The summer of 2020 I set out to make a change in my career. With the pandemic beginning earlier that year, I was forced to sit with my thoughts about where I wanted to be in my career more than ever before. What did I really want to make of it? I believed I was destined for big things, always needing a mountain to climb. I was just unsure of the path I’d take to get there. I was ready to see if I had what it takes to work for one of the Big Dogs— designing for something at…
Usability Testing on Boston University
The Goal
The intention of this study was to analyze how a user discovers specific areas on a website, while pin pointing areas of confusion, frustration and friction in the overall user experience. Out of a list of college websites, I chose to test BU.edu.
Commonly referred to as BU, Boston University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is ranked #11 in the state with approximately 33,000 students and a 29% acceptance rate.
So, here it is… The wireframe (from previous post) in motion:
Check it out here!
If there’s a moment you get stuck, just click anywhere on the mobile prototype, and a blue box will guide the way.
For this challenge, we were to take existing app screens and produce what the wireframe would have looked like in Sketch. I enjoyed this perspective of taking the screens a step backward and seeing them take a more simple, structural form.
What I like most about wireframing is that there is no huge commitment to anything that you’re creating and no emotional investment in this stage of development.
Time to explore Sketch and the task at hand was to mimic a supplied design.
Short-keys pretty much hold the same equivalence as coffee does for a designer, so thankfully enough it’s good to know most of them carry over from Photoshop.
I enjoyed searching for the details on all the design elements to see how much I could execute the same look while adding a hint of my own aesthetic. I did find the vector tool to be a little challenging in this program as opposed to Illustrator, but as with anything–practice makes perfect!
For Mobile Banking Feature
Introduction
Whole Bank is in the developmental stages to become a more technological and user-friendly local banking branch in small town Framingham, Massachusetts.
The branch found that using their credit and debit card services while traveling caused major inconveniences for their customers and saw an opportunity for advancement on their already existing mobile app.
The Problem
Oftentimes traveling incurs issues with banking institutions or the cards themselves and for that reason individuals prefer to downsize their wallet while traveling.
Whole Bank would like to develop a solution to provide an additional service to their already existing app for their customers to utilize while…
When I hear ‘take notes’ and ‘draw’ in the same sentence, I’ll admit I get a little overwhelmed. A) Because drawing on the spot is not my forte, and B) note-taking isn’t either. BUT simplify the combo into doodling and type and I’m all in!
With the task of taking visual notes on the Ted Talk: How Giant Websites Design For You, I wanted to focus on big ideas and illustrate the information worth capturing: the details that really matter.
The Process
Here’s an inside look of my sketch-noting process:
I began by watching the talk and jotted down key words or…
