I spent 10 years at UofL, most of them trying to nail down exactly what I wanted to make my career. Interestingly, I started as an Engineering student there. The exacting rigors of the mathematics and sciences proved to be a little too confining for my tastes, so I moved into the Hite building on campus to study art. Once I found the graphic design department, I knew right away that this sector was exactly what I'd been looking for.
The projects below were done for the various classes I took in the design department. There are, of course far more projects not included here but these three I've cherry-picked to show off because they most closely relate to the UX/UI field that I've been working in.
Dogpile started with a simple concept: Users need a fun and simplified way to shop for the right pet that suits them. The goal is to make it easy to facilitate adoption and compare pets hosted on a variety of platforms consolidated in a consistent, simple interface.
Functionality for the app would consist of methods similar to how modern-day dating apps function.
The end goal was to get the user to schedule a meeting with the owner of the pet up for adoption.
The app consisted of three sections: Home, Profile, and Collection. Keeping this concise was key to minimizing a confusing number of menu screens that users would need to navigate through. It was also essential to provide different ways to access the dog's detailed information card. Information needed to be readily available at all times. Since the app would also have a chat function, that needed to be in view always as well, in case a chat notification came in while you were running somewhere in the app, it needed to be just one tap away.
Also essential to creating this app: Appropriate language. Inherent to the app's function, the user has to swipe left to reject dogs that aren't right for them. Making sure the user keeps a clear conscious about "rejection" was necessary to keep their collections short and easily navigable. Instead of "reject", "not interested" or "not for me" was preferred.
In order to register their dogs in the app, owners would need to apply a list of pre-existing "traits" to their dog, so that users had an easy way of finding what they are looking for, and can sort out the dogs with traits they aren't looking for. This enabled the creation of a series of icons, for users to identify traits at a glance.
Initial feedback on the wireframes elucidated valuable findings on the bare-bones version of the app.
After considering feedback, production was started on the final prototype of Dogpile.
Mockups were made in Blender using a pre-purchased phone asset and then edited by myself to show content.
The goal behind Avenu was to develop an app for homeless LGBTQ+ people that provides resources and motivation towards finding long-term housing.
The first challenge in creating Avenu was defining a problem and addressing the challenges and needs that our users face in their day-to-day lives. Before we conducted a round of interviews, we came up with a list of challenges that this specific group might face:
A script was made and we interviewed members of the LGBTQ+ community who had experienced a specific lack of resources and what they had done to try and meet those needs. The answers we got informed us on what kind of direction we would take moving forward.
A site web gave a good idea of what the user experience would feel like in the Avenu app. Focus was pulled into searching for LGBTQ+ curated locations on a map and setting personal goals to get users motivated to procuring resources they need.
From here we created a series of wireframes in an effort to create a working prototype for a second round of interviews.
Feedback on the first prototype found users to be excited to be using a somewhat working version of the app, and generally found the navigation easy to follow, however the use of an "X" icon provided some confusion about returning to a previous screen. In the final prototype we ended up using a "<" icon to make it more clear the user would be going back.
Mockups were composed in Blender using a pre-purchased phone asset and then edited by myself to show content.
Alley Cat Advocates is a non-profit organization dedicated to the catch-and-release method of spaying and neutering stray cats. The objective for this project was to create a new, fresh visual system for Alley Cat Advocates. The refresh was designed with the goals in mind to increase donations to the organization, increase awareness of TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release), and show the community how Alley Cats' services impact not just the cats, but the people who live there as well.
This project was an exercise in managing team expectations and dividing out work amongst everyone in the team. It started by defining who Alley Cats was, and working out the brand tone they had wanted to portray in their current identity and how the assets that are currently available could be adapted to suit a new identity. The audience also had to be defined, as the people who are being reached by this work are integral to its success.
The tone for this organization ended up as being:
Meanwhile, target audiences that are being reached in this non-profit are:
From this information, three different personas were formed around each of the audiences that we considered, and to accompany them three separate styles, narrowed down to two directions after revisions.
After presenting to the client, the first direction was chosen, although elements of the second direction were worked into the final design.
After a direction was chosen, a list of necessary deliverables was narrowed in on. The client was already using several print applications, so focus was brought on those print applications for the refresh, while some team members away off to completely redesign the website.
The rebranding of the website could have been an entire project on its own, as the old website was outdated and did not bring attention to the elements that were of importance to the client. Work began on a full library of components using the brand standards that were being built alongside the website. The components library is a guide for web designers to build pages using the available assets. With Figma, it allows designers to drag and drop in each of the elements, so the rest of the team could help build pages using the components displayed below.
