User Experience (UX) design is such a hot industry today with no shortage of Medium articles telling you how to break into UX. There’s detailed talk about portfolios, which courses to take, and whether designers should learn how to code, among others. What they seem to miss, though, is the ‘getting started’ part: How do you do a design project and ensure that it gets from discovery all the way to deployment? If design portfolios are about the projects that you’ve brought to life, then how do we do them and build them well?
In this session, we will be looking at the design process and the Elements of User Experience. We will be reviewing the milestones inside web projects and the activities that make it successful. You will learn what makes great websites great, and what makes designers advocates for their own work.
Design is finally having its golden age. Will you be a part of it?
11. Applying the STRATEGY plane
Competitive analysis:
Survey previous WCTO sites to see how they were built.
Site purpose + initial content plan:
What is this site about? What could go in there?
Establish success metrics:
Revenue generation? Speaker applications? #1 on Google?
13. Applying the SCOPE plane
Firm up project’s business framework:
Objectives, KPIs, OKRs, timelines, project team, etc.
Tech specs:
e.g. Domain and hosting, WP security, third-party services, etc.
Content and functionality:
What pages, content, and features must this site have that truly
matter to users?
15. Applying the STRUCTURE plane
Sitemap:
Site sections,
subsections, etc.
Content Organization:
Tags vs. Categories
Pages vs. Posts
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18. Applying the SKELETON plane
SOURCE: “The Skeptic’s Guide to Low-Fidelity Prototyping” by Laura Busche (Smashing Magazine, 2014)
LOW FIDELITY
(paper sketches,
cutouts, etc.)
HIGH FIDELITY
(super colorful
design mockups)
25. Applying the SURFACE plane
Decide on the colors, fonts, images, page layouts, etc.:
Document these decisions somewhere (e.g. style tile)
Select the WP theme:
Which theme suits my needs? Free? Premium?
Consider theme customization:
How far can I ‘personalize’ this theme? Child themes?
functions.php? Page builders?
38. The best designers are !
process driven, !
not product-driven.
Trust the process.
Design. Decide. Deviate. !
And repeat.
@sarahdoody
www.theuxnotebook.com