My Experience with NM4210-User Experience Design

Today is the day. God has given me this day to use it as I will. And I have chosen to use it to wrap up my final assignment for this module that is to be NM4210: User Experience Design.

I am typing this post on the infamous bus service 151 on my way to school from the other end of the service line, to submit my final report and peer-evaluation form. And I must say that I am largely satisfied with the journey thus far; the bus captain was all smiley and chirpy when I boarded the bus and he even assisted an old lady to her seat. It’s a positive experience. I just hope that the traffic will be smooth flowing. And I digressed.

As my first level 4000 module, NM4210 is more than just a module to fulfill my modular credit requirements. I took it with the intention of testing to see if honors year may be a possibility or no-go for me. I foresee that it will be tough and hectic if I am taking more of such modules.

Despite the busy schedules and weekly deadlines for presentation, I must say that my experience with the module is highly positive overall, albeit peppered with some negativity along the way.

In the beginning, the vagueness of the module kind of threw me away as it differs greatly from the clear knowledge structure of all the previous modules that I have taken; one week we were taught a method to design for user experience, the next week we were told that the method will not work. However, as the lessons unfold and the assignments kicked in one-by-one, I begin to appreciate the lack of structure as it allows me a great deal of possibilities and creativity to explore the methodologies taught and twist and change them to render them more appropriate and useful to our assignments.

And then the final assignment started.

The weekly deliverables for the final assignment meant that we have to consistently work on it while coping with the requirements of other modules. We ended up working on most all the Monday nights until three-plus four a.m. in the morning (our class is on every Tuesday, 9am to 12pm). And since I stayed rather far from school, it meant that I can only catch approximately 3 hours of sleep before I make my way to school. It didn’t help that Tuesdays are long days for me with my last lesson ending at 8pm.

However, this common experience actually bonded my group members together, and I believe it is one that we look back fondly at as we counted down to the last of the Monday late-nights.

The module got even more confusing (and the traffic halts to a jam now along Bukit Timah Road).

More and more user research methodologies were taught to us and we have to decide how we want to adapt them to our final assignment in order to find out what we need to find out about our target users. At times, I felt like we were on the right track only to be thrown off-track by the comment/ feedback of the class, especially those by the tutor.

Often time, I was awed-inspired by the kind of insights the tutor, Mr Reddy, has although he was not directly involved in the doing of our assignment. It strengthened my belief that good UX designs do not only evolve from excellent user research but also with the accumulation of experience by the designer.

And like the bus ride that was affected by external factors such as the traffic condition, the experience with the module was affected by the increasing work commitments demanded by other modules. I believe this is also why UX design is difficult to the point of being impossible; there are too many external factors that the designers cannot control/ manage in the designs.

We approached the final lap.

As the deadlines for all module projects loom, the workload of our final assignment intensifies. At some point, I felt that we will never be able to complete the assignment. This may be true in reality though, as there will never be an end to UX design and user research; it is a pure wicked problem. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us, the assignment has to end with the user evaluation, going a full cycle. I guess deadlines for design rollout in the corporate world will be based more on the profit and cost timeline.

Although there are still ways to improve our designs by leaps and bounds, we have to call it a wrap and submit our final report by 5pm today.

In conclusion, I believe I have learned a lot from this module. More than the hard facts commonly taught in most modules, I’ve learned about the endless possibilities that UX design entails, and the creation and application of knowledge. While this experience will not be sufficient to make me a designer, it is definitely a positive start! The end is only the beginning of greater things to come.

With that, I shall end my post. (Actually it’s because my bus has reached its destination and I’m in school now; it was a positive experience travelling as well despite the minor hiccups). =)

P/s: Weiwei printed the report and submitted it. The pages turned out to be a little messy with some on single-sided, and some double due to the school's printer setting and the printing of the coloured pages. Personally I feel that this presentation isn't good when it comes to the reader's experience. But we decided to save the Earth (and save money) and not reprint everything in single side. :)