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[koiboiux]

September 24, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 12:13am

Today’s UX journey was pretty productive.  I finished the last of my course on Social Computing and now I’m off to course number four which is called “Input and Interaction.”  So far I’m enjoying it.  Part of what I’ve learned is how a “mouse” works and the different iterations that the design went through to what it became today and also how the “keyboard” works by sending signals to an encoder.  Although I’m itching for more design principles focused more on web or app design, these are great principles to keep in mind.  

I was honestly really happy when I found out there was no assignment for week 1 of the class and I was hoping that would be the case for the entire course.  But week two materials had an assignment which wanted me to look analyze the search function on two websites--one where I had a successful experience with the search function and another where the experience was unsuccessful.  For the successful experience I used UCLA Health’s search function for finding a medical professional.  The unsuccessful experience I used was, ironically, The UX Collective website that’s hosted on Medium.  The assignment was nice and I got to use my new dotted notebook to make a sketch of a redesign for the latter.  

When I create my portfolio I’ll probably include some of these projects and maybe even go further with some of these ideas and also provide more insight about my thinking process. 

Trudging through these courses but I know it will all be worth it.

[koiboiux]

September 21, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 5:34pm

I think I was a little lazy last week and didn’t post about anything about my UX Journey!  My apologies!  Well last week I started and finished the second course in UC San Diego’s Human Computer Interaction Specialization, titled “Design Principles.”  It was a “three-week” course and was fairly straightforward.  Some of the topics we learned about was visual design including typography, grids, grouping, and alignment.  Another topic was related to running in-person and online experiments.  The last topic focused on analyzing the results of your experiment by using the Chi-Squared A/B test to show whether or not a change/redesign of a particular variable was statistically significant in producing the desired outcome (e.g. whether it resulted in more clickthroughs or sign ups).

I enjoyed this course and I definitely learned a lot.  I liked the first class which dealt with typography and other visual design basics.  It gave me some vocabulary and a deeper understanding of why certain things are preferred and what kind of impact, however nuanced, is made by small visual changes.  I struggled a little bit with the Chi-Squared vocabulary--I understood how everything fit into the equation and what the result was but I misunderstood how to articulate it into an actual idea.  Specifically, I got mixed up with the “p-value” and the “Chi-Squared value” and ended up not articulating that well.  But you know you learn most when you make mistakes!  

Today, I started the third course of the specialization, titled “Social Computing.”  I’ve completed the first two weeks’ classes.  I do enjoy this class for what it is and the first assignment touches a lot on the effects of the pandemic.  Specifically, how communication is effected through social media and through online versus in-person communications.    

One thing I did notice was how old these lectures seem to be--there are no references past 2010 or something.  The industry changes so much so I’m wondering if I will need to supplement my learning with a more up-to-date iteration of what I’m learning.  I suppose reading Medium articles are one way to do that.

I was tempted to complete the entire course today but my brain already feels tired.  I’ll continue tomorrow.

[koiboiux]

September 15, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA

1:47am

Almost forgot to make a post today! I am pretty sure I finished up the last of the first course assignment and cumulative quiz (barely passed but passing nonetheless) and then I started a new course focused on Design Principles. So far it's really interesting. I'm learning about design principles that are intuitive but really great to actually hear the principles out loud.

Week 1 lecture is complete! (I pushed through the sleepiness!)

[koiboiux]

September 10, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 4:53pm

Today I completed the Week 4 lecture.  This week’s lecture was about heuristic evaluation.  I found this week’s lecture to be pretty awesome!  I love it when there is some sort of formula or set of principles that just makes sense. 

I also completed and submitted week 3′s assignment, which was the storyboarding one.  It took a while.  Although I do find it helpful to put it into action, I think the amount that was required (six total storyboards) was too much. It’s hard to do that many without even knowing you’re doing it correctly.  And thinking of designs for transportation was challenging with what was taught and the examples that were provided.  I had to look outside of the course for more direction or examples of what was expected.  Once I got a good idea I was able to put it into action, come up with three different design ideas, and two storyboards for each design.  

That’s pretty much all I did.  I almost fell asleep into today’s lecture even though the content was interesting since I stayed up so late last night.  Thinking about studying more tomorrow, but I do have tomorrow as my day off on my schedule.  Perhaps I should change to a 5/4 schedule?  We’ll see!

[koiboiux]

September 9, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 10:46pm

I feel like I didn’t work too much today.  But I completed Week 3 lecture of the course I’m taking and I drafted a script for Assignment 1 (the interview) and started brainstorming design ideas for Assignment 2 which is to create several storyboards for design solutions that we are supposed to come up with to address a need/desire/problem relating to transportation experiences.

Week 3′s lecture focused on prototyping.  I was excited that we would have to create some sort of prototype but I suppose doing a storyboard will have to suffice.  I didn’t do one in my UCLA Extension course so it’s nice to do something new that may come up in job.  It also taught about different types of prototyping--like paper prototypes, and low and high fidelity prototypes, among other things.

One idea that stuck in my mind was the idea that having several different solutions as opposed to focusing and perfecting one design solution yielded better results.  It made me think of the prototype that I created revolving around ACNH.  I definitely saw designs by other comparable applications and thought-- “yes, this is the most efficient and best way to present this information to make it easier for the user.”  But perhaps I didn’t think hard enough about other possible solutions.  And I definitely didn’t.  

Definitely could have been more productive today, but at least I learned something.  I started off in an off mood too anyway.  It’ll get better!  I won’t get discouraged! 

[koiboiux]

September 8, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 3:22pm

Today was my first “official” day putting my self-study routine into action straight into the UX scene.  I started off with a Coursera course, taking advantage of the first free week in a specialization option.  The cost was way cheaper compared to the alternatives like bootcamps or formal classes which can cost thousands of dollars.  Coursera right now is about $39/month.  

I began with course called “Human-Centered Design: an Introduction” taught by Scott Klemer.  So far I’ve completed both the first and second weeks of the course, and Assignment 0 (I still need to complete Assignment 1).  The course is mostly videos so far, with small quizzes/prompts in the middle of the videos, with an assignment at the end.

I’m finding this course pretty great, actually.  It’s much more organized and in-depth than the course I took at UCLA Extension.  Although, I still appreciate the UCLA Extension course since I have some basic knowledge to fall back on, but this new course is helping me remember, refine, and think about particular subjects in a new way.  

So far I only really have problems with the Assignments.  For the first assignment, it required uploading a photo of someone using an object, to put it simply.  I just flat out didn’t attach a photo because it seemed a bit useless/waste of time.  After you submit, you are supposed to review other people’s work, which is fine.  But what most people did for the photo was attach a generic stock photo of the object they were analyzing (e.g. a face mask) when I’m pretty sure the point was to attach a photo they personally took. Taking a photo of someone else using an object and then posting it not only seemed awkward but not helpful.  

Anyway, the second assignment for week 2 is to create a script for an interview to find design opportunities.  I like the idea of it, I’m just peeved that we actually have to conduct the interview (which honestly is a great way to practice interviewing, I just don’t like interacting with people if I don’t have to lol) and that we have to upload an audio file of the interview (which, again, I can see how it’s helpful, but it just complicates the learning experience since I want to go faster through these courses, but now I have to slow down).  But I understand the usefulness and the learning opportunity this kind of assignment provides, so I will do the interview.

So far we’ve learned about human computer interaction, prototyping, evaluating designs, usability studies (surveys, focus groups, heuristic evaluation, dogfooding, peer critique, participant observation, comparative experiments, simulations, formal models), etc. which gave a good refresher/introduction into the class.  The second week was about “Needfinding,” or finding out different users needs (to put it loosely) and using that to drive design decisions or opportunities.  These are subjects that I was introduced to in the UCLA Extension course but again, this course is proving useful.  I like how the UCLA Extension Course was more of an “introduce these things as part of a design you choose” deal--for example, at the beginning of the course I chose to redesign an app that was basically a progress tracker/encyclopedia for the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.  Part of the UCLA Extension course was to actually draft and create a persona based on that product.  I particularly liked the simplicity of the assignments given compared to the learning experience/opportunity it provided.  In the UCLA Extension course, however, we didn’t have to actually do research or conduct an interview, so it’s nice that this Coursera course is filling in that gap.

Other than that, I am finding it a little difficult to keep focused on classes for a straight 8 hours.  I might have to find a modified schedule to keep me going/interested.  Or maybe do concurrent classes on different subjects--maybe a more fun subject or design-centered subject after lunch like color theory, or tutorials, or video blogs or something.

[koiboiux]

Color Theory: Day 2

September 3, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 7:35 p.m.

So today was a light day today.  I woke up late but I did read up on the second part of color theory.  It was related to hues, chroma, saturation, value, tones, shades, and tints.  This was more of a vocabulary lesson in my opinion--knowing the language to use to help articulate what kind of color, feel, or message your are trying to convey.  I can see how this would be really helpful when communicating colors with a team (or maybe not idk lol).

Next week is when I’m actually supposed to be studying so I’ll be covering a lot more starting then.  Thanks for tuning in!

[koiboiux]

Color Theory: Day 1

September 2, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA 6:34 p.m.

Today, I focused on Color Theory.  I read this article and they recommended that I learn color theory as part of my curriculum.  So I’m starting off learning the basics of design, because ultimately, a big part of building a portfolio will be the aesthetics and the presentation to potential employers.  It will also be useful in creating prototypes later on so I won’t have to think about what colors to use for a particular product or which colors would be useful as a Call to Action (”CTA”), among other things.

Today I learned about warm, cool, and neutral colors and what the colors are commonly associated with.  For example, purple colors are associated with royalty and luxury.  Blue colors are calming and sophisticated.  Red is strong and exhilarating.  Green is associated with nature, freshness, and a new start.  

I also learned that some colors may act better as accents to more neutral colors.  And some colors are commonly used in the background.  And that some colors are used in certain contexts and certain businesses.  For example, for a product that focuses on healthy foods, green is commonly used.

Looking forward to learning more about colors!

[koiboiux]

Welcome!

September 3, 2020 | Los Angeles, CA

Welcome everyone!  This is Koi Boi and this is my User Experience (UX) Design blog.  

I’m currently transitioning from my career as an attorney to become a UX Designer and will be using this blog to record my progress from a UX Nobody to a UX Somebody!  I have no previous design experience at all and have only taken the introductory UX class for UCLA Extension’s UX Certification Program so far.

Based on my research, I decided not to purchase further classes, pursue a certification, or enroll in a bootcamp.  I wanted to be able to save as much money as I can during this period and work on self-study and building up my portfolio (which I’ve heard is the most important aspect of getting a UX job).  (Please tell me if I’m wrong!)

If you have any suggestions, tips, or comments please let me know how I can better improve my skillset or if you have any challenges in mind!  Thanks for visiting!