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UX is Grounded in Rationale, not Design
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During the past few weeks of my internship, I felt stuck and unmotivated. I didn’t know what I should be doing or if the work I was doing was worth the time I put in. How could I make the most of my time? I only have 12 weeks was the thought I prioritized over everything else. I felt so pressured by time to make something as fast as possible that I didn’t take time to let the learnings surrounding my project and the company sink in, and how I could use them to give me direction on my project. Thankfully, my manager, J.B. Chaykowsky, saw that I was struggling and suggested I synthesize everything I had learned so far. We were able to break down my learnings and start distilling them into constraints or “truths” surrounding the problem I am currently trying to solve. This experience has changed my mindset of how I approach design and my process.
When you frame the problem, it allows you to see the big picture of different directions you can take with your approach and evaluate your design with principles
An article Dan Brown wrote about practical design discovery really resonated with what my manager was trying to help me do. This was to frame the problem and take a design direction which would help me see a big picture of the what, who and how of…