Week 6: Reading Week

Thankfully, we've been allowed a week to catch up on our reading material and coursework. So I spent my time re-working existing blog posts and conducting research for my assessment.

Upon entering week 6, I was having somewhat of an academic crisis where it transpired that I didn’t fully understand the brief. Until that point, I’d focussed my efforts on improving the user experience of a specific product (Google Maps), but this wasn’t what the brief required. So I set up a meeting with my tutor, and we discussed the ideas I’d already come up with, mainly surrounding specific features to improve Google Maps. I was very unsure of myself, and my tutor encouraged me to explore another of my ideas about improving a customer service system. In hindsight, I don’t think either of us had realised that I’d simply misunderstood the brief and was producing somewhat mismatched ideas.

Following a later meeting with the other module tutor, I explained my perception of the brief, and we identified where I was going wrong. We uncovered that the brief was asking for the development of solutions based on the needs identified in the user research. This included analysing the market to see what worked well in other apps, then collating the good design and UX elements, and synthesising these into an experience that would satisfy the users’ goals.

My key learning from this week is to re-write tasks or brief requirements and then validate my understanding by meeting with my classmates or tutors. Due to my dyslexia, sometimes I find it difficult to grasp concepts and simply need to write them in my own words or speak about them to iron out any misunderstandings. I could have saved a lot of time by doing this at the start of the module, with the potential to reduce the stress I felt when entering week 6. When I receive the assessment for the next module, I’ll conduct the above steps to ensure a sound comprehension of the task at hand.

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References

UNSPLASH. 2017. Person Reading a Book with One Hand. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/zMRLZh40kms [accessed 16 May 2022].