UX
OUR SHARED JOURNEY
“I know it’s important to understand religion, but I refuse to make my child believe something just because that is what happened to me.”
—User/Research Participant
THE PROBLEM
RESEARCH QUESTION
To better understand the project goal I did some initial quantitative and qualitative research into religion, religious education and intergenerational learning habits. These various source points allowed me to generate a research question:
How can an online learning system designed for parents and kids promote peace by understanding other's religion and spirituality?
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THE APPROACH
DISCOVERY & SYNTHESIS
Zeroing in on our research question allowed us to find a few promising angles to tackle the problem as well as a great pool of users to bounce ideas off and obviously test, test, test, throughout.
From the findings personas, empathy maps, as well as storyboards on new ways to teach religion to parents and their children, were developed. After working to understand the additional user needs regarding navigation and learning methods, a site map was created and used as a guide when we created a user story, created various fidelity sketches, established style-guides and built a medium-fidelity prototype and recruited participants in a usability test as part of our research evaluation.
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THE ASK: Create an online tool that parents can use to teach their children about religion and spirituality?
TOOLS: Survey Monkey, Optimal Workshop, Draw.io, UXPin, Adobe XD
ROLE: Led the overall UX design and managed the various aspects from research to the build and iterations.
Religion has effects on all of our day-to-day lives. For parents, the problem is more complicated as they have to tackle it for themselves and their little people without any true tools to help. Our Shared Journey saw this learning hole and took the initiative to create a way to equip parents and their kid(s) with the knowledge and skills to learn, understand and dissect the myriad of religions in our diverse and beautiful world.
Welcome/Walkthrough
LEARN+GROW
LESSONS
PODCASTS
LIBRARY
RATE LESSONS
SHARE LESSONS
QUIZ
COMMUNITY
JOIN A DISCUSSION
START THREAD
ASK AN EXPERT
PROFILE
SIGN UP
USERNAME
HELP
FAQ
CONTACT
PASSWORD
PROFILE/BIO
VR
TRADITION &
CUSTOMS
EXPERIENCE PREFERNCES
WORSHIP
LOCATIONS
SELECT
CITY/ZIP
LESSON PLAN
SYLLABUS
RANK YOUR
KNOWLEDGE
STUDY PREFERENCES
WORSHIP
COLOR PALETTE
The color palette for Our Shared Journey is based upon two core principles: grounding and reverence. The use of deep shades bring a sense of grounding and to many a connection with stability and strength. The red and gold hearken back to colors used in many religions to notate reverence and spirituality. The palette gives flexibility in design for background, accents and focus points.
#40050a
#8c030e
#ff2336
#bf7e04
#ffef05
TYPOGRAPHY
Bebas Neue, has a solid structure, clean lines and regular and bold weights that allows its use as a header, quote, deck, or subhead. Museo Sans is an elegant modern easily readable body font with varying strokes.
BUTTONS
Examples are simple and standardized
ICONS
Icons chosen for understandability across ages
User-testing of our prototype proved some of our hypotheses and gave us some great next steps and takeaways.
THE CONCLUSION
TAKEAWAYS & NEXT STEPS
The entire process and first iteration user-tested proved for us that there's a desert in terms of real solutions for parents and their kids. The idea behind Our Shared Journey is a solid one but will need further iterations and refinements to make it a "recommend" in this space.
TAKEAWAYS
• Since the product is for kids and adults more interactivity (tactile engagement) is a must. Whether they be major touch points or micro interactions, all of them are helpful to young and old learning.
• Our Shared Journey needs better usability of movement between the app, website, and hard external materials (games, book, etc.) Users should be able to have their experienced enhanced by moving back and forth from media to media.
• The more personalization that can be baked into Our Shared Journey the better. Allowing parents and children to feel unique in how they learn and the pace will make the experience that much more rewarding.
• The cleaner the UI can be made the easier users will find the things they need at that moment. More intricacies should be back-end with simple intuitive controls and navigation for kids and adults.
• The proposed tech such as AR/VR should be embraced even more as it will transform education and entertainment in the very near future.
NEXT STEPS
• Iterate and incorporate all the useful user feedback from testing.
• Research additional methods of traditional and device based childhood education.
• Investigate and determine best practices for entering this unique space.
• Continue to consume and understand the subject matter.
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That nagging feeling that you deserved and needed more sexually followed you everywhere. Although strides for equity in expression and sexuality across the board are up, many women (rightly) feel they have no real place to experience this change. O My heard the voices and started on their mission to provide a holistic safe space for all women. The product is centered on allowing women of all kinds to learn the ins-and-outs of their body, sexuality, and fantasy exploration all within the confines of a space designed for and populated only with women.
O MY
THE ASK: Create an online safe space for women of all stripes to learn their bodies, sexuality and explore fantasies.
TOOLS: Survey Monkey, Optimal Workshop, Draw.io, UXPin, Adobe XD
ROLE: Overall UX design lead and manager of the various aspects from research to the sketches, testing, and development iterations.
"Why do I feel weird thinking and talking about sex? Is it me?"
—User/Research Participant
THE PROBLEM
RESEARCH QUESTION
To better understand the project goal I did some initial quantitative and qualitative research into online communities, data security, encryption, female sexuality, and empowerment. These various source points allowed me to generate a user(s) research question:
Can an online safe-space populated and monitored by women solve the sexual equity problem on a personal level?
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THE APPROACH
DISCOVERY & SYNTHESIS
Research (quantitative and qualitative) on human sexuality, psychology, and the others in this space revealed a pretty narrow lane to create. Reaching out to women we gathered a great pool of users to learn from and collaborate. The conversation's findings yielded many promising ideas and vantage points to create solutions the problem. Working with personas, journey maps, as well as user flows we began to develop a smart way to present the product. Ultimately we used curated findings to sketch various fidelities, outline a story to depict, create style-guides, and build a medium-fidelity prototype.
COLOR PALETTE
The color palette for O My is centered on cool sensuous shades. The palette is designed to be easy for the consumption of text as well as evoking a sense of peace and openness with the use of pastel-esque tones as well as a vibrant reddish pink accent color and a deep blue for headers. The psychology behind the colors come from studies on the reaction of female thought patterns to colors.
#40050a
#8c030e
#ff2336
#bf7e04
#ffef05
TYPOGRAPHY
Times, re-imagined by Adobe has a solid structure, clean construction, and several weights. It's versatile as a header or a quote. PT Sans is an elegant modern font with enough heft to make it easily readable at any size
BUTTONS
Examples are simple and standardized
ICONS
Icons chosen for understandability across ages
THE CONCLUSION
TAKEAWAYS & NEXT STEPS
Our testing achieved uplifting results. Most of our ideas and the notes of our participants gave us some great next steps and takeaways.
The process thus far showed that the idea and need behind O My is both solid and necessary. To move forward further iterations and refinements are needed.
TAKEAWAYS
• One of the paramount expressed needs was privacy and creating a safe space. To achieve this having an enhanced data/profile encryption is a must. Coupling with this would be an outreach to all users explaining the system designed to keep them safe and allow them to simply be.
• The more personalization that can be accessed both in the VR/AR as well as the other areas (community, learning, etc.) the better. Each woman needs to feel unique in the space so that they will make the experience something they can return over and over.
• The cleaner the UI can be made the easier users will find the things they need at that moment.
• The proposed AR/VR experiences should be pushed to the forefront on the site. Utilizing this groundbreaking media will set the site apart and offer women something they cannot get anywhere else.
NEXT STEPS
• Iterate and incorporate all the useful user feedback from testing.
• Investigate and determine best practices for entering this unique space.
• Continue to consume and understand the subject matter.
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SPOTIFY
THE ASK: Enhance the search functionality of Spotify to make it more fun and engaging to users.
TOOLS: SPOTIFY, UXPin, Adobe XD
ROLE: UX designer on this comp/pitch project.
When I find things I love, I always try to do two things 1) support them in any way I can and 2) try to make them better and more accessible to more people. Spotify is one of those loves for me. They are a dynamic company that has found its niche in a sometimes jam-packed cloud-based music business. Trying to help out I identified the one area that I felt could add something... user-centering the search.
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.
—Bob Marley
THE APPROACH
DISCOVERY & SYNTHESIS
Research for this redesign was two-fold. Seeing and understanding how SPOTIFY itself did its search was the initial method which was quickly followed by learning how the search is carried out on competitors in the space. Once the findings and "ground rules" for SPOTIFY needs were sifted through the fun process of coming up with various solutions were ideated.
THE CONCLUSION
TAKEAWAYS & NEXT STEPS
The design process yielded a fun and functional solution that a few people at SPOTIFY have expressed interest in taking a look at.
TAKEAWAYS
• The redesign was a great exercise in taking something good and trying to push it to great.
• The more personalization of the search and site that can be given to the user the better.
• The cleaner and more streamlined the UI can be made the easier users will be able to do what they came to the site for... the music.
NEXT STEPS
• Iterate and incorporate all feedback from SPOTIFY and other stakeholders.
• Continue to consume and understand the subject matter.
THE PROBLEM
THE CHALLENGE
I did some initial quantitative and qualitative research into online music and those that swear by it. From the gathered knowledge I knew what to tinker with and whatnot, as I took on this fun challenge of making a good thing better..To focus I came up with the parameters:
Increase the usability and UI of the SPOTIFY search.
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FILM
MIND'S EYE
WRITER: Michael Lockett
DIRECTOR: Michael Lockett
DP: Paul Del Vecchio
PRODUCERS: Michael Lockett, Alex Chancey
An elderly couple deal with the wife's oncoming death from Alzheimer’s, while the viewer is given a first-person lesson in the heartbreak and cruelty of the disease by the character Disease (Alzheimers). Shot as a hybrid 360 Narrative Film and VR Experience, MIND'S EYE allows the viewer to interact with elements in the film as well as move within the real world spaces and a virtual brain space.
"Wait, wait, wait. Is that me...us?"
—Mary
CAT DEXX: INKOSI
WRITER: Deon Van Rooyen
DIRECTOR: Linda Palmer
DP: Jennifer Hook
PRODUCERS: Tina Barnes, Mark Cardone, Cheryl Croasman, Michael Lockett
An ex-soldier disillusioned with war, devotes herself to protecting the wildlife in Africa from uber-rich poachers with endless resources and a high tech arsenal. Her military training practically guarantees her success and she soon becomes the target of the chief One Percenter, who makes it personal by killing a male lion she hand-raised from a cub.
"I'm a little uncomfortable with the killing."
— Chino
MY NAME IS LAMAR
WRITER: Dale E. Turner
DIRECTOR: Linda Palmer
DP: Jennifer Hook
PRODUCERS: Marvin Glover, Linda Palmer, Dale E. Turner, Michael Lockett
The belief that the white "race" is superior and all others inferior is not determined by geography or age. In this uplifting film, an older black man takes a position many would see beneath him and is forced to confront a horrible series of racist events from one of the most unlikely sources.
"You're not going to try and talk me out of this."
— Lamar
