Design Survival Guide
Online Magazine
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
January-March 2024
Industry
Magazine, Design, Education
Area of Focus
User Interface Design
& Interactivity, User Research, Accessibility, Prototyping, Copy Writing
I.
Define
The Design Survival Guide was a UX group class project for an online magazine catering to designers across various disciplines, including architecture, graphic, interior, product, and interaction design. It offers tips and tricks to enhance your design skills, shares cutting-edge trends, tools, and tech to keep your work relevant, and provides inspiration for portfolio improvement. Additionally, it includes advice on negotiating raises and how-to guides for securing your first design job after school.
Our first objective was to define our online magazine by asking who it was for, how it would serve our users, and what unique offerings we could bring to the market compared to competitors. We started with a design brief that clarified our goals as a team and for our stakeholders.
II.
Ideate
Our ideation phase consisted of creating personas and user journeys, asking ourselves who our magazine was for, and how we could empathize with users' problems to develop creative solutions for students and professionals alike. We also created a mood board inspired by vintage survival guides, which eventually influenced our design decisions further down the process.
We aimed for the website to be welcoming, professional, easily navigable, and visually stimulating, drawing visual inspiration from vintage survival guides to brand ourselves uniquely. Our target audience included dedicated professional creatives seeking affordable access to guides and resources, without relying on expensive education or paywalls. We focused on providing tools for both design students and professionals in the field.
III.
Research
We conducted user research and a competitive analysis of online design magazines to serve our users in the best way possible. We created personas to understan our target audience's needs, preferences, and pain points, and gained valuable insights into their expectations and behaviors.
Analyzing competitors allowed us to identify gaps in the market, uncover opportunities for differentiation, and ensure our magazine offered unique and valuable content. This comprehensive approach enabled us to create a user-centered platform tailored to the specific needs of design students and professionals.
IV.
Design
During our design phase, we focused on creating lo-fi wireframes, user journeys, and information architecture for the magazine. This involved mapping out the user experience from entry points to key interactions, ensuring intuitive navigation and content flow.
Additionally, we crafted a style tile that defined the website's design constraints, ensuring a cohesive visual identity that would effectively brand the magazine. These efforts were crucial in translating our conceptual ideas into concrete design elements, aligning our vision with user expectations and enhancing the overall usability and appeal of the platform.
V.
Evaluate
As a team, we diligently evaluated and updated our wireframes through rigorous testing and feedback sessions. By conducting usability tests, we identified gaps and blind spots in our initial designs, allowing us to refine and enhance the user experience.
We iteratively reviewed user interactions and feedback to ensure clarity, functionality, and intuitive navigation across the magazine platform. We ended up completely revamping our wireframes, and by doing so created a more dynamic and unique layout for our product!
This iterative process enabled us to address usability issues early on, prioritize user-centered design principles, and ultimately deliver a more polished and user-friendly interface for our audience of design students and professionals.
Previous Wireframes
New & Improved Wireframes!
Ta-Da!
The Finished Product
As a cohesive team, we successfully achieved our goal by creating a stunning prototype in Figma that featured animations, ticker tape elements, and interactive designs. I think we nailed it, if I do say so myself! This prototype not only showcased our creativity and attention to detail but also aimed to provide a unique online magazine experience for designers worldwide.
This collaborative effort allowed us to blend visual aesthetics with functional design, ensuring that our prototype not only met but exceeded the expectations of design students and professionals alike, setting a new standard in online design magazines.
