Ironhack Prework -> Exercise 3
Design in Daily Life (Best & Worst UX experiences)
For the 3rd exercise, we were asked to be in the user shoes and analyze some of our best and worse experiences with different products and/or services (physical and digital).
Objectives
- Start applying the Design Principles to my daily routine
- Analyze in detail what it makes a good and bad user experience
- Think out of the box and review critically the design of my daily environment
My Process
At first, it wasn’t that easy to think about 3 top best and worse experiences of my life. But then, after a while thinking about my routine and also trying to remember critical situations I’ve been, I could finally have my rank.
The next step was to analyze each one of them according to the design principles I have already learned, and then identifying which ones were or weren’t applied during the design of these experiences.
For this exercise, I’ve chosen to use this list of 10 Principles for Good Design by Dieter Rams.
3 Best Experiences ❤
#1 Bullet Journaling (Method)
I’ve always been one of those people that carries an agenda, but have never found the perfect way of planning my time and my different tasks. Until I met The Bullet Journaling Method. It is very useful for me because it gets my to-do-lists, diary, sketchbook, notebook all in one place. It is written in a very logical and innovative Rapid Logging language that consists of four simple components: topics, page numbers, short sentences, and bullets. The thing I like the most about Bujo is that you only need a pen and a notebook. Although the original process is analog, which makes it more powerful and meaningful for me, there is already a companion APP that can be used alongside the physical notebook. It makes the method long-lasting. It is even therapeutical, once it leaves room for me to express myself through it.
#2 Procyon Hostel (Service)
During the first trip I’ve done by my self, I had two opposites experiences regarding the Hostels. Procyon Hostel was the best one I have ever been to in my life. The whole experience was amazing, from begging to end. Although I have started the process within Booking.com, they were very attentive, sending me personalized e-mails with all the steps I needed to complete until I arrived at the house. The information they gave made it easier to find the place and to access it. They use an innovative system on the lockers, so I didn’t need to carry a key with me. The owner was always there prone to give information and tips about what there was going on in the city. The house and its different rooms were all easy to identify, so I didn’t need someone around to clarify things for me. Besides this, the place was THE CUTEST. Everything was thorough to the last detail. Every single choice from colors to furniture. The room had everything I needed, and even things I didn’t think I needed. The beds had individual fan and lamp, there were shampoo, soap and body lotion available as well. I would go back whenever!
#3 Fabulous (APP)
Fabulous is a science-based APP that helps people build healthy rituals. I found out about this APP about a year ago and since then it has been a life-changer for me. The details in the APP from the color scheme to language was thorough to the last detail. It brings a fairytale aesthetic to a gamified way of building new and better habits. It is very easy to navigate through and it sends periodical informative short texts about why it is important to build a healthy routine. Besides letting us build our rituals with habits suggestions, it also suggests interesting Live Challenges so we can join whenever we feel like. There is also social media within the Challenges where we can exchange experiences with other users.
3 Worse Experiences :(
#1 Public Transportation in Madrid (service)
It was my first time in Madrid, traveling alone to go visit a friend that lives there. As I arrived at the bus station, I realize that I had no internet and all I had was his address, but I thought it was going to be easy to handle it by myself since I was in a developed city. First of all, it wasn’t easy to find where I was inside the station. Finally, after a while, I found a vending machine to buy the ticket and thought it was great since I speak no Spanish. Machines are easy, I thought. Good mistake. The system was not clear at all, and I didn’t know which one to buy to get to the station I was supposed to get to, because there were different tickets to different stations. It took me too long to understand the system, even though I could choose the language. The layout wasn’t very pleasant either. I had to buy more tickets than I needed to make sure one of them was going to work. It was a waste of money and time.
#2 Kunft Sandwich Maker
This sandwich maker is not innovative at all. It makes almost the same thing as all of them. It does mediocrity what is supposed to do and has a lot of flaws. Starting by its look, simple in a lazy way. Also, it takes a little too long to properly make a good sandwich and there is no way to know if it is ready, because the only feedback it gives is the green light. However, most of the time the sandwich is not well done when the green light turns on. It would help if it shut down automatically, but it doesn’t. Another problem is that it breaks easily, and I already had to change it once, and it’s broken again. But, the main problem for me is the cleaning part. There are inaccessible parts of it that get dirty and there is no way to clean it. Also, we need to clean it every single time we use it. The alternative I’ve found for this problem was using parchment paper, which is also no environment friendly.
#3 Bradesco Bank (APP)
What it was supposed to be very modern and helpful ends up being nothing but stressful. The navigation is not easy and it takes a little too long to load sometimes. It’s not useful when whenever you have to reinstall the APP you have to go back to your bank to get another key to access. Also, the layout has some flaws too. It doesn’t show the balance continuously on the first screen. The size of the font and the icons could be bigger and the layout cleaner. There is too much visual pollution. There is no function to get the barcode from a document on the cellphone. You have to either have it printed (no eco-friendly at all)or type all the numbers and wast time. Also, the APP freezes all the time.
Conclusion
We face good and bad experiences related to bad or good design every single day without even noticing. Start applying the Design Principles to my daily routine helped me to open my eyes to how it could impact my life and other people’s life as well. For sure, after this exercise, I will start applying the design thinking mindset and it will affect the way I will think about my own designs.
