Master lists like this can help people remember conditions they might otherwise forget in a medical examination.
Travel sheets are a traditional medical document used by doctors as a sort of a check list of conditions. It’s a quick way to mark items that a patient may or may not have.
What do I know about medical exam travel sheets? Absolutely nothing! But that is a great start for any UX Designer. You don’t have to be an expert on your subject so start researching. In fact, the less you know can work to your advantage. Approaching a topic from a completely new and innocent perspective allows you to empathize how someone else who is new to the subject will be introduced. You have fresh eyes, less bias and a lack of knowledge to jump ahead of yourself.
So if you don’t know a lot about a topic then get started on learning. Use the web to research what others have said on the same topic. I don’t have to tell you the wealth of resources there are online. Also, talk to your stakeholders and clients to learn from they. they know their subject, and they should not be afraid to share this valuable information with you.
Travel sheets may not be the prettiest thing to look at. But they have a strong function in the medical field when assessing patients.
There are many people trying to figure out how to make the jump in to the UX field. I too, not too long ago, was trying to transition (or to use the buzz word “pivot”) in to the field of UX. Thankfully, I made the transition and I am now a UI Designer. However, it took a lot of hard work, networking, self discipline, education and pushing myself to learn more about UX every day.
Use all levels of fidelity to show your progress through the UX design process.
One way I went about getting experience about UX was to learn as much as I could about the deliverables in the UX field. I would hear a term like “personas” or “wireframes” and decide that I was not only going to learn as much as I could about these topics, but I was also going to put it in to practice.
UX deliverables like performing a competitive analysis can show steps in a project.
Here’s an example. Say you are a web designer for a flower shop. Sure, you could just design the website per the shop owner’s request. But why not take it a step further? Why not do a bit of discovery and research before starting the design project? You could interview the owners and customers to find out what the business goals and customer goals are. You could do a bit of ethnographic research by observing people shopping for flowers or employees performing a transaction. Sketch our a few concepts before diving in to the code.
Creating a mood board helps set the tone of a project and informs you of what designs already exist in the same arena.
If you are trying to get experience in UX, and want to build up your portfolio, use some or many of these methods to show that you are so much more than a visual designer or developer. Show off your analytical skills and how they are applicable to a career in UX.
Here is a brief list of UX deliverables to get you started:
User Stories
Personas
Competitive Audit
Sketching
Stakeholders Interviews
Brainstorming Sessions
Moodboard
Prototypes
Annotated Wireframes
Storyboard
Information Architecture (Taxonomy)
Task Analysis
Interviews
Ethnographic Observation
Heuristic Evaluation
Examine Business Goals
Examine Customer Goals
Content Audit
Sitemap Creation
User Flow
Usability Testing
A/B Testing
Card Sorting
Pattern Libraries
Site Map and Architecture
Whiteboard and Sticky Notes
Functional Specifications
Interactive Mockups
Style Guide
Surveys
Market Research
SWOT Analysis
Use Case Scenario
Creative Brief
Diary Study
Navigation Model
Web Analytics
Persona Empathy Map
Affinity Diagrams
Ideation Workshop
Task Model
Cognitive Walk Through
Now take all of these deliverables and practice creating them. Then, use the most important UX skill of all: Tell us Your Story.
Sketching can help take you to the next step in your discovery phase. So you’ve done a bit of research on design ideas. Some you like, some you do no like.
Sketching concepts has many advantages including just working out the ideas in your head and communicating these ideas to another person.
Looking at design examples of dashboards that already exist helps me to get in the right mindset of designing something similar, and hopefully better.
I find that the best best place for me to start on a new project is to see what’s already out there in the world. I like to do a bit of research, and see what items exist that are similar in design and purpose. It helps me to think about possibilities, what I like and what I don’t like.
I am currently in the process of designing a Dashboard that will be used in several veterinary hospitals. Having never designed a dashboard before, I thought I would scour the internet to see what visual examples I could use as inspiration on helping me get started.
After viewing various dashboard examples, I figure out what traits apply to my design concept, and what do not. Even though I might not have a pie chart in my concept does not mean I would discard a design completely. It’s often useful to pull pieces from several designs and combine them in to one.
As you can see from the collage of Dashboards above, they have a variety of components. Some work within my design and some do not. As the project progresses, we will see if any of these designs or pieces of the design end up in the final product.
I found this graphic in a post written by Megan Wilson on her blog, UX Motel. I really thought it was interesting, though someone difficult to read. Do you spin your computer around or spin your head around? Forget about looking at it on mobile. Nevertheless, this is fun to look at isn’t it?
Jennifer Blatz explores the world of UX through words and imagery
