Individual Reflection #4

One challenge we faced was that we iterated through Design and Develop in the Double Diamond design process a few times. We constantly refined our overall pain point and narrowed it down by being more specific. I also refined the wireframes after receiving feedback from users and my group mates. This made me realize that as we clarified more assumptions and questions, it is easier to narrow down our scope and be more sure about our design solutions according to user feedback. I realized the importance of iterations and going back to stages in the design process. Reflecting on it, it is good that we iterated because we could make improvements and be closer to what the user needs or wants.

I also worked on the evaluation and justification of our design which taught me a lot about translating inconveniences into clear goals. From our goals, we diverged our thinking and came up with a few ideas to attain the goals. For example, we were discussing how users would go to the Stories Overview screen from the Home Page. We thought of two options - clicking on a button on the stories section or after horizontally scrolling 10 stories bubbles, the screen will auto open. From our perspectives as designers, we had to consider including a foolproof way that users can open the page without any conditions and we also wanted users to be able to seamlessly transition into the page. We also thought about the users’ perspective because users would want to easily access the page and it should be obvious how to access the page. In the end, we included both interactions as we wanted to take care of both considerations.

After reflecting, I realized that while designing, we had to think from both perspectives as a user and a designer. It is not enough to just think from one perspective and neglect the other which leads me to link this to design thinking where we need to be user-centric. Just like in design thinking, when we were doing our project, we had to consider these three main things: technical feasibility, economical viability, and user desirability. As a designer, we need to be able to take all these factors into account and not be narrow-minded. Additionally, I also learned the importance of collaboration in order to have a diverse variety of perspectives. My expertise is in computing and my group-mates expertise was in design. While doing the project, I had to contribute my technical knowledge to help evaluate the technical feasibility of our design. I learned that in group settings, even though depth in knowledge is important, having breadth in knowledge is equally important as well.

Overall, I am satisfied with my group and how we progressed as everyone tapped into their own expertise and contributed in their own ways. I liked that we continued with user research throughout our design processes because it was important to clarify assumptions, questions, and understanding of the users’ needs and wants.