books website

You must organize your content!!! both for this and for your portfolio website.

Ideas:

  • interview students eg undergraduate
  • questioners
  • Make it a trip around a chemistry lab

Thunder struck

I know but I simply had to 😀

So this week we had an awesome placement talk by Tim Potter who started Little Thunder an awesome design company that I would love to work for. I took a few notes on the company bellow that might come in handy once I apply.

Speaker: Tim Potter (previous IXD tutor and founder of the course) Started in 2013 at Little Thunder.

Director of Little Thunder

  • Him and Gave started the company – they studied with Kyle and then started teaching at Ulster.
  • Dan Gold previous intern now working full time (graduated last year).

Who they work with/skills

  • Content creators, animators, etc…
  • Clients they work with (mostly outside NI) EA, Visa, AON, Adobe, Ulster university, Instil, Department of Justice.
  • Working outside of NI ironically so became easier to do with the pandemic and more online talking.

Problem solving first, design later

This is their ethos – follow this to better fit for their jobs.

  1. user research.
  2. prototyping.
  3. user experience.
  4. visual design and front end.

They integrate their design team into other companies – they are a contractor company but they become part of the companies team whilst working on a project with them. Facilitate digital product design for other companies.

It is not a waterfall methodology as this creates a real lack of consistency. They are involved in the work even after they hand in their work.

Case study

EA – How they designed an app to help EA grow their 16000 + employee base.

  • The problem – Recruitment at EA was a very manual process arranged via email with participants – there was no standardized global approach.
  • The solution: Standardized and centralized solution, prepare participants before hand leading to more successful candidates, ability to notify and push updates to a participant in real time eg if running late.
  • Their role: UX, UI, art direction.
  • User flows: mapping at a system level. They now use FigJam (learn how to use).
  • Prototyping and wireframing: low fidelity and then move to high fidelity – they use Invision for prototyping.
  • Post support: ongoing support during and after development and user acceptance testing.

Other projects

  • They work primarily with product design.
  • heavy data and information based jobs – eg ORCA (Aimed at people in mid 50’s).
  • Current project – Bludot.
  • Kairos.
  • EA FIFA – give users ability to see connectivity problems. QR code that can scan within game that can take you to this data site they created.
  • Answers.ie.com they created the badges for the EA support parts – they build a visual identity.

New project just launched:

  • The EA creator platform.
  • New initiative to reach out to content creators that focus on gaming with a certain number of follower base to receive perks. Pushing it past only Youtubers.

How did they manage to work with one of the largest gaming companies? It all started with a book of a cat.

  • They got a local illustrator to illustrate the children’s book – They invested so much that they did not take any salary for many months. The stories were written by Tims dad – name of the book (Chalky and the new sports car)

They met with Dan Womsley after a conference – they had earlier on demond at a makers fair and it grabbed Dans (Worked at NESTLEY then moved to EA) attention – he remembered them from that conference and suggested they get hired. NETWORKING works.

They still work with kids content – especially kids educational content.

FOOTI

  • Website that caters to football fans needs.
  • They created it during lockdown when clients pulled works and they were left with no work to be done for like 3 months.
  • The most environmentally conscious football website in the world.
  • They REALLY care about the environment – eg hosting companies: and the energy cost related to them so CDN’s – Server-less technology however makes it hard to get things in real life – eg live stats.
  • They have also looked at how they can use AI to simplify customer support – worked on this for 9 months. Intercom beat them to it though. Little Thunders program never got off the ground.

Previous intern – Andy

  • He was interested in Illustration and design and then learned how to animate with them

Things they like us to know

  • Figma
  • FigJam
  • Invision
  • Animations to inform project walkthroughs.
  • They are very environmentally conscious (Be aware of the real time carbon cost of your designs).
  • Challenge yourself, do something that makes you happy.
  • Be passionate about your work.
  • Being able to make friends and start from scratch with many people – relationships first and foremost.

Work with them in 2022

  • Paid placement.
  • They don’t have a job description.
  • Their needs: design front end, social media understanding, content writer, researcher, illustration, animation.
  • Anything that you think is interesting as a side project bring it in – do something that excites you and interest you.
  • If anyone is interested send you online portfolio  (No CVs please) showcasing your work to info@littlethunder.co.
  • Studio in Riverhouse moved in 2019 – they use slack for communicating, Figma for designing and zoom for conferences. They have given up their offices and are now 100% from home.
  • Hi Tim for the email – he will read it.