Web/UX/UI Design Debonair
Influence. Impress. Inspire. Ignite.
This is how it all started for me. Since this time, learning front-end web development has been a way of life. Adding to my quest, I began learning more about user experience design and user interface design to supplement my knowledge in front-end web development. Learning to take a simple idea and evolve it into a complete web solution is a cross between art and science, and I believe design is the bridge between the two.
Thank you for viewing this humble portfolio! Believe it or not, it has been 20 years in the making. The time is right. Companies are very quickly noticing that user-centered design should be one of the chief precursors in any of their products' development. Anything from oven mitts to fully integrated web platforms all benefit from user experience design. It is no wonder this field of research is growing quickly in popularity. To achieve such impactful results, organizations find it beneficial to follow the 5-stage model of design thinking.
This portfolio attempts to make use of all 5 stages in accordance with effective, and efficient user-focused design.
Case Studies
Give a Sock
Local nonprofit confronting houselessness
A nonprofit enriching people’s lives through a digital platform requires a website that connects the people who can help to those who need the help. This case study utilizes user experience design to reimagine a website that needed help of its own.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
A potential site restructure and redevelopment.
The Department of Homeland Security website is a comprehensive online repository of the department’s most important information. This case study shows how the website’s information architecture may be improved in terms of usefulness and desirability.
Empathizing
According to Dictionary.com, empathy is defined as "the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another." Where there is empathizing, there is a connection or understanding of where someone is coming from as if the empathizer was in the same situation. Empathizing with users puts the designer in the users' shoes, viewing a reality through their eyes, and with their mindset.
Defining
In the course of the defining phase, designers bring further organization to the facts accumulated from the empathizing phase. They work to discover correlations found in the data received which helps them incorporate the research into a principal issue. The groundwork can then begin on unearthing hidden solutions for this user-specific dilemma.
Ideating
The time following the defining phase is reserved for the ideation phase. During this phase, designers are better qualified to begin originating fresh ideas aimed at minimizing or eliminating the user-specific problems found during the previous two phases. This phase encompasses a wide range of buzz session brainstorming techniques where pen and pencil meet paper, and wall realty comes at a premium for the amount of sticky notes attached to it.
Prototyping
At this point in the entire user experience design process, the prototyping phase brings into existence a real, tangible, workable solution. Designers will construct a variety of inexpensive, low-fidelity prototypes with inspiration taken from the ideas gathered from the other three phases. The low-fidelity prototypes can be based on other design deliverables like user flows and pencil sketches, and these prototypes will then evolve into a higher fidelity version when the time is right.
Testing
This final phase uses an iteration model to continually improve upon the initial low-cost, low-fidelity prototype. This prototype may also be called a minimum viable product, or MVP. The MVP will undergo successive revisions as the design is tested then enhanced based on the test results, retested again, and so forth until a more advance version of the MVP is left over.