Before this module, I have never thought about how a product was designed, unless, of course, if the design is atrocious, I will complain about it. However, good designs were often taken for granted. As Mr Reddy mentioned in one of the lectures, we never notice the design of a product unless it is a bad design and it caused us problems while using it. 

I remember asking Mr Reddy about the key to this module and he said "Insight". Well, I can't claim to be an expert on user experience and design after taking this module, but this module has definitely invoked many mind provoking thoughts. Now, when I chanced upon a good product, instead of taking the design for granted, I will start to ponder on the design and try to visualize the process of designing and why the design is good.

As mentioned in the post on the project, I learned a lot of new techniques in this module and I have a refreshing take on research. In the previous modules, what we learned are mostly the typical quantitative methods such as surveys etc. However, this module is eye-opening in that it broadens my research knowledge with the introduction of methods such as laddering, card-sorting, 4 pleasure analysis etc. These methods are not only fun to use, but also allows user subjectivity.

All in all, I feel that the one thing most important about design and user experience is enjoyment. A design is good and results in high-quality user experience when the user enjoys using it.  

I shall talk briefly about the final phase as the details are in our group report. In this final phase, I learned a lot about the different kinds of useability tesing methods and evaluation methods. Card-sorting, prototype testing etc were all new to me and hence this was an interesting learning journey.

The process of creating a new product, in this case a website, is no doubt a tedious one. I never thought that creating a new product takes that much effort and thinking, but I guess you never know till you experience the process.

In this project, I feel that the hardest part was creating a product that users would like and enjoy using, in other words a product that will result in high quality user experience. It all seems so easy at first, but when you really start on it, it dawns on you that it is one of the hardest thing to do as user experience is so subjective.

In creating our website, we had to constantly ask ourselves this: How do we create something that every user will like and enjoy using? Is it even possible? Well, perhaps it is not possible for Each and Every one of our user to like our website, but it is possible to maximize the number of users who like our product. I feel that the key lies in simplicity. We should never underestimate the power of simplicity. A simple website can speak volumes as compared to one that is messy and cluttered (as implied by the quote on the top of my blog). Hence, I feel that simplicity will never go wrong. In "The non-designer web book" by Robin Williams and John Tollett, they said: " It takes a very self-assured designer to recognize and act on the power of simplicty". Indeed, this is very true.

While trying to make our website as simple and as user friendly as possible for our users, we practically drained all our brain power. It is really not as easy as it sounds to make something simple and easy to use. Firstly, as we are the people designing it, what might appear straight forward and clear cut to us might not be the case for a first time user. Next, we have to consider not only usability but also aesthetics and the overall package. This is where our usability testing really helped. When we first presented our information architecture in class, Mr Reddy and many others were confused (though we thought it wasn't at all confusing as we were the ones who came up with it). Through their feedback, and feedback from the card-sorting and prototype testing, we managed to improve on it and incorporated these suggestions into our high fidelity prototype. And indeed, our high fidelity prototype tetsing yielded more positive results, though of course, there are still areas that we should improve on.

A last point to make is that what we learned about design being an Iterative process has never been more true, especially when the product is a website and making changes to it is much easier than changing a tangible product after it has been lauched into the market.

Initial Idea:

We took a long time in coming up with ideas. The three of us were quite stumped as we approached this task from the wrong angle. First let me share our intial idea:

     Product:

• Collectable Wine bottles for Art and Wine lovers
• Beautiful Impressionist paintings using the works of Claude Monet and Mary Cassatt
• Crafted beautifully on the interior of wine bottles
• To stir the senses; taste, scent and sight

      Producer: Vina Ventisquero

To improve the well being of students, and to make it easy for them to do something that is important to them, we want to cater to the needs of the students and provide them with a news source that allows them to be able to consume the news in their preferred way despite their busy schedule.