Lessons

Unit 1 Design Thinking

How to approach the design Process October 21, 2019
In this course, we’ll take an iterative approach to design. No one “process” fits all projects. However, we’ll find it useful to alternate between divergent (exploratory) and convergent (decisive) thinking, and to find ways to test ideas efficiently to gain confidence in our decisions.
How to test that your design is usable October 22, 2019
In order to build better products, it’s useful to test prototypes with potential users to identify opportunities to improve our designs before investing in full production.
How to conduct user Interviews October 23, 2019
When planning new design work, interviewing potential users helps us understand behaviors and contexts to narrow down the problem(s) we should address.
How to do fast prototyping on paper October 24, 2019
Prototyping is often best done in cheap and fast ways, so that we can work out the kinks in design concepts quickly and deliver a better final product.
How to start designing interfaces on Sketch October 25, 2019
Visual design aims to improve the user experience through the use of layouts, colors, typography and other visual elements. It’s important to start thinking about how to approach this process and the tools we can use. In this class, we will use Sketch as our primary tool for visual design.
How to create goal driven surveys October 25, 2019
Surveys can also help us form a better picture of our users, their behaviors, and preferences.
How to create User Personas based on research October 28, 2019
Personas are a deliverable which helps us summarize and communicate findings from user research, embodying those findings in a representative user which other stakeholders can empathize with as well.
How to turn research findings into insights October 28, 2019
Affinity diagramming will help us look for patterns in our raw data, and we will distill our findings into problem statements.
How to structure a Design Report October 31, 2019
Writing about your design work is a good practice in general, to document your process and results. For us, these will serve double duty as early drafts of our eventual portfolios.

Unit 2 Mobile Design

How to create reusable components in Sketch to make your workflow more efficient November 1, 2019
Mastering this features will help you make your work more efficient and your design more consistent.
How to use real world properties to make the interaction of your design more effective November 1, 2019
How to evaluate designs using heuristics November 4, 2019
We’ll extend our evaluative research toolbox to include heuristic analysis.
How to communicate user flows to collaborators or stakeholders November 4, 2019
Is important to understand the path users have to follow in order to meet their goals and sometimes we need to communicate this paths in a time efficient way.
How to animate user interfaces November 5, 2019
Motion should be used to add clarity to a user interface, and then sparingly and with nuance. A little bit goes a long way.
How to establish visual hierarchy using typography and the CRAP principles November 12, 2019
Visual design makes our work, aesthetic, clear, and usable. We’ll start exploring some principles of typography and layout in this class. Keep in mind that theory will only take your design work so far. You have to produce work, look at it, and try again in order to actually improve.
How to incorporate the Human Interface Guidelines to your design November 13, 2019
We’ll focus on Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines for iOS (phones and tablets) for now, with an emphasis on the navigation models in iOS.
How to incorporate the Material Design system to your design November 13, 2019
We’ll focus on how Google’s Material Design system works on Android devices (primarily phones) and explore the primary navigation model.
How to identify opportunities and threats analysing our competitors November 14, 2019
We’ll cover how to conduct competitive research.
How to use Inspiration and Aspiration to help you grow as a designer November 15, 2019
In this lesson, we will explore a few different topics in order to stretch your UI skills.
How to test the desirability of a design November 15, 2019
We’ll try out a couple of card sorting techniques to help us more objectively gauge the desirability and aesthetic appeal of our designs.
How to use colors and exploration to create high fidelity prototypes November 15, 2019
Exploration is key to creating beautiful user interfaces. We don’t see design in our mind, we perceive it with our eyes, and interact with it with our hands. Until a possibility is down on paper or screen, it’s not a possibility you’ve considered. Give yourself as many possibilities to choose from as you can.
How to write content for user interfaces November 18, 2019

Unit 3 Web Design

Responsive Layout exercise with a responsive Web App November 11, 2019
We’ll work together in class to build out more of the Brio example responsive web app layout in HTML & CSS.
How to conduct observational research November 21, 2019
The best way to gather information about users’ behaviors is to actually observe them doing things in their natural context.
How to write an in depth report of your design process November 21, 2019
How to assess and visualize the Information Architecture of a website or application November 22, 2019
How to design interfaces that are adaptable to the user needs November 25, 2019
How to assess the way users execute tasks and how to understand the context behind it December 2, 2019
We’ll briefly discuss task analysis and scenarios as optional information architecture topics which may be helpful for your projects.
How to select controls for your interface design December 3, 2019
How to approach the design of dashboards December 3, 2019
We’ll look at some examples of dashboards and discuss some best practices for organizing content within a desktop web app.
Working with Clients and Stakeholders December 10, 2019
We’ll discuss as a class some strategies for setting expectations and effective communication with clients.
How to write User Stories December 11, 2019
User Stories will help us define smaller chunks of features, which we can then prioritize for our products.

Unit 4 Web Development

How to read and create HTML files following good practices October 31, 2019
HTML is the essential building block of web pages. It provides structure to content, and gives browsers meaningful information which supports built-in accessibility and discoverability features.
How to style web content using CSS November 6, 2019
CSS provides us a way to give the web browser hints about how we want the content of our website to render. We’ll start working with CSS by using it to style typographic compositions.
How to create a responsive layout using Grid November 11, 2019
Coding review November 27, 2019
A chance to review together everything we’ve learned so far about HTML & CSS and how to apply it to our current project.
How to create animations on the web using CSS November 27, 2019

Unit 5 Working with Clients

Portfolio Workshop
Lightning Presentations December 9, 2019