Mohamad S.

Hi!  

Can you believe it's been 8 weeks since we started the bootcamp?

We have begun our journey as UX designers. For many of us, it's the first time working on a UX project that has the potential to make it out into the real world. This represents an opportunity but also a great challenge.

It's challenging because lots of people, like some of our clients, don't know how to see the value that our work can provide. They see the term design and automatically think that all we do is make things look pretty. In truth, what we do is so much more because we create balance between user needs and business goals.

In our case, working with a start up that's in it's initial stage at an incubator, our obligation as students is to follow the user centered design process. Not to bring comfort to the client by telling them that their solution is perfect. Maybe it is and I wish them the best of luck but our responsibility lies with the users. In the end, if our design decisions are not ideal for the client, they are free to do whatever they want with the valuable information we give them.

The good news is that this project is proving to be quite the learning experience because I know that this type of thing happens continuously to UX designers. Be it as a freelancer or working in a big company we will have to build thick skin to constantly push the value of our process. We also have to develop resilience and better strategies to handle solution oriented characters.  

Patience and a whole lot of emotional intelligence is required when you find yourself having to persuade or headbutt with a client because the research findings you present don't match with their idea of the perfect solution.

In time and with practice I hope to learn how to effectively incept the idea that success is built around a process that focuses on user needs and not narrow assumptions.

Anywhere this road takes us, by the end of the week we’ll be proud of what we accomplished. 

To all you Ironhack bootcampers,

Mad respect. The amount of energy and effort you have to put in to meet timeline expectations is outstanding. Last week I slept an average of 4 hours per night and still feel like I came up short.

After many hours of working on researching and gathering insights to discover the direction of this project, I settled on the idea of helping organizations create an onboarding experience that focuses on building community.

The findings demonstrated how valuable it is for new hires to connect with their peers and how this human approach helps improve employee retention rates. So I set out to translate these insights into a working digital product. I aimed to make it aesthetically pleasing but the outcome was far from it. Testing thought me how my initial prototypes lacked beautifulness but even worse that the flow wasn't working well.

This took me to iterate and use precious time to improve the prototype before focusing on completing any sort of presentation. I've got to say that CRITS and the midweek presentation stressed the s#!+ out of me but also helped me keep myself bound to the timeline.

In the end what I enjoyed the most was actually presenting my design decisions to Nevan and Eduardo (UXer for Badi) because it felt like real work life situations. They gave me critical but very valuable feedback to keep growing as a designer.

Final outcome:

There has been a mix of frustrations that turned into learnings in this project and I'm sure they will help me down the line. These frustrations came in the form of noticing how far I've come but also how far I have to go to become proficient in visual design (VD). This is a learning in itself because it gives me awareness of my capabilities in this point of time. 7 weeks ago I knew nothing about VD and now I can deliver functional prototypes that are presented in a coherent manner.

I also want to congratulate my friends and colleagues because the amount of work shown by all of us has been impressive. I got to see some of your projects and was amazed by the creativity and variaty of design concepts.

To those of you who helped me and are reading this long post, thank you :)

Hi there!

Let me tell you about my 6th week doing the UX/UI Bootcamp at Ironhack.

It’s amazing to see how far we have all come along. In just a month and half our entire cohort has improved in many aspects of the User Centered Design process. The progress has been gradual, week in and week out projects would get more demanding. The same is true for our current project where we are tasked with developing and onboarding web app.

During the week all the usual happened like morning routines, project workshop time slots, coding practice and visual design labs. I missed a few of my colleagues book reports because of the project but luckily they are all recorded so I can watch them at another time. Besides all the usual we got the chance to return the favor to our Web Development colleagues by helping them out with usability and user flow related issues for their current projects. We also attended the Data presentations which were quite interesting and a great chance to do some networking.

Now project wise, there are many elements to consider throughout the journey  and we were given 2 weeks to complete it.  So this past week has been all about: 

- Research

Schedule and conduct interviews and contextual inquiries with users of interest. Do desktop research to learn about onboarding processes (best practices & what not to do) while also analysing competitors such as Personio, Factorial, Moodle & Kissflow. Afterwords I set out to gather and analyse all the information to define a problem to address within the scope of what all stakeholders (management, HR representatives and employees) go through when onboarding takes place.

-  Design

Ideate potential solutions by brainstorming and sketching paper prototypes to see what sort of features could help users complete their tasks while keeping track of their progress. Card sorting was also done to create a sequential user flow that would allow employees to adapt to their work space in a timely manner while providing a sense of accomplishment. 

During the weekend I will test the low-fidelity prototype to evaluate the changes that should be made going into mid and hi-fidelity. Since there is a heavy work load for this project it will also be important to begin my design report & presentation slides. (this post is already a start to it so thank you @tauxuibcn​)

Next week I will be exploring style tiles to test desirability and iterate on high fidelity until it is good enough to present. This project is proving to be tough but I know it will also be interesting and a great opportunity to present our work to potential mentors who have a ton of experience in UX Design.

Looking forward to presenting and knowing who we’ll work with for the final project. However, I’m also beginning to notice how fast time flies by when we enjoy what we do. It’s kind of sad to know all of this will be over soon and I only hope our cohort maintains contact afterwords.

Hello everyone!

After reading Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo’s article on RCI and watching Gerry Gaffney’s video on Contextual  Inquiry I came to the conclusion that this marriage between remote usability tests and site visits (or contextual inquiries) is the perfect mix for conducting organisational research in our current situation. 

Given that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit us hard and is here to stay for a while, it is important for us to find ways to continue researching to create relevant solutions, as problems and users needs are not holding up. So which techniques are useful?

Our current project is about crafting an a SaaS desktop web app to be used for onboarding purposes. For this project I will:

- Conduct preliminary research on best practices when considering onboarding processes.

-  Use my network to schedule and conduct RCI’s for at least 3 businesses with multiple kinds of users (employees who will use the product and business analysts who make purchasing decisions)

-  Connect the dots. Define a problem to focus on by analysing the research findings.

- Start to sketch, prototype, test and iterate solutions to deliver a working MVP (minimum viable product) by August 6th 2020.

Welcome back 😜

This time around I'll tell you the story of how @orkasandchocolate, Sofia and I developed prototypes for a small local business. Our brief was to redesign a website, including a mobile version. After searching the web for a project to work on, we decided on a local flower delivery shop.

The shop is named wOw and they aim for "luxury" as their main value proposition. However, their current design is nowhere near this brand attribute as their website is confusing to say the least:

- menu is difficult to find

- too many product categories

- sitemap is all over the place impeding a good user flow

- lacks any form of credibility

- no reviews

- no way to find their shop

- customer service number is non-responsive

Having all of this in mind we set out to make major improvements in all areas. The first step was to rebrand the business to Gloriosa, one of the most expensive and rare flowers in the market. Based on desirability testing, this brand resonates with the core value of luxury, while also relating to sophistication and professionalism.

Furthermore, we made changes to their website by exploring different styles until we landed on a design that satisfied all stakeholders while also addressing the main issues we found during the content audit. We created a mobile version as well and then worked on developing a responsive web prototype using HTML and CSS (with the help of our web dev colleagues). To end the project we presented our design decisions in front of 67 people from ironhack.

I must say I enjoyed very much working on this project with two of the most proactive people I have met in the ironhack bootcamp. Very smart and willful women who like getting work done in a timely manner. This was great for me as time management is something I am working on improving.

In previous projects I would get cought up in trying to do things as best as I could. Sometimes we have time restrictions and it's good to be able to switch mind sets to meet client time expectations. That's not to say we must sacrifice quality but get to a point where it's good enough for now and good enough to try out.

Overall, it has a been an intense week filled with many learnings. Some came from Nevan and Hel-lena, others came from my teammates, but the ones that surprised me the most came in the form of commiting mistakes. Mistakes that were celebrated in our team and will surely be taken into account for future projects.

If you read all the way through, thank you and see you next time.

For this weeks project I have decided to focus on Matthew as my proto-persona. He is a 34 year old digital nomad who is constantly on the move and values being able to combine work and travel.

Why did I choose this option? First of all, I’m curious about learning more about this particular lifestyle. People who enjoy location independence get to discover and meet new people all the time. Another plus is that I have some friends & colleagues who have opted for living in this way which makes it easier for me to reach out and do some research.

As Mathew is a “proto-persona”, I know he will evolve into whatever my research findings yield. For the moment he is looking more like a Mattfia (a mix between Matthew and Sofia). Im enjoying the process of digging for information and realising what sorts of things make life less enjoyable for digital nomads. Not because I like seeing people unhappy or anything but because I really want to understand what could solve their pain points.

Since most of the people I have interviewed and who are digital nomads use Android devices, this is the first thing I have decided to adapt about Matthew. So while he was in Singapore, his iPhone fell down a drain and now he is forced to buy a second hand Google Pixel 4.

Here are some elements I’m thinking about integrating in my prototype:

1. Floating Action Button

2. Date Picker

3. Hamburger Menu

4. Full Screen Navigation

5. Typography 

Hello :)

So another week has gone by, another project for the books. This time we got to work in groups which was great compared to week 2 and the upcoming week where we have to work alone.

Our project was adding a feature for Whatsapp, it’s funny because we kind of already knew what sort of problem we were going to try to solve before diving into research. As good UX designers in the making, @vickyfernandezguarnieri, @carlacavauxui and myself made it a challenge to remove ourselves from the point of view of users (even though we use the app on a daily basis). Finding people to interview to truly understand their behaviours, needs and goals when using this platform. 

We found out that people value Whatsapp because it helps them connect with their friends, family and colleagues. As one of our interviewees who works for Facebook put it: “Whatsapp is the most personal and private platform in the FB conglomerate, it’s like inviting people to your living room”. This gave us a sense of the purposes users have for using the app. They use it as a means to communicate, organise group activities and events.

Although it’s a wonderful app used by millions of people around the world, it has it’s dark side. It can easily accumulate messages from your groups and important information can get lost. By taking into account the purpose of the app and something that bothers users we created Whatsapp Polls. An easy and integrated way of keeping track of important information when trying to organise activities/events with you network.

After deciding on what we wanted to make, we started to work on visuals. Making sure to adhere to the existing design and brand personality that Whatspp has established. We decided to opt for iOS and were very surprised to see how different the same app is in Android. This was a pretty straightforward process and working with Carla and Vicky was awesome as we were able to get everything done in timely manner. 

Overall, this project has been a good learning experience as we were able to go through the entire design process focusing on the users and how they interact with Whatsapp. I think the end result was promising and made us feel proud of what we accomplished in a short period of time. I’d like to thank my teammates, as it was a great experience working and getting to know them better.

Ryan Olshavsky & Jonathan Cho are designers at Apple. In their video about Iterative UI Design they share some interesting insights on how to make good design a bit easier.

First of all, we must know which questions we want to answer. These questions are related to what we are making, who is it for, if it works, and if we got it right. These questions usually have ambiguous answers and this is what makes designing a difficult task.

Once we know what we are making we can start to brainstorm possible features. Here it’s important to have a divergent thinking mindset as we want to generate as many feature ideas as possible. Knowing what we want to make will make the process a whole lot easier because it’s a stepping stone to knowing who it would serve. 

Something that really stood out for me was defining the user of a potential app. Separating yourself from the user while also knowing that the user does not equal to everybody will help us understand what they care about to serve them better. We can do this by reaching out (interviewing, shadowing, observing etc) to empathise and actually get to know them.

The next step would be to know our app goals. Ryan explains how it’s important to be able to differentiate between business goals and the app goals even though they are both important. Business goals are related to results your company is seeking after launching the app. While app goals describe the qualities we want to have within the platform and come in before developing the product. 

After going through this process we can compare the features list with the app goals. This will help us identify & select the appropriate properties to include in the app. Once we have aligned what we are making with our app goals and with what matters to users, we can start to think about designing.

The design phase is pretty straightforward, or at least these talented individuals make it seem that way. We should simply start with what we know. So for example, if we are making a travelling app it’s probably a good idea to start with the booking page that should include an selections for the origin, destination and date.

How can we know what’s the right design? “One idea is not enough”, when designing it’s important to generate as many versions as possible while maintaining coherence with the platform (Android or iOS). Thinking about what we can do differently by experimenting with: 

Layout 

Typography

Proportions

Info density

Opposites & extremes

Navigation

Once we have many versions it’s time for a critique session with our teams. It’s important to keep an open mind and be willing to compromise to choose the best option. The final design should:

Serve the users 

Serve the app goals 

Have all the relevant info 

Be intuitive

Feel right

After selecting our design we should start to think about the work flow. Again, starting with what we know and aiming to create a frictionless procedure for users to complete the task. This process is about evaluating and iterating until we have a flow that works and makes us proud.

I hope this summary helps whoever reads it, at the very least it will definitely help me integrate these concepts into my future designs. As always, looking forward to seeing you all and working in our projects.

Becoming a designer is all about practice, learning to see what seems to be invisible to the untrained eye. I really enjoyed the analogies to understand what Seth Godin means by this. “Doctors don’t see web sites in the same way as web designers, just as web designers don’t see radiographs as doctors do”.

A medical physician must endure many years of studying and training to be able to diagnose and help patients recover with more efficiency. Just as a designer, or any other craft for that matter, requires time, patience and a whole lot of dedication to master the art. The more we practice, the less effort is needed and the better we become. 

We all have a starting point in which we are “crying babies” (novices) as my colleague @marcelrm has put it in one of his posts. Some may have more affinity towards the functional aspects, others may have deeper imaginations but they too learn more and more along the way. For others, like myself, designing will be a new field in which we must step outside of our comfort zone to grow in all aspects of the process. Anywhere we start, the journey from novice to pro will be long, sometimes difficult but we should always find ways to make it enjoyable.

Furthermore, designing is much more than building pretty things. For a design to be worthwhile it must first work or be usable/useful. I loved the quadrant that explains this perfectly in a visual framework. Once we begin designing the idea is to build something bold, in other words, something that works. It may be ugly at first but if it solves a users problem, then it is still considered a “good design”. Once we get the hang of learning how to build things that work, we can begin to move towards building something useful & beautiful. 

I couldn’t agree more with this approach as design processes entail a wide spectrum of work and thought. As I said before, it’s not about making something nice just because we think it would be nice. It’s also about reaching out to potential users to build empathy with them, really understanding their needs and problems to align our design decisions with the research findings. 

I think my greatest learning from this article is understanding the mindset that is needed to become a good designer. Having mental flexibility to constantly seek critical feedback not only from designers but also from untrained eyes, as most of the time we are creating things for them. This modesty of really opening up to listen with our hearts and minds will helps us learn how to see with one eye and feel with the other. 

So week 2 is gone and we have learned the basics of working through the design process. This time around was challenging and tirying as we had to work alone.

For this individual project I decided to work on an app that helps people create healthy sleeping habits. Thought I could put some of the insights of the research into practice midweek for my own night routine. A mistake a had to pay for dearly on Thursday when I found myself shuffling between tasks at 4am. Seems like trying to go to sleep before midnight during an Ironhack bootcamp is a no go if you want to get things done in a timely manner 😅. Well this is true in my case.

My main learning point this week was finding out more about my strenghts and weaknesses regarding the design process. I noticed researching is something I enjoy and feel I can do almost effortlessly. Finding interesting patterns and coming up with concepts is something I can see myself doing as part of a team.

On the other, developing and delivering aesthetically pleasing prototypes is something I struggled with. This is not entirely bad as I feel these frustrations yield growing opportunities. With time, practice and help from my new found colleagues, I know my design skills will improve to make me a more complete UX/UI designer.

Hope you all enjoy the weekend and get some rest! I know I will 😴.

This week is turning out to be quite challenging due to the many tasks required in developing an app concept on your own. However, I believe I am learning much more from this approach than working with a team (even though being part of a team is more enjoyable) as I am immersed in a sea of unknowns.

Started out within my confort zone, which is researching and reaching out to potential users to learn all about them. I love this process. It's time consuming to go through interviews, notes, developing a lean survey canvas but I enjoy it so much that time flies by.

The bootcamp is designed to make yourself push your own boundaries to explore and learn about other parts of the process. I am now in the second diamond (developing and delivering), which is fully outside of my comfort zone. I have never designed nor used design tools but being alone makes you learn by doing which is great.

Today we had "crits", a lean approach on getting first impressions and feedback on our projects. I found it to be very useful as I learned a lot from my colleagues and gained valuable insights to improve my prototype. All this while also practicing how to formulate neutral questions that'll make my peers think about different ways to improve their design decisions.

Well thats all folks, lets keep at it and take feedback as an opportunity to improve.

Let me tell you about life as a remote Ironhack padawan.

The past week has been a lot about learning to adapt to a different learning style. E-learning, very well suited for a pandemic but also a bit exhausting. That's not to say that the physical bootcamp wouldn't be tirying but at least for me, social interaction makes time fly by. It's been 1 full week and I still don't know everyone in our classroom, hopefully we will find other ways to bond as virtual ironbeers seemed like more classroom time 😅.

Besides the obvious social distancing factor, everything else has been very smooth. I feel like a sponge again, learning from Nevan, Hel•lena and my classmates. This week we focused on the overall user-centered design process experience. Touching on user research (interviews), clustering pain points (affinity mapping), timeboxed sketching (crazy 8s), prototyping (Figma), usability testing (interactive interviews), presenting design decisions and a looot of remote teamwork 💪🏽😁.

It's finally the weekend and it's time to rest a bit. Just a little bit because we already have many things planned out for next week. Overall, I can say that I'm starting to adapt and feel good about my decision to start this journey. Really looking forward to creating more!

Hey there! 

Woke up this morning, smiling at the rising sun, took my dog for a stroll in the Ciutadella Park and began the journey towards becoming a UX/UI designer at 9am. All happy thoughts until...

It’s nearly midnight and Im writing this post to become a blogger. I guess this kind of sums up what its going to be like from now on :) 

Don’t get me wrong, I am liking the experience as I am getting the chance to meet great people and learn how to use tools for a digital future. However, I can now understand why alumni and Ironhackers in general say it’s tough. First of all, this is a remote learning bootcamp which makes things a bit more interesting as we must endure long hours sitting in front of a computer. Nevan, our Lead Teacher, is pretty cool though as he gives us many short breaks for coffee etc. 

Today we went through a general overview of what awaits us in the coming weeks. Many readings, writing assignments and weekly projects. Afterwords, we began the learning process by diving into different design processes and a baby intro to heuristics (which sounds complicated but really only means basic rules of thumb for the principles of design👍🏽). Then it got exciting as we went into groups to put our learnings into practice by using Mural, a collaborative working platform where we can use sticky notes to create boards. 

Hi there,

Here's a bit about myself. I love nature, music, sports (especially fútbol and hockey), eating pizza and having fun with my friends and family. Last Tuesday was my 32nd birthday 🥳🎊🎉 and it's the first time I celebrated with my family via conference call 💻📲.

I'm half Guatemalan 🇬🇹, half Palestinian 🇵🇸,  grew up in the USA 🇺🇸 and now live in Spain 🇪🇸. I kind of consider myself and everybody a global citizen and hope someday humans can live in a borderless world 💙🌎🌍🌏💙.

My main field of expertise are social sciences although I also have a business background. For the past 5 years I have been working as a psychotherapist practicing equine assisted therapies 🤠🐎. I really enjoy my work as it gives me the chance to be surrounded by nature while providing care for others. However, due to our recent circumstances with the global pandemic, my labour has had to take a pause; giving me an excellent opportunity to continue learning and expanding my horizons.

I have joined the UX/UI design bootcamp at Ironhack to boost my profile with digital skills and to grow my network. Really excited to learn more about user research methodologies, user centered design, and being able to co-create aesthetically pleasing platforms to improve overall experiences. I'm confident that having this knowledge will provide great options for an increasingly digital future.