UX Design

How-to-Design 👁️ ✋ 🧠 | Prof. Ian Besler

Agenda

  1. What is UX? (Class Intros, Experience Mapping, Affordances + Contraints)

Projects

  1. Project 1: Hidden Affordances, Secret Constraints

    Design Brief

    Create a simple printed and bound photographic booklet presenting the photo documentation that you collected of hidden affordances and secret constraints through your user design field research. The collection must include a unique and interesting title, and images must be accompanied by caption and citation text.

  2. Project 2: Status Update, Status Symbol

    Design Brief

    Develop and design a proposal for a physical interface that provides a novel and unique visual representation of status.

  3. Project 3: User Friendly, User Friction

    Design Brief

    Using familiar interface elements

  4. Project 4: Extreme Apps for Extreme Users

    Design Brief

    Develop and design a proposal for an app or online service, specifically responding to the wants and needs of a niche or subgroup of “extreme users” that you identified through your research process.

Workshops

  1. Workshop 1: UX Field Work

Demos

  1. Adobe Illustrator
    1. Adobe Illustrator: Basics
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Raster vs. Vector, Artboards, Navigation, File Menu, View Menu, Guides, Grid, Transforms

    2. Adobe Illustrator: Shapes
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Rectangle Tool, Color Tool, Color Panel, Swatches Panel, Spot Colors, Eyedropper Tool, Stroke Panel, Gradient Panel, Gradient Tool

    3. Adobe Illustrator: Advanced Shape Control
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Anchor Points, Paths, Pen Tool, Curvature Tool, Object Menu, Path Sub-Menu

    4. Adobe Illustrator: Advanced Layout
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Object Menu, Arrange, Group/Ungroup, Lock/Unlock, Hide/Show, Layers Panel, Align Panel, Symbols Panel

    5. Adobe Illustrator: Frame Animation
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Animation & Frames, Illustrator Paste on All Artboards, Export for Screens, Photoshop Image Stack, Timeline Palette, Exporting Animated GIFs/Videos

    6. Adobe Illustrator: Clipping Masks, Pathfinder, Blends
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Clipping Mask Tool, Pathfinder Panel, Blend Tool

    7. Adobe Illustrator: Stylize & Appearance
      ( (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Transparency Panel, Drop Shadow, Feather Effect, Appearance Panel

    8. Adobe Illustrator: Expand, Live Paint, Symbols, Patterns
      (Google Slides) (PDF)

      Expand, Live Paint, Symbols, Patterns

  2. Adobe InDesign
    1. Adobe InDesign: Basics (Google Slides) (PDF)
    2. Adobe InDesign: Typography & Layout
    3. Adobe InDesign: Interactive PDFs

Portfolio Design & Book Binding

Portfolio Design & Book Binding
  1. Book Layout Dummies (Google Slides) (PDF)
  2. Portfolio Design Process, Book Layout Dummies

  3. Book Binding (Google Slides) (PDF)
  4. Book Binding Methods, Kettle Stitch Book Binding

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop
  1. Adobe Photoshop: Basics (Google Slides) (PDF)
  2. PSD File Format, Image Formats, Photoshop Layers, Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand, Image Menu, Image Size, Canvas Size, Desaturate, Invert, Gradient Map, Halftone Patterns

References

Interaction Design (IxD) and User Experience (UX) Design
Design Communities
Artists, Creatives, Designers
Blogs, Magazines, and Podcasts
Characters/Emojis
Code Forums/Playgrounds
Color
Design Process
Drawing Applications
Education
Information Architecture (IA)
Mobile Design Basics
Organizations and Activism
Pattern Libraries
Practitioners
Professional Practices
Prototyping and Wireframing
Recommended Readings
Responsive Design
Text Editors
Typography
Usability and Testing
User Interface

Syllabus

DSGN 100

Introduction to Design Communication

Prof. Ian Besler, MFA

ibesler@rwu.edu


Prerequisites: None
Credits: 3
RWU Catalog

Catalog Desription

Introduces students to fundamental design process and problem-solving skills through the use of graphic design principles and elements. Exposure to both the intellectual and technical challenges of graphic design communication results in a series of introductory level visual solutions. In conjunction with design problems, students are exposed to information about the current design industry including related design technology. Upon completion, all projects are developed to industry standard presentation level with an emphasis on basic craftsmanship skills.

Course Aims

The aim of DSGN 100 is to enable students to articulate how the selection of specific design tools and production processes affect the final ‘look and feel’ of a design artifact. Students will be encouraged to explore workflows leading to alternative aesthetic qualities. Through a number of short assignments students will be asked to create and execute a design solution applied to a specific design brief. Each one of these assignments focuses on a particular process, tool or technique, and will be supported with presentations and in-class exercises. In addition to professional standards in publication software focus will be on demonstrating the potential of a variety of tools and workflows integrating multiple digital and analog techniques. While the focus of the course is on the application of skills and the use of the tools involved in the production of a project, students will also learn how to craft new tools, in forms such as templates and style sheets, and how to approach new software, in essence ‘learning how to learn technology.’

DSGN 100 aims to help students understand, and begin to utilize, the various technical tools that can be used to realize effective print-based and screen-based designs in their multiple forms of ideation, development, interation, and launch. Communications Designers need to understand a variety of analog and digital processes in order to produce successful media. This course helps students to explore different tools and develop the technical skills to confidently create visual imagery for multimedia delivery. Students will be introduced to photography, scanning and other technologies to create, acquire and manipulate imagery, as well as to a variety of printing processes including offset, lithography, silk-screening, digital printing and laser-cutting. Students will learn how to prepare comprehensives to produce professional design solutions, integrating multiple assets, and to consider technical aspects such as resolution, file formats, color models, support and printing materials, etc.