UX – Matthew Garvin

Video: umsi spotlight Designing AR for nasa

I’m a Storyteller: Modeling Users, and Crafting Analogies for Better Design

I use analogies. I’m constantly on the lookout for the perfect analogy to describe this phenomena or that. For example, how do you describe culture to someone? If you go to the dictionary and recite: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group -(see: Dictionary.com (Links to an externalContinue reading “I’m a Storyteller: Modeling Users, and Crafting Analogies for Better Design”

Prototyping w.me in XD

What isn’t a prototype? Even a finished product is a prototype of the next iteration or version. The key takeaway from the Le Bricolage section was how the designers cobbled things together to make a brilliant prototype of an innovative technology that doesn’t actually exist. At the end he also noted that in his view,Continue reading “Prototyping w.me in XD”

Ethnographic Archaeology: Iterative Prototyping in UX Research and Design

From the outset of the Stringer et al., paper I was a little put off by the mention that they had developed a form of UCD called, ‘curriculum-focused design’. In so far as curriculum is content, they just conducted user-research along with iterative prototyping. And I think this point is not beyond the authors otherwiseContinue reading “Ethnographic Archaeology: Iterative Prototyping in UX Research and Design”

Empathy and Ethics in UX

I don’t think we can have ethics without feminist ethics. However, let me preface this by saying that I mean intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism asserts that all aspects of socio-political identities overlap. I was glad to see Alison Adam and Jacqueline Ofori-Amanfo dragging questionnaires and surveys just a little bit, while also advocating for ethnography andContinue reading “Empathy and Ethics in UX”

Learning UX Design with the Interaction Design Foundation – a review

In this post, I review one of my most trusted sources of information for UX courses and materials – the Interaction Design Foundation. The Interaction Design Foundation is one of my favorite websites and often the first place I go to when I turn to the internet to look up information about the user experience and interaction design.

Creating an A-Frame Lunar Analog Environment

As the resident UX researcher and human in the loop testing co-coordinator for CLAWS, it’s my responsibility to plan, facilitate, and analyze usability tests with real people to get feedback on our AR Toolkit for Lunar Astronauts and Scientists (ATLAS). Earlier this year, CLAWS participated in the NASA SUITS Challenge, the pandemic forced our schoolContinue reading “Creating an A-Frame Lunar Analog Environment”

What about Personas?

As we were going over Personas in my Interaction Design course at UMSI, I began seeing some articles on the topic that I wanted to share to the class. Kill your Personas (Links to an external site.) – Microsoft Design Stop obsessing over user personas (Links to an external site.) – UX Collective The discussion we had on personasContinue reading “What about Personas?”

Critique: Reflections on Taking Design Criticism Well

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a comic book artist. I could draw of course, but I knew I wasn’t skilled enough to really go for it. After I got my first computer with an internet connection, I started thinking about web and graphic design as I was fulfilling these roles forContinue reading “Critique: Reflections on Taking Design Criticism Well”

UX is About Processes, not Products

I keep thinking about comments I’ve seen from UX designers on Instagram discussing posts that are tagged #uxdesign. These posts are almost always finished mockups. And amongst the generic bot comments sporting the ‘fire’ emoji, I often see an actual UX designer saying that this isn’t the kind of work they do in UX. WhileContinue reading “UX is About Processes, not Products”