13th May 2014

I just picked up The GOOD 100 issue. As I was flipping through it, I saw one page that stuck out (probably because of the sticker on it). It was about the Neighborhood Remarks, I have to say I love the idea behind this project.

The Designer Njoki Gitahi designed a set of simple stickers that allow people to interact with the changes happening in their neighborhood, and communicate their opinions.

Props to the designer and I plan on taking advantage of the sticker that came along with the GOOD magazine.

7th May 2014

Telling your story through case studies

This past week I attended a panel called What Makes a Great UX Portfolio Case Study. They went over past winners of the UX Awards and their case studies. Seeing how UX designers choose to tell their story for each project, helped me understand how different everyones approach to a solution is and their process when tackling a UX problem. Some choose to focus on showing user empathy, others focused on the process while some started off with the final product and then showed how they got to the solution with their process work.

In conclusion a UX portfolio is a story of how you think and come up with solutions to the problems you encounter. This can either be shown on a website or PDF, whatever platform you use make sure it helps you tell the story.

17th April 2014

How UX is Changing the Design World

I went to an event for General Assembly where Luke Miller @younglucas went over how psychology, technology and effective storytelling are all a part of UX design. He mentioned how video games encompass the visual, technical and interactive level of storytelling.

He briefly mentioned Monument Valley. I recently had stumbled upon it and found it visually interesting with an Escher influence to it. I began to see all of what he had talked about in the design of the game, the use of psychology, the amount of development that went into it and the story that made up the game.

He also mentioned how important it is to give your user feedback with the use of animation and copy. Capptivate.co has this nifty library with some of Monument Valley’s transitions.