The ultimate experience of User-Experience Nanodegree
We live in an era where the usage of digital products is at its peak. And you know what, it's going to break that peak tomorrow (or by the time you finish reading this).
As a Front-End Web developer, I have been focusing on how to build products. The question that always pondered me was “Why?”. This question seems small but if you really think about it, it's very broad.
I turned to Udacity for the answer.
Udacity structures the Nanodegree into various phases with a project at the end of each one. The process shadows what a UX designer goes through from day one to D-day.
It all starts with a research mindset. Here the thought process and asking the right questions takes the wheel. This process ranges from understanding the users’ pain points to framing iterations of research studies. Triaging the potential features (called feature ideation and prioritizing) would be the outcome of this process.
By applying basic design principles, sketches, and low-fidelity designs will follow the research. This is an iterative process, where each design will go through usability tests (design sprint).
Based on this, a high-fidelity prototype would have to be created. The key aspect of this phase will be learning about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It would also involve conducting remote usability tests against these KPIs. Again, this too is an iterative process where designs would be improved based on the data obtained from the tests. Preparing an engineering handoff will conclude this phase.
Lastly, the entire Nanodegree would be documented and learn the process of story-telling.
A student can choose a templated project or an own one for the Nanodegree.
I chose to enhance the usability of my existing web app Hand-Cricket. From the initial research interviews, I found a lot of potential features for the application. Amongst them, I chose to enhance the landing screen and navigation, which creates the first impression. Although the application was built responsively to all devices, I chose to design primarily for mobile screens, which was backed by the study results.
I learnt to use tools like Miro, Figma, and Zeplin. I had used some of these tools as a developer (when the handoff was provided to me), so it was interesting to be on the other side for a change. The feature prioritization required analysis of the impact of the feature against the engineering complexity. Being an Engineer, I was able to put an appropriate complexity for the features. The natural process is to start off with the highest valued feature with the least complexity.
Here is my reflection of my Nanodegree and my final showcase.
Overall, it was beautifully structured, and a glance of a UX designer brings out a new perspective for engineers, especially a Front-End one. Whatever happens on the backend side of an application, the end-users need to have an engaging experience.
Check out the Nanodegree from Udacity.
