My UX Enlightenment

This week's focus on typography was fascinating to me. I had studied very similar points in the past in my bachelor's, but in particular, our assignment gave me a powerful new insight into how motivating, for better or for worse, type can be. In designing my own type system, I had to think very consciously about why each font should be chosen. In what medium will this be used? What is the purpose of this specific font? How should the heading font function compared to the body copy font? In designing it, I discovered just how powerful type can be in drawing me in to a website or publication. It was amazing to me how quickly badly selected type renders an article devoid of credibility, frustrating to read, and in essence just a terrible mess to try to focus on. On the other hand, a cohesive type system very naturally draws you in, pulls you to the most significant details while easing your reading experience. Even in just looking at the dummy text example from our presentation, I...

This week was a focus on the design principles, and I was struck by how much of this is intuitive to the user. When we look at a bad website, we don't think, "That hierarchy is amazingly designed. The golden ratio is clearly what was used to create this logo." We don't understand, but our senses intuitively are drawn to those things that follow our design principles and reject those things that do not. In effect, the user has already assigned an evaluation to your product before using it. While using it may be enough to overcome a bad initial evaluation, it also may not be able to. I just find it fascinating how instinctual this study is, and how by perfecting what we do to improve the design, the more we tap in to that subconscious that is first deciding if we trust this website or product. When I have designed in the past, some has been based on actual rules, but some has just been me trying to judge what looks good versus what does not. By learning these principl...

I really enjoyed this week's readings and assignment. Specifically, I found myself very intrigued by the power of the old brain over our actions. The textbook talks earlier about how we are distinguished from other creatures by the development of the second system of our brain, moderated by logic and rational thinking. The book talks about how the second system is where our consciousness exists, and thus that system believes it is often in control. However, more likely than not, it is our system one, motivated by emotion, survival, or instinct, that is calling the shots. I was intrigued by that because we are so unaware of that happening. Specifically, I got to thinking how that affects users in UX Design. Most of us, when on a website or purchasing an item or using a product, feel we are acting completely logically and rationally because our consciousness recognizes that as its driving instinct. However, if our book is correct, then much of our decisions even then are motivated ...

More than anything, what stuck out this week was getting to our concepts into practice with our first critique and redesign assignment. To start, we broke down one small, small part of a website: a dialogue box. It was one very small aspect, and yet I was shocked by how much thought and strategy went in to planning just that dialogue box. Just at first glance, it seemed like the box was good enough. But user experience design is not about good enough. I found myself trying to analyze everything that a user could be thinking, feeling, or looking for when viewing that box. Not only was I able to completely reconfigure the dialogue box, I was able to include more information that the user may need. Obviously, it was far from a perfect redesign. But even just practicing gave me a new feeling of confidence and excitement in user experience design. I feel like I am that much more capable of being able to combine strategy and creativity into an excellent product. Just being able to jump in ...