Describe
Unconsciously, lived in Southampton for more than a month. Don’t want to let the day pass so fast, can not let oneself live too comfortably. In fact, due to my lack of knowledge of interaction design and theoretical knowledge, it is really difficult to attend lectures and do projects. Therefore, I often discuss with my classmates the views raised in class and the progress of the current project. Through some books and videos on interaction design, I have gained a deeper understanding of this discipline: interaction design is to make the realization form of products close to the psychological form of users so that users can efficiently complete their operational goals.
In retrospect, I have done four small projects in just two months since the beginning of the semester. When I saw interesting buildings and beautiful things in my spare time, I would record them with Sketchbook and post them on the social platform to reflect on my works through everyone’s comments. I have tried various styles in these projects and sketches, trying to find out the theme I want to spend time on and the design style I like.
The first two projects are fixed themes: the first project is about our map, mainly by summarizing the information about ourselves to integrate them into a picture, which examines our comprehensive ability of graphic design and reviews our experience; The second project is a study on local user groups. I chose to conduct a user survey on community garbage classification. Through the class, I learned how to research the target population of my products and the methods of research, such as visiting, observing a specific population in a fixed place, and questionnaire survey. In this project, I learned how to make a persona, empathy map, and storyboard to carry out user modeling; The other two projects are self-selected from three known user groups and a knowledge-spreading website about sexual minorities: In the third project, I selected one group from the three fixed groups for the user survey in the second project, and then made the wireframe and low-fidelity model of the product according to the survey results. Here I learned how to make the sketch frame of an app and how to make a paper model. The last item from four to choose a topic, because I at ordinary times for the relationship between person and person has more profound thinking, so I chose the theme of equality, and according to the previous three projects for the repeat user research, according to the results to make a preliminary project model, to finally make a piece of knowledge about sexual minority high fidelity web page to work. Through the two-month study and the smooth progress of the project, I have been observing and testing the target users for a long time, which makes me more interested in “people”. I am no longer limited to expressing my creative ideas but want to make interactive products that can be understood and used by everyone.
In addition to the project, the teacher also provided a lot of rich websites, articles, and video resources to help us learn. For the feedback of this part, I submitted 10 blogs. I have learned how to understand design, how to get creative inspiration, and how to make better design work, which is also a great help for my project production.
Interpret
In the first semester, I learned a lot of knowledge that I had never been exposed to before. Because I prefer graphic design in my college life, and I may be more inclined to the expression of the personal design concept, what I felt most after I came to graduate school for two months was that interaction is a humanities subject. (Empathy and user experience – Empathy in UX Design Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com, 2021)
As the name implies, the concept of interaction is the transmission and intercommunication of information. It is not only the interaction between people but also the interaction between people and machines. My understanding is that people communicate, connect and pass information through interaction, and even help each other and grow together. And between man and the machine, people create machines through science and technology, use machines through technology, upgrade machines through design, and machines also serve people better in the process of being invented, used, and innovated. The interaction between people and humans and machines can create an environment of mutual help and harmonious co-existence. This is my new understanding of interaction. I will continue to explore this aspect in my future study and become a more comprehensive designer. In the process of design, I also learned that design is an iterative process, in which we should make an overall plan and carry out design and creation according to the conditions collected from multiple aspects. This is not in my previous learning experience. I have found that the improvement and perfection of excellent design work are greatly improved by the feedback from users. Designers are no doubt creators, but users are the benchmark to test the design. Only after the work is constantly polished by feedback can it become more excellent.
Evaluate
In my learning and creation process, I think the most inspiring stage for me is the stage of user research. Take my second project as an example, my target group is people who throw garbage regularly and at fixed points in the community. In order to achieve a better research effect, I would go to the garbage dumping station of the community every day to observe all kinds of people, analyze their backgrounds and behaviors, and then summarize them according to a large amount of data and information I collected. This was an experience I had never thought of or experienced before. For me, this experience was fresh but also very energy-consuming. It made me understand how much research work is required in the early stage to make an interaction design product, and it also made me deeply realize the importance of users. Before doing this kind of research, I also made some predictions about my target user groups. However, when I went deep into my life, I found that the final results were not quite the same as my predictions, and these deviations were the major reasons that determined my design direction. The reason for thinking about this question is that I am wondering whether I failed to go deep enough to visit the users of the design in real life during the design process. Besides this, I have overlooked any key factors, which is beneficial to me, because my design works need to be improved and evaluated by it.
Secondly, I had the experience of making paper models. In the beginning, I felt that making paper models was very complicated and a little redundant, because logic combing and mind mapping had been completed on the computer, and paper models seemed to just repeat the work on the computer. But when I use sketchbook started sketching and producing I found there is some discrepancy, and I think the same way as a user survey, through the experience I have found only every design process understanding and perception to make good films, because can be found through the process of making and practice a lot before didn’t pay attention to details.
Plan
The above is just my deepest experience. In addition, I also learned a lot of theoretical knowledge and improved my practical ability. I felt the dialectical thinking in the past study content of charm, realized from the numerous inspiration through HMW select correct and suitable for their own inspiration, in the face of the new social development trend of the designer has the ability to think, how about a design how to assess whether it is good, and I can to inspire my own design work, and so on. This has laid a solid foundation for my study in the second semester. At least, I have a framework for the study of interaction design, and I will no longer feel confused when facing difficulties. When I am doing projects, I will face up to the difficulties and challenges with a more objective attitude and actively seek solutions. I believe that in my future career, I will be able to face problems, big and small, more easily. I know that design is a process of making, feedback, and re-making, and I will use the 5Cs to think and solve them. In life, I have also strengthened my goals and ideals. It is hard to coordinate the process of study and life, but I believe that as long as I apply the knowledge I have learned to the corners of life, my life will also change a lot. I sincerely look forward to it.
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Reference:
LinkedIn. 2021. Empathy and user experience – Empathy in UX Design Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com. [online] Available at: <https://www.linkedin.com/learning/empathy-in-ux-design/empathy-and-user-experience?u=35146660> [Accessed 16 May 2021].