carito-o

[carito-o]

Chapter 10

Okay, this week was kind of weird, i think the whole class had a kind of  psychocosmic parallelism with this weeks weather. This week was dark, gloomy and rainy, and the mood was refleted in class. Not in a bad way, but everyone was just tired and wanted to sleep or rest. 

Even though it was a slow week we still managed to be on schedule with our project and that really took me by surprise! 

We met up on thursday with our client in their office and it was soooo nice to change environmnets for a while. Everyone there was fresh, new, and in work mode activated. It was nice, we got to listen to some project pitches, had some beers, and discuss our project with the clients. 

Im really exited for this next week, scared, but exited!!! I dont want this to endddddd. 

[carito-o]

Chapter 9

Wow. That was intense. 

This week was a hard one, not just because of the work but because working alone, for two weeks, can be draining. We didn’t have much time to interact or relax with anyone and the little free time we had we used it to sleep. 

This past two weeks made me realize how much i love working in teams, not just because you get to divide and conquer different tasks, but because it keeps me entertained and in constant company. 

I do love to get the work mode on, put my headphones and just stay in my world while I’m being productive, but being able to have a break or share the process with someone else is something I’ve missed this week. 

I can´t believe we only have 2 more week before the bootcamp is over, just one more project and we are done. OMG MAKE TIME SLOW DOWN PLEASE. 

[carito-o]

Chapter 8

This week was hard, tiredsom but interesting. 

It is our first two week project and this week was based completeley on interviews and reaserch for our project. I must admit that advancing on the project this week was slow and difficult, not just because we depended on people to interview to be able to advance but because a friend of mine was visiting, so I focused a lot of my time out of ironhack to spend time with her! 

I realized it´s hard trying to have a social life while doing this bootcamp and im sad to admit that im glad my friend left, because if she stayed any longer I don´t know if i would be able to finish this project on time!

Please wish me luck for the next 4 days... in which i´ll have to do a loooot of work that I didnt do this week.... help. 

[carito-o]

Chapter seven

5 weeks down 4 to go!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING!!!

This week we worked on our last one-week project called “there’s an app for that!”. 

Our group created PLANT IT and I couldn’t be prouder of us!! We managed to work so well as a team!! We established goals for each day and since we actually completed said goals each day, we got to spend the afternoons doing nothing and restingg!! We were so happy that we got to sleep this week hahaha. 

We realized still that this week’s project was not an easy one. We had our ups and down all week. Especially when deciding what subject, we were going to work on. 

Creating a new app in just one week was hard. From investigation, to researching, interviews, prototyping, iterating, and omg let’s not forget visual design. It. was. hard. 

But all in all, we got through, we made it!!!! we surviveeeddddddd. 

Dream team for the winnnn woohooo. 

[carito-o]

Chapter six

Another week gone! 

This weeks project was fun and interesting, the interviews were tought. I realized i really enjoy making paper prorotypes and doing iterations after user testing! 

Trying to come out with the best solutions to a general problem is somethign that i find really interesting.

Eventhough it was mentaly draining we made it out alive!! Cant believe we are half way done!! crazyyy

[carito-o]

Chapter five

This week was a tough one, but it was super fun.  We got to create the UI and visual design for a new travel booking app and it was harder than I expected it to be. 

I was never good with graphic design elements such as adequate colour schemes for different products/situations. Still, I was the one person in my group with a background in design and a keener eye for graphics so the job kind of landed on me. 

Our team worked wonderfully together! We helped each other out when needed and explained different elements of figma to each other in order to get a better idea of how the platform works! I ended up loving our app and our work dynamic

Obviously, we got some critics and feedback about out colours and design decisions but they were brought to us on the day of the presentation, so sadly all I could say to those people was: 

But what I love the most about this week is the connections we are creating in this bootcamp, we are acting like friends and family, all happily (and stressfully) advancing on this wonderful adventure that is Ironhacks bootcamp. I do think I’m making friends for life here and I couldn’t be happier about it!! 

What better way to end this week than by getting drunk and eating empanadas in the street with my new friends haha. 

[carito-o]

Chapter four

Navigation between different areas of an app is different between iOS and android, while one is placed on the bottom, not just with icons but with text, the latter is placed on top only with icons making it a bit harder for some users to understand what means what. 

One well-known navigation pattern used in Android applications is a combination of a navigation drawer and tabs.

In the Apple Human Interface Guidelines there’s no standard navigation control that’s similar to the drawer navigation menu. Instead, Apple’s guidelines recommended putting global navigation in a tab bar.

Another difference between them is for instance the time picker action, in android you use a calendar while in iOS you have the slot machine time picker, if you placed the latter in an android phone they would have a hard time trying to understand how to use it. 

Floating action buttons on Android vs call to action buttons on iOS. Both of this buttons represent the main action used in an app, the first one is floating in the screen while the iOS button is placed in the middle of the tab bar. They serve the same purpose but are located in different sections of the screen. 

Even though there are a few exceptions where android uses the Human Interface Guidelines and iOS aplications use the Material Design Guidelines it´s easier for us as designers is to create the apps with the native components for both operating systems.

[carito-o]

Chaper three

Week two is done!! It feels like we´ve been doing the bootcamp for two months rather than two weeks. 

This week’s project was extremely fun because we actually started doing more design like things. Adding the feature to the WhatsApp app was really challenging and interesting to do. First off it really impressed me how many different flows or ways of implementing the new feature I could do.  When doing the paper prototypes, it really helped me understand how the user interacts with the app and how they would think the feature would be added. I thought I had to do every single one of their routs to get to the point so by the times de crits arrived thankfully Nevan told me to just focus on one flow.  Doing the hi-fidelity prototype was fun, understanding WhatsApp iconography and design language was super interesting. The whole time I was trying hard to make the feature to go unnoticed as much as possible so that it wouldn’t stand out. I couldn’t have gone through this week without everyone in the bootcamp. We are starting to become a family and it’s nice to have everyone there to cheer you up, help you out or just to have some fun.  To quote Troye Bolton “This could be the start of something new” :P

[carito-o]

Chapter two

First week officially DONE! Honestly it feels like a month has passed since I moved and started the bootcamp, crazy how time flies when you’re having a good time right? 

Week one was intense to say the least, learning HTML and CSS was something I was dreading before starting the bootcamp but ended up kind of enjoying it? Crazy, I know. The thing with coding is that it reminded me of 3D rendering, not because of any similarities in the results, but because of how tiering it is. Staring at the computer screen for a minimum of 8 hours a day can really get your brain all mushed up. 

Eventually all I wanted to do when I got home was to curl in a little ball and fall asleep, but obviously, we had homework. I learned a new ability with the homework portion of the bootcamp for suuure, I never knew I could get up so early in the morning to read articles about CODING. Who would have thought? 

Non the less, I made it through the week, Friday came along, and we got to do our group presentations to show our project and how we did it. Luke was a great partner to work with during this week! Thankfully we were both new to the whole coding world, so we really helped each other out when one or the other couldn’t understand a concept or how something was done. We kind of explored this whole new world together and it was pretty fun!

After class we got to enjoy a few drinks with our classmates and really got the whole Barcelona experience of drinking after class. It was really fun getting to know everyone outside of the class environment. 

Can’t wait to see what challenges next week will put me through, but oh well, bring it on!

[carito-o]

Chapter one

First day of the UX/UI Bootcamp went better than I could have ever anticipated.

I must admit I was shaking in my boots when told we were going to start the course with the HTML - CSS part of the course but ended up realizing it´s not as terrifying as I thought it would be. I still have a lot to learn and understand before I can say “I conquered HTML” but today is just the start ;P

The highlights of the day were meeting everyone (even though the Oscar game really put me in a tough spot haha), getting to know some of my peers at lunchtime, and Navan’s enthusiastic teaching. 

[carito-o]

Prologue - How did I get here?

Hello everyone! 

You might be wondering what an industrial design student from Montevideo, Uruguay ended up signing up for a UX/UI bootcamp in Barcelona. Well, after a few miscalculations I realized that I had a six-month period with no university classes left to do. The only step left before my graduation is my final project, that weirdly is only dictated in the September period. 

I always planned on moving on to UX design once I finished my degree, but since the calendar checked up, I had a few months free before that could happen, so I decided to start this journey sooner rather than later :) 

With covid going on, the world discovered the magic world of remote school and work and after two dreadful uni-years via zoom I couldn´t wait to get out of my house and explore the unknown, I mean why not take it even further and move a whole ocean away? 

Sit back, relax, and join me in this journey to the unknown... well, to my blog about this whole new chapter in my life.

- Carito :)