HOW TO BECOME A
UX DESIGNER

What makes UX design different from other design practices? Today's class is about where UX fits in the broader development cycle, and why that matters to you as a designer. Then, Hang will help you refine your career vision by sharing some insights into why businesses hire designers (and when they don’t).

Assignment #1: Read at least 3 job postings with a combination of these titles: UX Designer at Google, Product Designer at Facebook, UI Designer, UX/UI Designer. Reflect on what role you align with and an area that you will learn about during or after this course.

This class shatters the biggest myth of UX design: you can focus on design and leave the business to the other guys. First, you'll learn about how a company’s business model, target audience, and success obstacles all impact the type of designs you create. Then, you'll explore the problem of ineffective UX personas and how to do them right.

Assignment #2: Pick a business (B2B or B2C). Next, define the types of users who use this app. What are your assumptions about how they use this app or website?

Tips:

• Pick something interesting that's ripe for UX improvements
• Pick something you can easily find users to talk to

The first step of design is research. In this lecture, Hang will show you some of the tools she uses in her work every day. Then, you'll learn hacks for optimizing the information-gathering process./p>

Assignment #3:

• Step 1. Write research questions you would pose to potential users. Then, recruit 3-5 users fitting your personas profile and speak with them about these questions.
• Step 2. Revisit the business case, if needed (such as new pain points or areas of focus that aren't important to the user). Then, form a business hypothesis.

If you haven't framed the problem correctly, your end product won't be right, either. In this class, you'll learn how to analyze your user feedback and narrow down the problem your design needs to solve.

Assignment #4: Fill out details in personas based on your real interview data. Then, do the following:

• Form "current" journey maps, highlighting differences and commonalities between personas
• Form your "How Might We" statements
• Pick the top "How Might We"

Today’s class is fully hands-on as we learn quick ideation techniques and tips for narrowing down the right one. At the end of this class, you’ll be equipped with a full toolbox for tapping into your own creativity.

Assignment #5: Ideate on your chosen "How Might We". Pick the best idea to move forward with, either a quick win or a larger project. Then, form a list of use cases for this chosen idea.

Today, you'll lay out how to build a great wireframe and prototype. I’ll share with you lessons I’ve learned in my years of doing this for B2B and B2C businesses and my techniques for enhancing product quality.

Assignment #6: Form a "new" journey map with wireframes.

You have a great design, but do users like it? Today, you'll get a thorough introduction to usability testing: you'll explore methods, tools, and hacks for performing it and learn how to interpret the results. Then, you'll workshop a test step-by-step in class, with a student volunteer as a "user".

Assignment #7: Test your prototypes with 3-5 people. What surprised you about their experience? Change your design based on that feedback.

Design rarely gets implemented as-is. Today's workshop is about determining if your design helps you achieve your original business goals and how to move forward.

In this class, you'll turn from the practical aspects of design to the beautiful. Hang will walk you through key visual design principles and demonstrate how to apply them in a real project.

Assignment #8: Design your screens in high-fidelity.

It's a well-accepted fact in the design world that the first UX to get launched is never the final. This class teaches how to articulate measurements of success for your MVP and continue learning to improve it down the road.

Assignment #9: Form the success measurements you'll use to evaluate your design. Then, create the MVP.

Great design speaks for itself, right? Wrong. Designers trying to move up the career ladder quickly learn that there is a right way and a wrong way to present their work, and today you will, too. You'll learn about the differences between presenting for stakeholders and for interviewers during a job search, and how to tie everything together in a presentation.

Assignment #10: Form a deck of between 5-10 slides. Write “the point” of each slide (3 bullet points per slide). Hang will give feedback on your deck and bullet points. Next week, 3 volunteers will present their deck at the final class and get live feedback from the class.

This class simulates a UX feedback session in a company. Three of your classmates will present their projects, with the rest of the class providing feedback on how their designs could better meet their objectives.

This special bonus class prepares you to master the complex mix of technical talent, design thinking, and soft skills that is the UX design interview. Hang will share her best strategies to prep for each type of interview. Then, she will walk you through some of her favorite portfolio examples and why they caught her eye as a UX design manager.