The UX module was an exciting experience for me since it introduced a completely new subject that helped me better understand the tech world. After spending what felt like a long time in the CSS module, transitioning to UX was like a breath of fresh air. It felt refreshing to shift from the technical aspects of styling to thinking about the human side of design and how people actually interact with websites.
Learning how user experience focuses on creating smooth, efficient, and enjoyable product interactions finally gave me words for what I’ve always intuitively felt about good websites. I’ve always noticed how frustrating it can be when you can’t find something one way on a site but then discover it through a completely different path, like finding a calendar feature buried in an unexpected menu. This kind of navigation issue really highlights why thoughtful UX design matters. Now I understand that these frustrations aren’t just random occurrences but indicate a need for improvement.
I appreciate the structured approach UX designers take with their deliverables: user personas, storyboards, customer journey maps, brainstorming, user flow, site maps, wireframes, style tiles, and prototypes. All of these phases are essential for giving consumers exactly what they need and want, and each tool serves a specific purpose in understanding and addressing user needs. I believe implementing a proper UX process would have significantly enhanced my client blog project, since it involves much more in-depth analysis than simply having clients answer a few basic questions.
I took a brief product design course previously and didn’t connect with it at the time, but I think revisiting it now, especially for digital website design, could be really engaging! The context of web development makes the concepts feel more tangible and applicable. We’ve just started exploring the research phase, and I’m particularly excited about diving deeper into the prototyping process, where all that research gets transformed into interactive high-fidelity prototypes. There’s something compelling about seeing user insights translate into actual design solutions. I’m looking forward to seeing our projects translate into practical design decisions as we progress through the module.