BYWALLS
House Rent
House renting website with clearer info
Overview
This is your Text paragraph. It’s a great place to add a description of your business, your site or what you do. Use this space to add information for your users, write about your philosophy or your journey and define your distinguishing qualities. Consider adding an image for extra engagement.
Time
11/2021 - 12/2021
Role
Researcher, UI Designer
Vision
I’d like to create something that I wish existed when I first applied for UX schools. It comes down to the following three aspects:
Useful: Users should be able to find information they need quickly
Transparent: Users should be able to understand where the information comes from
Community-based: If users have more questions, they can reach out for help
Vision
Throughout my career, I’ve had the great fortune to work on some truly inspiring projects, while meeting many influential and creative individuals along the way. I believe in working together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. For more information about my experience, portfolio or how we can collaborate on an upcoming project, get in touch today.
User journeys
I interviewed 5 friends who have gone through the process of applying for UX programs. The following are the key journeys based on their experiences and my own experience.
I want to identify a list of schools that are suitable for me
I want to know which UX programs are well-recognized in the industry
I want to know the cost of attendance of each program
I want to know the application requirements (e.g. GRE/TOFEL score, deadline, portfolio)
I want to learn from other people’s experiences
The MVP
To address the key user journeys, I came up the first proposal of the website:
On the homepage, it was a simple list of UX programs in the U.S. ordered by alumni’s career outcomes from LinkedIn. At one glance, users can see all the key information about each school and compare them.
I also included schools from outside of U.S. in the “Non U.S.” tab, as well as Resources and FAQ to give UX beginners a little bit more guidance. Lastly, I created a Forum with the attempt to turn this website into a community in the long term.
To quickly get the MVP out in the world, I spent around six weeks of my spare time building the site with the technology stack I know — Vue.js, Node.js, and Webpack. To make updating easier, I put all the data in Google Sheets and wrote a script to convert it to a JSON file that can be easily displayed on the front end. For the forum, I knew that it would be too much work to write it from scratch and maintain it, so I integrated Discourse with the site, which is an open-sourced forum software with all the basic features I need.
Takeaways
1. Build a meaningful product
Prior to Top UX School, I had a long list of side projects. Most of them never made their way out of my hard drive, because I didn’t feel like continuing after the initial honeymoon phase ended. Top UX School is a little bit different in the sense that I built it to solve my own problem. I designed it thinking about the tool I wish had existed when I personally went through the school selecting process. I believe this is one of the key elements in terms of building a sustainable product.
2. The importance of user feedback
Being the only designer and developer is a double-edged sword. On one hand, I had the full autonomy to decide the project vision and direction. On the other hand, I have no one to bounce off ideas or validate my assumptions before I test the product in the real world. This makes collecting user feedback extremely critical in the process. I’m very thankful that many people on the Internet were generous enough to share their thoughts with me.