Why
I love to make things
How
I like to see experience design as a process of non-linear phases. I am a real advocate of Jesse James Garret’s layering of “strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, surface.” While these are layers that stack, they aren’t a set order or linked chain.
To me, engaging the users is the first priority in any experience. It can be a whole service, or down to a nitty gritty interaction with a product. Either way, there’s a person on the other side of that experience and their individual psychology is what we are engaging with.
What
I am an overall UX generalist with a inclination towards the strategy/scope/structure end of the scale. I’ve spent many years focused on skeleton and surface.
These are in no particular order.
Personas: I always try to include personas, even if they are ad-hoc and only serve as a point of reference. If experiences are being planned out, the persona keeps me and (hopefully) others grounded in the psychological (and biological) aspects of being a human and moving through an experiential journey. Even the most mundane and featureless activities a user must do is an experience. They’re not all equal, but I want to stay focused on the concept that of “this is happening inside someone’s brain, their perception.”
User Journeys / Story Flows: This can be as high level as a whole service flow, or down to a specific behavior we’re trying to elicit and enable. I see the story flows as what overlays the actual
Product Flows: I love product flows. It’s like the physical building, or solving, of a hedge maze. This is where all the psychological usability problems are found
Interaction: This is where I see the story of what actually happens on a literal level.
Visual Design: