‘When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking:no picture, label, or instruction needed;(Norman,1998),As Norman said, the operation of things provides intuitive hints for use. When the Affordance is seen and used by the user, the user only needs to see it to know how to use it.Therefore, as a designer, we not only have to make a human-oriented design, but also a good design is intuitive. It allows users to quickly understand and use it without any pictures, label or instructions. Therefore, we need to fully understand and analyze the user’s psychology and design a user-friendly feature set.

Before officially starting the course of interaction design, I was accustomed to thinking about problems with previous design thinking, because in the previous study of visual communication design, I always focused on visual effects. But through this semester’s study and the increase in article reading, I have not only learned more design skills and methods, but the most important thing is that I no longer only consider visuals, but design by analyzing and fully understanding the user’s psychology , Which makes my design thinking more open. The most important thing is that I fully grasp the 5C model, which means creating, collecting, understanding, conceptualizing and collaborating. I will refer to this model in every project so that I can better develop the project. So in the first semester, I only did 4 projects, and read different articles every week to write a self-study blog. Next, I will show my projects and explain the knowledge, application and reflections I gained from them.

D-Describe objectively what happened.

Project 1MY MAY is my first project before starting the class. This project is based on the characteristics of the map to describe my own story or a certain journey of experience, and use visual elements to draw the map. The theme I chose is to describe my own psychological activities that rely on using headphones. In the process of doing this project, I used the process and mood of having to use headphones at night to draw posters in the form of graphic collages.

Project 2 Everyday people is mainly to study and understand users, to investigate user behavior and participate in in-depth user analysis, so as to understand and enrich the user experience. I studied the collect and comprehend elements of the 5C design model and involved user groups that are particularly relevant to my daily life. I chose the consumers of the local dessert shop as my user group, because I run a dessert shop in my hometown with my sister, so I observe the needs of different consumers every day. From this, I studied their consumption habits and conducted targeted analysis. Finally, I established user portraits, empathy maps and journey maps to illustrate my research, and made a 10-15 PDF.

Project 3 Rain Later is designed by selecting three user groups and designing a weather software. The purpose of this project is to draw a wireframe including information architecture and information design under the premise of low-fidelity prototype design, and finally use the physical model of the paper material for user testing. I selected a group of ski users to conduct research, and conducted a preliminary PACT analysis on this target user; secondly, I created a role based on this user group to represent my target user; finally I conducted a second research and passed the survey Competitive products of the same type and make analysis to conceive my application. At the end of the project, I first made a wireframe of the entire process to experiment with the necessity of the entire system, and did user tests to improve the functionality of the system, and finally I created a prototype of the application entity in a low-fidelity form.

Project 4 Equality, this is the last project of the semester and a summary of the earlier projects. After reviewing the previous projects and knowledge, I chose to take equality as the main design goal of this project. In the process of the project, I will create a high-fidelity application and reflect all the design process and iterations in the project. The name of the project is escort, and through researching the theme of equality, I selected the risk of violence suffered by girls due to gender inequality as the main research object and conducted a targeted analysis. By completing this project, I have a clearer understanding of how to design applications, and I have a clearer understanding of how to clearly present the design interface through the feedback and guidance of the professors.

I –– Interpret the events.

After I finished my undergraduate studies, I did not choose to work but chose to continue to study professional knowledge at home, because in my previous studies, I have not been exposed to interaction design. For me, interaction design is a new beginning. Because of the COVID-19, I completed my language learning online. Through online language classes, I adapted to the English teaching model in advance, and it also allowed me to better integrate into professional courses in advance. Although most of the courses in this semester were conducted online, I still learned a lot. Whether it was the knowledge taught by the professors in the classroom or the discussions among the students, I experienced a different learning mode from the previous one. After the professors have instructed each time, I will have new thinking about my project. The professors will also take the personal work of the class and the work of other designers. I will also watch the recorded content of the class again after class, studying and understanding them in depth has also improved my learning ability and aesthetics. Every week, the professor will publish some articles and videos for professional knowledge so that we can learn more from different documents.In fact, interaction design is a process of constantly thinking and solving problems, so the study this semester gave me a deep understanding of this course, and it also made me completely fall in love with this course.

E – Evaluate what you learned

This semester I have done a total of four projects. Through the four projects, I learned about the design methods of the entire interaction design and the operation of the entire UI system. The key to interaction design is to study our corresponding users, analyze and grasp them from the perspective of users. The pain points of users are collected through different research methods. For example, in each project, I will go out to interview users to get an in-depth understanding of their real thoughts. Due to COVID-19, I will conduct online questionnaire surveys and analyze each item. One-time data gets a complete database; secondly, in Project 3 and Project 4, I pay attention to the user experience. I will do user testing every time the project product is produced, so as to get user feedback and make improvements in time. In the four projects, I not only learned the skills of application design, but more importantly, I learned how to study our corresponding user groups and mastered the learning method of how to make sympathy maps. This is also what I learned this semester. Effectiveness produced.

P –– Plan how this learning will applied

Before starting this course, I have not been exposed to interaction design and my previous studies are more graphic design. Although I have studied a lot of courses in my undergraduate study, each course has not completed the learning results. So I decided to choose to study abroad for a more complete study, and after graduation, I began to gradually understand interaction design and prepare for the course. Now, even under the influence of COVID-19, we have no way of offline communication, but the tense first semester is coming to an end, I still think my decision is correct.

My previous studies were not systematic and the results of my research projects were very few. I kept reading articles and exhibitions to improve my aesthetics to strengthen my understanding of design, but I ignored that the premise of design is user-oriented . As a designer, what we have to do is to use our own design to make the phenomena and things in life more beautiful and convenient. When I stopped paying too much attention to the vision to get a deeper understanding of the user groups of each of my projects, I began to realize that it is important to learn to analyze and study users. With this kind of learning thinking, I can accurately generate the users in each project. Empathize and grasp the pain points of users, and design people-oriented products. I think in my future study career and career planning, I will still choose a career in the direction of interaction design. It makes me pay more attention to the surrounding things and social phenomena. I want to design better for people through this design. Products, in subsequent courses, I hope I can learn more methods and have more accurate plans for the future.

Reference:

Norman, Donald A. (1998): The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex and Information Appliances Are the Solution. MIT Press.

Friis, SAK & Gelting, AKG., 2014. ‘The 5C Model’, Paper presented at DesignEd Asia Conference, Hong Kong 2014, 02/12/2014 – 03/12/2014.