What did I learn + self-evaluation

This project was completely new experience for me. I worked as a developer for over one year and I was involved a bit in designing process. But never in that way as during this project. I have never taken part in interview with client, also I never went through the whole design process like in case of this project. Also the user-centered design is new approach for me, now it seems to be so familiar to me, but few months ago it was not. Even when first time during the lecture that has been mentioned about user-centered approach I thought “It is so obvious. Why I have not heard of anyone using user-centered design”. I think the fact that I understand this approach is the most important and useful benefit from this course.

During the whole design process we used many methods which refer to user-centerd approach. It was great occasion for me to learn all this methods. Before this course I did not know that their even exist. Now I know that there are tools(design methods) which support the design process. I am sure that we did not discussed all user-centered methods, but it is not important. Much more important is that we started to create our design tool kit and put some tools(methods) to it. Now if I get know some new design methods I also add them to my tool kit. Now during the designing next system we can use one of the tools we already have. Important issue is to know when each tool best suit to which situation. During one lecture(Before our final evaluation with client we told during our presentation that we were going to conduct a pictive session with client. Roman than said that in this particular situation it is better to conduct walkthorugh with client instead pictive session. Because pictive session would move us back in design.) I realized that design process is not constant thing and designer should be able to react depending on situation. I think that now I am not able to decide properly which situation is best for which method, but I hope that I will get this knowledge with time and other projects.

About evaluation myself I think I have done everything as good as I was able to do. But of course now I can see something that can be done better. It was problem with interview with client, we were going to conduct a contextual interview but there were some problems with being "nosy" enough as it should be in contextual inquiry. Because the client was not interested in our work. She did us a favour so it was hard to be nosy all the time. Also I think we did not enough encourage customer to form his opinion, she was too passive. We of course get some feedback from the customer, but I think it is better if client is more critical and formulat more opinions and has more ideas. Besides that I suggest 5, because I did what I could.