I ventured into the UX field around 2018, nearing the end of my college experience, having studied primarily user research and interactions. For me, understanding how users felt when they interacted with something I was familiar with always fascinated me, and I couldn’t help but dive deep into reviews of various product launches, for things like the iPhone, a streaming service, an app launch or even a simple update to existing software. The last two years of my major in this field focused my attention deeper on the industry of user experience, and it began to deepen my understanding of how products were designed and created.
During the summer of 2019, I went on a camping trip with a couple of friends from Seattle to San Francisco. Our end goal was to reach SF, and we stopped at various camping locations to spend the evening. We used an app called iOverlander, which SAVED us throughout the journey, but had the most FRUSTRATING design I’d ever seen in an app. Combined with the fact that this was our primary tool for about 4 days when figuring out where to spend the night, I learned every element of the app and knew firsthand that there were a lot of things I could change to improve the UX. This became my first dip into the waters of the ocean known as user experience design.
Given that my background already focused heavily on this field to begin with, being that it was mainly based on user interactions and human studies, combined with the fact that I always found user feedback so fascinating, I knew I wanted to explore this field further. The more research I did, the more I started to care. Every time I’d visit a new website, I start looking at the accessibility, the layout, and how the website felt and began to notice all the minute details that previously went unnoticed.
Fast forward to now, I’m still learning, only having scratched the surface of UX, and just trying to become a better designer each day. My end goal is to be able to fully understand the connection between user and product, and be able to bridge that gap effortlessly in a way that makes it effortless for users of any background and capability to use and enjoy my designs.
This was an entry into my UX journey, and I’d love to hear more about yours! Feel free to hit me up via email so we can discuss UX, or even just gush about completely random things like bouldering, 2D/3D animation, video games, or food!
