Tod Khanian

The Project

This was the project I completed as part of the UI for UX Design course with Career Foundry.  The goal of the project was to design a responsive web app to connect students online to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, support, feedback, and motivation.

The aim of this project was to provide a deeper understanding of UI design principles and techniques, and to give valuable insight into what considerations and challenges professional designers face.  

The Main Challenge

The main challenge of the project was to give the app the right balance between looking and feeling like a social media product, yet keep its main focus on connecting students together.

The Solution 

The solution was to be very selective about the features to include in the app.  The features I decided to include were:

– Personal profile

– Search feature

– Friends list

– Newsreel

– Direct messaging

– Social: following, posting, sharing, liking, commenting

– Notifications

 

What I’ve Learnt

For this project, I was provided with most of the UX research to immerse in the UI from the start.  This made it difficult for me to connect with the project, and it took longer for me to feel the same passion for it as I had felt for other projects.  I also think the lack of connection from the start affected the quality of my initial set of wireframes and mockups. 

I’ve learnt that I find it difficult to be passionate about a project, and that I struggle in doing my best work without having a good understanding of the research and the user needs.