Refining wireframes and user path. Creating a prototype in Invision this week.
Month: February 2018
Professional Practice: Personal Brand WIP
Info Architecture: Portfolio Site
User Experience: Service Design (1)
Hello internet!!!! Quick recap of the last couple weeks.
My UX group is designing an app that aids U.S. immigrants studying for the American citizenship test.
Background info:
The US citizenship test is comprised of two parts – what we are labelling “civics” and “english comprehension.” The first part of the exam (civics) involves a prompter verbally asking questions related to US government or history (ex: How many members are there in the Senate?) and the answer must be spoken back in English. During the second part of the exam (English comprehension), the test taker is given a short story, usually no longer than one page, and is required to read and answer questions on the material. This section is at a basic, elementary level of reading and understanding.
*Basic eligibility – must be over the age of 18. If you are under 18 and your parents become US citizens, you are automatically granted citizenship. Must have lived in the US for 5+ years.
User Persona #1:
Gabriel – 19 years old
student at Arizona State University – business management
language: Spanish and English
lived in US for 15 years
needs to review civics material quickly and on the go
User Persona #2:
Lucy – 35 years old
stay at home mom
language: Mandarin and English
lived in US for 6 years
needs to learn English writing skills, review some civics
User Persona #3:
Carlos – 68 years old
day factory line worker
language: Spanish
lived in US for 16 years
not familiar with technology
needs to learn civics and reading/writing in English
User map:
Research visualization:
Personal Brand Moodboard
User Experience: Youtube User Paths
*disclaimer: screenshots were actually videos – not images. But you get the idea 🙂
Sign in by connecting to your Google account. This allows YT to store personalized history, playlists, and “channel” (profile).
This typically consists of the search bar or a hamburger menu, where the user has a specific end goal or destination.
Uses features such as autocomplete search or filters to help guide the user to an end result. Ex: knowing I want to watch a video about donuts, but I don’t know what the video will be titled.
Utilizes YT’s personalized feature of carousel recommendations. These are based on previously watched videos, searches, categories, ratings (thumbs up/down), or subscriptions.
Allows users to revisit a previous discovery. YT allows users to save videos in groups, or playlists, to return to later. For example, I could make separate playlists of recipes and music videos so they would be easier to find later.
I think the only way for YT to be successful and functional is by having the search features. When you take those aspects away, it becomes an endless pit of videos that would be impossible to sort through and use as it was intended. At the most basic level it needs the keyboard search bar.
Within the last few years, youtube has released their first subscription-based account system called Youtube Red. With a YouTube Red membership, users can watch YouTube ad-free, save videos offline, and play videos in the background. I think if YouTube eventually went completely subscription based and didn’t have any free account options, their audience would begin to disappear and maybe even relocate to a different site for video hosting.Â
YT has an option for users to “Restore old YouTube” and revert to an older version of the website. The change requires users to give a reason why they are switching, “something is missing, broken, harder to use, or they just don’t like it”. As a user I didn’t know this option existed, but it is a very effective way for YT to get direct feedback from users having a negative experience.
Portfolio Revisions
Here is one of the projects I’m currently re-vamping for my portfolio – before & after
Still a WIP. But I haven’t updated in a minute so here ya go.
