Lessons Learnt

After taking NM4210, designing has become a more experiential task for me., showing me the need to feel as a user using the product rather than just focusing on the exterior, as I am a more visual person.

The main gist is in designing experiences and not concentrating on solely the designing of the product only where human interactions takes a heavy weightage. From the different assignments that thought us to recognise a good and bad design, to differentiating between visceral, behavorial and reflective design, then to pleasure analysis with the creation of user persona, to working on a design probe through examination by different user study methods and finally the final project which took out nearly half of my life, working through the night to come up with suitable graphical designs(the first 2 design came out as a failure thou), this module taught and equip us with appropriate and necessary tools that can assist us in evaluating user experience to a certain extent.

I do not put it down as absolute here as this module also came to me as a very subjective. Quoting what Mr Reddy has said during one of the lecture, he reminded us that there is not a definite yes and no answer in User Experience Analysis. Things are still debatable and there is not yet a standard definition for a good UX design. And with practices, I believe UX design will come more as a breeze when we develop on our "common sense" to come up with suitable design for specific target audience. In a nutshell, user experience design is a very "human" topic which makes use subjectivity in its evaluation, thus one needs to be observant to excel in this area and even if one do not plan to expand in this field, I truly think it help us become more sensitive to the needs of others.