User Experience Design

What is it? What does it mean, what does it mean according for me personally and why do I want to discuss it here in the same blog I talk about coding (which for now is just in Minecraft).

First of why I will talk about it here.

If you have read my first post, you already know but if not then let me explain and go a little more in depth. I am currently in my 4^th year of my bachelor called Communication & Multimedia design. It is however not my 4^th year of studying but my 6^th closing in on 7^th. During this bachelor, I have had a bunch of problems nearing the end. I failed one of my classes and stopped my graduation thesis because I became so stressed because of outside factors that I had making me break down crying in a teacher’s office while I was talking about my situation with them.

There will be a bunch of context given here if you really don’t care scroll down a bit!

Sub optimal I would say but oh well that’s life, I guess. Anyhow, now after I took some time off and retook and completed that one class I failed; I am now back in my graduation period. Obviously this one was also stressful but the normal kind of stress one would have for working on a bachelor thesis. I had some trouble in the first half of the graduation project but eventually made it ‘till the end. Kind of.

I don’t know how it is for other bachelors but for mine we must do a research project at a real company with something related to, what basically comes down to, User Experience Design. At the end of the project, we should have done research and come to a solution or answer for the research question we set up at the start. All of this should then be put in a thesis describing the project, the steps we took, and the answer/solution. That, however, is not my greatest strength.

So of course, like the student I am I started writing the entire thesis from scratch a week before the deadline. This I did not do in my usual manner of basically just brute forcing my memory onto paper and then trying to make it semi coherent. The weeks before that I spoke to a teacher about how I could
best go about it and they suggested that I should use a structure plan. This plan would then help the story be more cohesive and should make it easier for me to make the thesis.

It, indirectly, did not in fact make it easier to write the thesis. Mostly, due to my own misjudgement of how long it would take me to write it. I kept revising the plan even during the last week. When I had about 48 hours left, I decided I would not touch it anymore and started writing the thesis already giving up on spellchecking and relying on hope.

During the writing I realized that even after taking so long with the plan I forgot certain important topics that do have to be discussed in the thesis. Adding things to the structure got me into the vicious loop of writing a little, looking at the plan, realizing something was missing or the order would be off and throwing around the plan.

Bunch of writing and stress shaking later I got a very bare-bones version of the thesis done 2 minutes before the deadline. So, I uploaded it, called my mom, moped about my inability to write and high probability of having to redo it, and called it a night. After a day or 3 (I don’t quite recall) I made my presentation that I’d use to defend my thesis and to fill in any gaps (all of them).

I printed out everything I could and forgot to put in my appendix (basically all the work) and ordered it all so I could easily hand it out during my presentation. The presentation in the end went quite well. But alas, it was not enough to make me graduate. It did, however, show the attendees that I did do the work for the project and that I did have the knowledge required to pass.

So, in the end I only got 2 of the 7 required points I needed. The other 5 points basically all gave me feedback regarding the lack of content in the written thesis and that I should elaborate further (or in my case start elaborating at all).

During the hearing of my score my mentor from the company I did the project for asked some questions to the teachers who gave me my score. One of these questions went along the lines of “So, what makes someone get their bachelors at Communication and Multimedia Design?” I thought to myself “When does a person know when they say the do UX Design?” but I couldn’t answer my own question. It might have been because I was so drained from the anxiety of giving the presentation, but it still felt weird that I could not think of a single word to answer with.

That’s what eventually led me to make this blog.

Besides the feedback about elaborating more in my writing I also got a bunch of feedback about my thesis and solution “being very practical”. And to be quite honest. That is probably the weirdest feedback I have ever received. "I failed my 1^st attempt for my bachelor because my thesis and solution were too practical." For me it sounded like they were saying that certain circles weren’t circles because they were too round. It probably was just a bad way to voice what they were missing.

Now a month and another feedback moment with my teacher later I learned that the feedback meant more that I did not talk much about any underlying motivations. I neglected or spoke too little about the emotions and experiences of the users and myself.

I think that’s also part of what it takes to be a good (or at least decent) UX designer. Being able to define and voice the underlying emotions and experiences a user has when using a product. In my case a digital product.

If we look around online how UX design is described. We will find a plethora of definitions.

 

UX design considers the elements that shape a user’s experience with a product or service, how these elements make the user feel, and how easy it is for the user to accomplish their desired tasks.  

• Ceerfoundry.com (https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/what-is-user-experience-ux-design-everything-you-need-to-know-to-get-started/)

 

User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. UX design involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function.

• Interaction design Foundation (https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design/)

 

UX stands for user experience. It’s all about how a user feels when they interact with a product or service and it has a direct impact on a company’s relationship with their customers and target users.

• UX design institute (https://www.uxdesigninstitute.com/blog/what-does-ux-stand-for/)

 

They all come down to the idea that UX design is a thing/process that focusses on the wants and needs of the user, their experiences with products, and how those experiences influence the user. Something along those lines.

I guess I do somewhat agree with that. But I guess its hard to disagree with that definition. Which is not really what I was expecting when I started writing this post if I’m quite honest. I guess I’m more searching for something else. I think I am just searching for a better personal understanding of UX design because when people ask me what my bachelor entails, I give a different answer every time that encompasses some of these aspects but leaves out others.

I want to come to a professional understanding of UX in such a way that I can explain it someone and give practical explanations. My bachelor, in my opinion, did not do a good job of giving me a proper understanding of what it is. That might be my fault, but I think it is also because the structure of my bachelor has been going through a metamorphosis for the better part of 4 years if not more. Luckily not into a cockroach but into something that properly resembles what it wants to do. Sadly. this change is something I can only experience from afar as all changes affect the years before me.

That’s however enough for this post, I think. In following posts, I will go deeper into seeing what is meant with the definitions and what kind of actions are taken by UX designers. Thanks for reading ^_^

Stay tuned :)