🦆 Interaction Nerds by UXA | F23.05
Industry Insights: StuCo UXplore, A Type B's guide to workplace harmony, Growing professionally with Uxcel, and Analyzing the role of design critiques in the industry
👋 Announcements — Hang in there!
Happy Tuesday! We hope everyone is chugging along in the semester and having a great time! Thank you for the turnout to Kickoff and Families, we hope everyone is stoked for an eventful and fun year ahead. UXA is just getting started 🕺
🗺️ 98-061 StuCo UXplore: Uncover the Best of Modern UX Design
Written & edited by: Kaitlyn Ng 🥸
🔍 What exactly does “UXplore” explore?
Rather than focusing on “bad” design, this course seeks out more hidden “good” design in everyday services and products. Specifically, students will analyze principles and practices of modern user interfaces, discovering what makes them successful.
✏️ What do you do in UXplore?
Every week, UXplore takes a look at a current industry example of good design and discusses what makes it “good”. On a larger scope, the course analyzes new UX trends and techniques and examines how design decisions affect users and how data can inform design decisions. There are also guest lecturers (designers, product managers) who can provide their experiences and perspectives actually working within the UX field.
🤔 Who should take UXplore?
Since UXplore is a student-led course, there are no pre-requisites to this course — it’s an elective anyone with interest in understanding and applying successful modern UX design can take!
🍀 Editor’s Pick — “Am I Interesting Enough?” - a Type B’s guide to workplace harmony
Written & edited by: 😈 Sophie McGrady
Stressed about applying to internships? Not feeling like the “perfect” job candidate? Would you believe us if we told you there is no “perfect” job candidate? This week, join us as we take a look at the importance of embracing your unique skills and personality when applying to jobs to find an organization that best supports your goals and interests!
🎯 Resource — Grow Professionally with Uxcel
Written & edited by: 😊 Eunice Lee
Searching for a PM role? Looking for a UX design internship? Instead of using LinkedIn or Glassdoor, try using Uxcel to find your next job! 🔎
Uxcel is an online learning platform for UX professionals aiming to hone their skills. It offers courses, career guides, and many other resources needed to upgrade your career.
Some key features of Uxcel include:
🎯 Challenges Want to prepare for your next job role? Complete these real-world design tasks often found throughout industry.
📝 Assessments After completing their courses and lessons, measure your design and UX skills in comparison to professionals.
💼 Job Board Find your next professional experience with Uxcel. Your feed can be personalized to your interests and showcase your UX certifications.
🧐 Opinion — Do Design Critiques Fit in with Industry?
Written & edited by:🧸 Ahana Banerjee
🧐 What are design critiques?
Design critiques involve sharing in-progress work with others to gather input on potential improvements, opportunities for further exploration, and ways to enhance the overall design deliverables. Incorporating diverse viewpoints is valuable for refining the quality of your designs.
🙋 Design critiques in academia versus the corporate world
💡 Design critiques are all about helping the designer level up their skills rather than trying to perfect the design itself. While they can be a real game-changer in school, are we sure that they have the same impact in the corporate world?
In contrast to academia, designing in corporate settings is much more restrictive, as there tends to be debates with stakeholders, various cost constraints, and technical logistics to consider. Design critiques in this setting offer little-to-no insight as they encourage conversations that may not be logistically feasible. Conventional design critique can often:
⌛ Interfere with the product timeline: Products have timelines that feedback needs to fit into.
👎 Provide little value towards the product: Different opinions are thrown at the same time and can be quite overwhelming to organize.
🗯️ Entice arguments based on opinion: People don’t always agree. Arguments waste time and energy in the corporate world.
🗣️ There is value in feedback, so what can we do?
👥 Create small teams: A close inner circle for designers to consult throughout a project.
🎥 Record demos: Let’s not put people on the spot! Ask for specific feedback in recorded demos.
📝 Written summary: Communicate what type of feedback you are looking for.
✍️ Ask for written feedback: Give people more time to think about meaningful comments.
🕑 Schedule meetings: If there is any confusion on the feedback received, schedule a meeting!
🤔 So now what?
💡 Design critiques play an important role in supporting beginner designers as they refine their skills and implement fundamental design principles. Receiving such critique in a conventional manner may not be as helpful in a corporate setting, but this gives us an opportunity to explore new ways to give feedback, improving the design journey for everyone involved!
🙈 Tidbits - Future of Design in Start-Ups: 2017 Results
Written & edited by: 😈 Sophie McGrady
In 2017, NEA, a venture capital firm investing in technology and healthcare innovation, launched a Future of Design in Start-Ups survey. Using input from over 350 companies, NEA created a site to highlight the main points and findings from their data. This report is filled with super cool visualizations and predictions, and we invite you to question: Did they come true?
🤔 Who’s behind the scenes?
Thanks for reading this week’s Interaction Nerds by CMU UXA! The editors behind this week’s issue are 😊 Eunice Lee, 🥸 Kaitlyn Ng, 😈 Sophie McGrady, 🧸 Ahana Banerjee, 🕺 Arin Pantja, 🐳 Alana Wu, and 🦝 Caleb Sun.
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