I hope people reading this post are healthy and fighting for their life still good. This year 2020, taught us a lot of things, I know it can be hard for all of us to handle this situation in a positive way. Among all this chaos, there is another great difficulty we are facing these days i.e Job searching, Recission, Firing etc. In this situation, it's very troublesome to not to have a job and to lead life normal. What can we do to help ourselves meanwhile the world heals?

Health is the key

Well maintained health can cross all the paths over to success. Just make sure you’re having good health with proper precautions before going out. Help others too to maintain a proper diet and steps to get sanitized. Make a habit of proper sleep, diet and exercise. This is the time where you can spend most of your time exercising and taking care of your health since everyone of us will be busy usually. Being healthy is just as important as investing in money.

Develop yourself

This is the time where you can upgrade yourself to a better level. It is a rare opportunity where one gets time to acquire and adapt knowledge peacefully. Well, it's important to know that what are you looking at in future. If you think the technology you’re working doesn't need an upgrade, still try to look into another field where you can show your best either ways, where it can help you fetch an opportunity after this pandemic. If you think you’re a step behind, this is the right time to compete with other people.Its never late to be . a Pro.

Explore the Market

Patiently look into the field where you wanted to gain experience.

Know the market.

Know what the market needs from you.

Gain knowledge about how you can be unique among everyone who is trying for the same job.

Approach mentors who can guide you professionally on the right path and work accordingly.

Try to know things which you overlooked before. Practice more on your weakness and build a strong portfolio/Resume.

Try attending online workshops, courses or videos which can help you improvise.

Don't be Depressed!

This is the time, not only YOU, most of the people around the world facing the same problems as you are, maybe even harder than yours. So, stop thinking that you're alone going through all of this. Know that it's not the same every day. Anytime your situation might change, just be patient and vigilant enough to wait for your turn. Never run away from what you face. I can understand, it can be harder on you, even for me. But never ever lose hope on yourself, be confident enough on yourself that you’re not less than anyone. It's just about time, not you alone. Let’s wait. Lets hope.

Thanks for taking your time in reading this post. If you think anyone needs to hear this, please share and support me with a Clap! Stay safe and healthy

These days Digital platforms are the important mediums to reach public closely. Since there are many businesses that wanted to do this, how can you stand out unique? How can you make your customer engagement more efficient? Are your customers going to reach your website again? How can you solve all this in your busy business planning? Glad that you’ve clicked on this post. Welcome peeps! I'm going to say a few tips which can answer all the above queries. Let's get started!!

1.Designing Skills

It's very important to follow the current market trends to keep up with the businesses along with your competitors. Always make sure that you use attractive interactions and visual designs that can grab the attention right away and can make the user get involved with the flow of the site. Make sure you frequently update the site with new features in visuality so that users get the enthusiasm to go through the site more often. While designing for different pages make sure you follow the same pattern with the previous page so, you don't interrupt the user's concentration in following up.

Don't make it fancier that user could feel complicated to go through. Make it simple and short.

2.Placement matters

Eye-tracking is a feature where an apparatus is used to conduct experiments on a set of users and observe their eyeball tracking while using a website and gives you the result technically. This feature is one of the most important concepts in user researchers perspective. It can say a lot about your customer's engagement with your site. Based on the result, you can easily update the data from the retrieved solution. It's always important to arrange your crucial data on your website, usually where the user's eye catches and try to place the unimportant data where the eye-tracking shows less attention. Even though this is a little expensive process, the results are worthy enough to try if you’re from the digital platform services.

Always put your users first, when you want them to reach you.

3.Design Flow

When we design a website, mostly we concentrate on the visual design and working ability of the site. But its also important to decide the best flow of process not only through illustrations or web design. A flow should always make the user involved in what they’re searching/looking for. When a user gets frustrated by using your website and he doesn't find what he’s looking for, trust me he is not going to visit again. So, the first impression is always matters. when you can make the user return to your website for the second time then that's the best you can do for them and to your business. Dont make the interactions between the pages complicated or with high animation which in turn makes the user sight confusing. it should always be a pleasant experience when they open your website.

Consistency and Cognitive workflow always wins the market.

4.Copywriting

Its always been what you write that attracts people. When you write powerful and influencing things on digital platforms, we should be careful about what we are talking or expressing. since it can affect a lot around us, whether it can be negative or positive. So, always pick your words cautiously that it can affect only positively and can influence people to use your site. People do like to read, but not too much. Make it quite simple, strong and meaningful.

Words have been powerful weapons in the history of Influencers

Thank you so much for making time in reading this article. If you like please support me by a clap :)

For better understanding please refer to the following link.https://medium.com/@vipparthymeenakshi/types-of-usability-evaluation-in-interaction-design-845b41f5839b

Usability evaluation is a theoretical way to appraise the product’s usability. It is handled by one or several usability experts.

Quality and relevance of results are directly linked with experts’ competence.

Each usability expert develops own approach to interface evaluation and has own views on how deeply to investigate this or that interface element and how to set priorities.

Depending on the goals the Expert Evaluation falls into

1. Quality Evaluation

2. Heuristic Evaluation

3. Cognitive Walkthrough

In this article, we will learn about Cognitive Walkthrough.

Cognitive Walkthrough is a theoretical usability inspection method measuring easiness of interaction with the system.

Identification of Users and Contexts

Preparation for the expertise falls into the following stages:

• identification of the general target audience’s (TA) attributes
• identification of usability goals of the TA
• identification of users’ roles vs. goals, a ranking of goals’ importance for users
• identification of functionality options necessary for meeting TA goals and objectives; ranking of functionality attributes dependant on how well they help to reach goals
• identification of the product’s application options

Analysing the user Scenarios

• development of the product’s application scenarios
• description of the path followed by the user within the product’s structure

Compared Evaluation

Compared evaluation is a theoretical method designed to measure product usage convenience vs. competitor products based on similar user scenarios and functional features of products to be compared.

Like with qualitative evaluation, product user profiles, goal lists, and user scenarios will need to be prepared prior to the study.

The study will involve product components with similar functional features meant to achieve the same user goals. The input of unique functional features of each product into usage convenience while achieving the same goals will also be measured. Compliance of the interfaces under comparison with the interface design rules will be examined on the basis of the checklist.

Expert Efficiency of the products under comparison while performing the same scenarios will be measured.

The evaluation results will come in the form of quantitative diagrams revealing the degree of Usability across the products under comparison on the qualitative better-or-worse level.

Please refer to my previous article here for better understanding.https://medium.com/@vipparthymeenakshi/types-of-usability-evaluation-in-interaction-design-845b41f5839b.

Usability evaluation is a theoretical way to appraise the product’s usability. It is handled by one or several usability experts.

Quality and relevance of results are directly linked with experts’ competence.

Each usability expert develops own approach to interface evaluation and has own views on how deeply to investigate this or that interface element and how to set priorities.

Depending on the goals the Expert Evaluation falls into

1. Quality Evaluation

2. Heuristic Evaluation

3. Cognitive Walkthrough

In this article, we will first learn about Heuristic Evaluation.

Heuristic Evaluation— a hypothetical convenience review strategy dependent on principles of the framework’s turn of events (“the heuristics”) proposed by Jakob Nielsen.

As indicated by these gauges, Heuristic assessment is taken care of by a few (the 20/80 guidelines) specialists, who recognize building blunders depending on “the heuristics”, their graveness and effect on ease of use.

The totalled testing results are remembered for the last report, which additionally diagrams the majority of distinguished framework mistakes.

1. Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.

2. Match between system and the real world
The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

3. User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

4. Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

5. Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

6. Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators — unseen by the novice user — may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

10. Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

To be Continued..

Please Check the Continuation here https://medium.com/@vipparthymeenakshi/cognitive-and-compared-testing-evaluation-methodologies-for-ui-design-9746c048aee4

Usability evaluation is a theoretical way to appraise the product’s usability. It is handled by one or several usability experts.

Quality and relevance of results are directly linked with experts’ competence.

Each usability expert develops own approach to interface evaluation and has own views on how deeply to investigate this or that interface element and how to set priorities.

Depending on the goals the Expert Evaluation falls into

1. Quality Evaluation

2. Heuristic Evaluation

3. Cognitive Walkthrough

In this article, we will first learn about Quality Evaluation

This strategy assists with distinguishing conceivable issue zones of the item and assess their effect on ease of use from subjective strategies. Endless supply of the investigation, the expert makes proposals of approaches to dispense with the difficult zones.

1.Functional layer

The expert recognizes every functional blunder, which makes it muddled or incomprehensible for him (and for any client) to experience all situation steps

The expert records the framework’s capacity to process blunders

Effect: Efficiency, Productivity, Functionality, Safety

2. Structural layer

The experts record all blunders and traps of the structure and route, which meddle with situations application

Effect of the structure on the selection of situations is recorded

Effect: Productivity, Satisfaction, Learnability

3. Content layer

The expert records all topic blunders happening in the substance if they are unimportant to the picked TA

The specialists likewise judge on messages consistency with interface constraints

Accessibility of inciting messages and their importance to the help area is additionally twofold checked

Effect: Efficiency, Satisfaction

4. Compositional layer

The expert checks the area of utilitarian, data and realistic components on site pages and judge on their importance to the general gauges of interface plan improvement including in the agenda

Effect: Efficiency, Productivity, Satisfaction

5. Visual layer

Overview of the effect of visual and realistic components on the client keeping measures of craftsmanship and plan, with extents, colouristic, affiliation symbols/pictures and the solidarity of style

Effect: Productivity, Satisfaction, Learnability

When all blunders are recorded, the specialists investigate their effect on the item’s convenience and make proposals while in transit to dispense with them.

Usability testing can be utilized in an assortment of ways during your task lifecycle. In spite of not having the option to emulate genuine use, ease of use testing is as yet the best technique for guaranteeing your site underpins clients in accomplishing their objectives rapidly and without any problem. At the point when organizations address the issues and desires for their clients, they are bound to build up effective assistance.

To be continued…

Please check the continuation here https://medium.com/@vipparthymeenakshi/heuristic-evaluation-for-usability-testing-in-ui-design-d12626375447

User Experience design is all about how did you overcome those obstacles while building up a project. A UX designer always concentrates on the process rather than the outcome. So, others need to know what you’ve gone through while constructing a project. This also describes your strategies, design thinking, sources you’ve gone through etc…

It’s as simple as you complete a project, but make sure you have a note of everything before you input. Every single effort counts in. Following are the key concepts you’ll need to include in your portfolio.

Introducing Your Project

In this section, it’s all about the problem statement, your role in the project, Duration and platforms you worked on.

It’s important to specify the problem clearly so that in the end, your result can speak more about the problem. Your role is also crucial since it shows how dedicated you’re towards the work or goal assigned to you. Defining the platforms and duration will showcase your skillset of accuracy and credibility in the project.

This section shouldn’t be too long, try to make it in a precise way.

Project Goals & Objectives

In this section, it all about ‘W’ rule in design. Many experts claimed that three ‘w’ s are very significant in human interaction design. You should be able to define the three W’s in this section. Like, What is this project is all about? Why you have chosen this? Who are you’re target audience?

This section proves in what scope you’re working in, how far you can research and whats your limitation.

Survey

In this section, it’ll show your analytical skills and human interaction ability as a UX designer. It’s been said that ‘Asking a write question always matters’. A good designer always leads the project survey invariably.

Make sure your questions should say something about your design strategy.

Personas

This section will say a lot about your key audiences and on whom you’re testing or asking the questions. Personas give a clear picture of future users using your project. This can help you find ways in tough situations, while you were stuck in any stage. This also gives the pre-evaluation of the project since its based upon the personal practices of a user daily basis.

User Journey & Scenarios

In this section, you’ll need to explain all the scenarios and how a user starts with your project until he ends in a particular stage. Defining this section states how clear you’re about the workflow. In UI/UX, the workflow takes a big role in user satisfaction.

Competitive Analysis

It’s not always about winning, rather thinking different and standing unique. In design, it is crucial to stand unique since design can be done in multiple ways. In this section, you should show how unique is your design from the existed market. Taking different examples of similar design can help you show the uniqueness.

Prototyping

This is section acts as a shortcut to your final design, since it includes, Low/High fidelity mockup designs. These prototypes can show your workflow, wireframing. front end designing and a trailer of your project. Always keep in mind to showcase the key features of your project rather than piling up.

TAKE AWAY

Making a Portfolio always depends upon whom you’re submitting to since the recruiter/client needs something he is searching for. So, always know your recruiter/client before you submit the portfolio. Remember to keep it clear, colourful, informative but short.

It’s very normal to face criticism in art & design even to the most experienced person. And that’s OKAY!. Yes, it’s nothing unusual to get rejections but its a very good thing to improve and know your capabilities and strength towards your creative skills. Know that you’ve something creative and meaningful thought process that can overcome the rejection. Believe in yourself. Here are the 4 ways how you can deal with rejections.

1. Know your client
2. Design based Reasoning
3. Always good to have Plan B
4. Don’t worry, you’re with a good team

Know your Client

This is very important because you cannot offer anything out of your mind to the client when they have a different perspective of design from yours. So, before you start the design process try to observe the perspectives of your organisation and client needs. It’s also a kind of user experience since you should also consider the client as your design users.

“Art is something unique that differs from, one person, to the other, so some people may like or may not like your design and it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad designer”.

Design-Based Reasoning

When you’re designing something always make sure you know ONE thing before.

WHY?

This is what makes you unique and also justify your skill and thought process towards a design. when people criticise your design with some comments, try to justify your design and why have you done that. If you’re not capable of explaining your design criteria to the other person you cannot be evaluated as a professional. So always be clear of what and why you’re doing. You have every right to stand for your design when it has a strong base of usability theory. Even at my first company, I was criticised about not standing up on my design and they said it was not a trait of a professional.

“Without Reasoning, there is no root for any design. Everything lies under one thing called WHY?”

Always good to have Plan B

When you design, make sure that you don’t work on one singe idea always keep two to three different versions (even though you’re not satisfied enough)with you while you present it to the client. If you can show only one design critics aways find a way to comment so, don’t give them a chance to do that by surprising them with other versions. Thus you prove yourself that you can express it in different perspectives.

“Sometimes not only the best ones but also average designs can make you overcome rejection”

Don’t worry you’re with a Good Team

Yes! don’t get low when you face rejection, but be challenging that you’re with a great team who can guide you to become a better designer than yesterday. Not always appraisals make you successful its a balanced ration of both criticism and appraisals. This will make you learn how to deal with a different kind of perspective minds, which is crucial to seek. If possible note down most common critics you receive daily from your team or friends and try to change it for good.

“A Successful Designer is who can accept criticism as much as appraisals and can turn them into their strengths”

To conclude, Everyone has to pass this phase so, believe in yourself while you defend your strength from criticism you receive. Show the world that you’re not too weak to fail.

You can do this! All the best my friends.

There is also a problem of awareness for this field since most of the students who are now pursuing their bachelors are less known to this fact that there is a field like this. People are being forced to be an engineer while they are also good at some things which have also future and satisfaction in the corporate world. In this article, I’m going to share my experience as a UI/UX designer, how I started with it.

Following are the key essentials to be a Designer.

1. Start with an Empty Canvas.
2. Get a good hold on Cognitive psychology.
3. Mastering the software.
4. Update your design with market needs.
5. Keep challenging yourself with problem statements.
6. Wrap your designs into a Portfolio.
7. Always try to think from a user perspective.

Start with an empty Canvas

If you’re an art enthusiast, don’t leave it in vain. Try to dig your skills and start sketching whatever comes to your mind. Always travel with a book and a pencil wherever you go and express yourself through your art. Once you get the hold on your art and creative skill, I suggest its time to get into the world of mobile applications and its usability. Explore different platforms and applications, feel the emotion while you use and list out the pain points you face while using it. Now come up with some rough sketches of how you can do it in a better way than the existing version.

Get a good hold on cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as “attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and thinking” Much of the work derived from cognitive psychology has been integrated into various other modern disciplines such as cognitive science and of psychological study, including educational psychology, social psychology, personality psychology, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, linguistics, and economics. This plays an important role in designing since we always design it for users accessibility. It is also as important as design skill because, without cognitive analysis, UI/UX doesn’t make sense. User interaction and experience depends upon users emotion while using the application which includes pain points & Touchpoints.

It’s always important to know do’s & do not’s while you design something for a human, which completely refers to human interaction design.

Mastering the software

Design skills don’t have a constraint whether its digital or sketch. But if you’re aiming for UI/UX then yes it does matter to master the digital side rather than sketches. Sketching is also a part of the design because we always start with a pencil as a basic but nowadays markets are seeking quick and digital platforms for neat visuality. To achieve this internet is helping us a lot with many resources like Softwares where we can explore different tools for designing. There are two kinds of Softwares one is web-based and other needs download. It depends upon one’s usability skills with which they are comfortable with. I use Figma which has high flexibility in designing and sharing moreover its free to explore.

Always be updated with current software technologies and market needs and make sure you master the software before you get into a job or exercise. Design is something which is not consistent so, we have to explore every single corner to be a good designer.

Update your designs with market needs

We all need an update in our life, mobile, job etc… likewise its also important to get updated with present market needs. The market is also something like design which doesn’t have any consistency since it gets effected by many constraints. If we are one month backward with the market, then you should think you’re already running slow in the race. So, make sure you’re always running with the pace of market needs and designs.

Keep challenging yourself with problem statements

For a designer an important weapon is observation. Observation keeps a person thoughtfully active. Try to observe the problems around you and decode them into your design skills, how you can solve this and how you’re designing is going to help the world to solve in a unique and liable way.

Keeping all these in mind, challenge yourself for 100 days with each problem every day and take suggestions from seniors or experienced for feedback and improvement.

Wrap your designs into a Portfolio

It’s not always about how good your design, its also about how you accurately showcase yourself. Exhibit your designs into three constraints, we also call it as main W’s Why, What, How. Try to explain short and informative in these three ways since clients will not always have time to read pages of your explanation. Make your point more optimistic about how and why you choose to solve the problem in that method.

Remember a good designer is who know what to question.

Always try to think from a user perspective

Create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function.

“No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences. Think through all of the stages of a product or service — from initial intentions through final reflections, from the first usage to help, service, and maintenance. Make them all work together seamlessly.”

— Don Norman, inventor of the term “User Experience”

That’s also why most UX designers work in some form of the user-centered work process and keep channelling their best-informed efforts until they address all of the relevant issues and user needs optimally.