Today was quite a short class as we had both a critique and an industry talk on top of our regualr content. That being said it was quite a productive class.
In class we touched on some of the stuff we are looking at in 302. Kyle suggested if it is needed that we should explore ways to bulk out our portfolio’s if we aren’t thrilled with some of our previous project work. He suggested a site called Daily UI in which you are tasked with a series of design challenges in order to improve your skills as a designer. It’s a cool idea and one I might seek to explore at a later date. At the moment I am quite busy but on some downtime I could see this being a helpful resource. It reminds me of the master apprentice tasks that we did last year and those were actually quite helpful.
Daily UI Design Challenge, Inspiration, and Resources
We had our first critique of the year today and I felt like I got off to a great start. As i have documented within my watch development pages I decided to create some slides for this critique to best communicate what my watch app does and what it is all about. I received some really positive feedback and I got some praise for making the effort to create the slides. Whilst mostly positive I did get some constructive feedback too, as well as this I had a lot of people suggesting ways to take the app a step further which was interesting to see. All in all a super positive critique which is great and I can continue with new areas to explore for the app knowing that i’m headed in the right direction. You can see what people said about my design below.
We were given the brief for our next project, this one all about Sustainable Development Goals, SDG’s for short. There are 17 SDG’s all focused on areas such as poverty, education, climate action and many more. This project is quite a beefy one I believe, lasting around 9 weeks and contributing to 30% of our grade this year. With this in mind I will be moving appropriately and giving this project the time it deserves in order to make the most of it. It seems like an interesting brief and one that can be interpreted in so many ways which is good as I personally would like to try something a little different this time. Some previous examples explored gamification, books, and of course applications for various devices.
We explored what is called a Sailboat exercise in which we were to document different aspects of the project from all angles and then arrange them according to where they might fall in regards to a sailboat arriving to the shore. My explanation isn’t great but it was quite a productive exercise and has already got me considering different ways ti approach this project. I noted my own objectives as well as target demographics, strengths and weaknesses all surrounding the project and then placed them accordingly on a white board whether they were success defining, contributing toward success, halting success or even sinking the boat. What we found is that there is a lot of overlap in these categories and that most of us were on the same page in regards to what it meant for something to be contributing to our success etc. My main takeaway from this was how beneficial it was to plot out these different things and align then visually to see how they impact the journey of the project. It allows you to take more time with aspects that might rock the boat more than others and to place value relevantly rather than equally.
Today we had our first industry talk. It was with a company called Slice. Slice specialise in software for independent pizzerias. The goal is to elevate these small stores so they can compete with large franchise stores. Slice help these businesses by providing systems they might not otherwise have access too. Things such as POA systems, call handling for phone orders, an owners portal, online ordering and even branding. What stood out to me about Slice is that their work is all about a real physical impact, it’s not just one tech company benefitting another but tech enabling a kind of heritage business to continue on in a harsh economic environment. I really liked Slice and they seem to place a focus on product rather than UX. I have always seen myself aligning more with this role as it just seems like it would suit my working style best. I have researched all of the companies that are coming to do talks and even before today Slice stood out to me as number one. I will be applying for this role as soon as possible.