Reflective Journaling: Week 5

This week was filled with some good stuff!! I really enjoyed applying my graphic design background with the UX knowledge I have learned thus far. It was a lot of fun using my graphic designer eye to not only identify ineffective design, but also effective design as well. I liked that I was able to explain my reasoning behind what makes good layout design based on my education from undergrad while still incorporating the Gestalt principles and other UX key tools that help create good design, that I have learned during this semester. I also really like that the reading material has shifted to articles from other designers that provide lots of example and explain different principles in “dumbed down” designer terms. I find myself being able to relate to the readings a lot more and am immediately able to identify examples that correlate with the presented topics.

I have really been enjoying looking at other student’s examples of layout design. Before I started my position as UX designer, I worked on a banking magazine so being able to see unique print design layouts brings me back. It is amazing to see that while a design can have all of these neat and creative additions that make it a super cool design, the way the design appears to a user can be very different. The most interesting design in the world can still be the worst designed experience showing just how important it is to keep the user in mind and not to let designers design for other designers. The typical user is not a funky fresh designer, after all.