Looking back at our progress
This was my first time designing in the role of a design lead. In addition to building my skills in UI/UX design, this project challenged me to think deeply about fostering an environment for a design team and my role overseeing the design of the product. It wasn’t easy – there were many lessons learned. But in the end, we pushed through, and I’m thankful for this immense learning opportunity.
Ensuring design consistency
Consistency in design extends past the visual style guide. Does each interface transition seamlessly across different features? If components are being utilized, is the interaction also consistent? These questions are especially important to consider when designers are working separately on different features. At times, it may seem logical for one to design interfaces to best house a specific function. However, it’s important to consider how this design sits within the overall experience, and the friction that comes from introducing different contexts.
Embracing Uncertainty
Despite having run through the human-centered design process a couple of times now, I realize that the process is much messier, especially in a start-up environment. This uncertainty taught us the importance of placing intentionality in the methods that we used and to constantly reflect on the effectiveness of our methods.
Client Communication
As I began to learn the product inside and out, I found myself bringing forward meaningful conversations that challenged the clients to think about the experience differently. In many cases, the key point is being able to show how your design decisions translate into the bigger picture of the product.
As expected, there were a fair number of learning opportunities too
Timing
Our biggest challenge came down to the timing when scoping out this project. With only 15 weeks, I’d thought we’d be able to run an end-to-end design project, but at the end, we barely finished prototyping. User testing was pushed to be done in the summer after the semester ended.
Tracing back our steps
In our process, I overlooked some design decisions that came back and haunted us later on down the road. Some examples:
- Typography and style guide was not clearly set before going into hi-fi.
- Health tracking/ symptom logging’s user flow was not developed enough to be prototyped. We realized there were a plethora of complex use cases that had not been addressed, but were too constrained on time / too far in build it through.
Some of the issues we encountered can be traced back to our short window of 15 weeks to complete the project. If I could time travel and redo this project with the knowledge I have today, I would build in more milestones during the early prototyping stage that would allow the team to assess progress and solidify our design direction.
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