₦airaland Forum

bestbiz17:
Hello, I really want to commend u for this thread. I just developed interest in this UI/UX design stuff. Do u offer like a mentorship prog or a guide? Everything seems so overwhelming. Awaiting ur reply soon.

Thanks. Start from the free Accenture course to get a headstart, decide whether you prefer to specialize in UI or UX or both (very important) then you can decide to go for the google certification or another. Check the google drive links for UI course videos .

All I'm posting is actually a guide, I understand most won't like to read the walls of text but what drives each individual is different, I don't offer mentorship but you can join adplist.org for that. All the same feel free to dm me if you need any clarifications at any step in your UI/UX journey.

It's why I do not pity any of them when I hear them killed by smugglers. Their high handedness is too much on that road, behaving like mini gods, even the roadblocks are crazy, how many do you need even if one set doesn't trust the other?. Still doesn't stop convoys of smuggled rice finding its way into Ogun.

Come to think of it, if we don't allow ourselves to be caught up in emotions. The God in the old testament was actually the villain while the serpent came to set Adam&eve free. The former wanted obedient docile non thinking robots while the latter helped the couple attain critical thinking, Lucifer means light bringer after all.
All the same don't take all those bible stories seriously, most modern religious texts are simply deliberately retranslated copies of ancient texts. Like the Enki and Enlil verses which parallels the Adam and eve story. One of them had humans made as docile barren slaves to work for them while the other helped the slaves to reproduce and survive the flood (Noah?) and was punished for it.

Folks who don't dig into how their so called religions came about are usually the most ignorant. No religion is worth dying for,the truth is totally something else.

Stumbled on another Comprehensive Product Design Course
https://www.uxdatabase.io/free-product-design-course-curriculum

Would be going through this, learning web.flow & taking sneak peeks at a product management course in the coming weeks. Curiosity may kill some cats but this one has 12 lives.

By the end of March, I intend to have completed the following projects as part of my portfolio. Already 2/5 done.

Mobile/Web projects
Refactoring case studies
Web3 project
UI designs
... still processing...

Until then.

Next Topic should be on Resumes & Job search hints.

Creating a portfolio
A portfolio is basically a showcase of your best projects as a Designer and shouldn’t be treated with brevity. I see many folks on twitter redesigning webpages, food apps, Fintech apps, ad infinitum. Apart from the fact that these stuffs have been done over and over again, most lack real depth. No definitive case studies or accompanying reasons, just hey guys, I just redesigned this and this or copied this concept and need your insights. This is good for absolute newbies or UI designers, but for someone who has undergone any kind of serious UI/UX training, you should be gunning for quality over quantity. Look for the hard cases that would highlight your understanding of

Grids, Structure, Layout etc.
Research
Information architecture
Navigation
UX writing
User flows
Taxonomy
Content Strategy
Form Design
System and app level design patterns
Responsiveness and accessibility etc.

Yes you can do the previous mentioned projects but standout by wording in how you used your understanding of the concepts above to improve whatever project you did. It doesn’t have to be a whole project, might be a single feature, a specific user journey, the navigation of a webpage etc.

How many projects
As a newbie, you don’t need 10 projects, find one to 3 quality projects to work on is enough, go through the medium link I posted above to get a more detailed understanding. You can even do 1 and start hunting for paid internships.

Types of projects to add to your portfolio

First identify the industry for the type of project you would like to work on, we have Tech, Education, E-commerce, Healthcare and fitness, NGO’s, Travel and hospitality, Energy, Banking and finance etc.

Then look at countries and what is trending there, take naija for example, Its fintech, online learning, agric-tech.
Countries like Uganda/Liberia would tilt more towards NGO’s while the US, Europe would be all about Gamification, AR, VR, Smart products etc. Point is if you’re aiming at working for foreign employers, work on projects that would catch their attention. How many Nigerian UX folks are looking towards designing Virtual and service experiences for example? Online learning is also on the increase all thanks to the havoc COVID wrecked. Think outside the box.

You can work on E-commerce (redefine user shopping experiences)
Editorial Projects (content strategy, IA)
Payment gateways
Hotel management portal/website
NGO collaborative portals, lead generation (funding, sponsors etc.)
ATM (redesign user experiences)
Voice UX (user feedback experience)
Experience Design (for an event, store, gov operations)
Big data
Lead generation landing pages that maximizes user conversions and so on.

I'll take about the sites where you can sign up to get practical experiences working on real life projects, find projects and all that later. I'll have to dig through a ton of saved bookmarks etc. Twitter and Reddit are very good places to find opportunities, many people looking for who to help them on their projects.

Where to post
LinkedIn- Wider Exposure to potential employers
Twitter – Network and make friends
Behance & Dribble – Fellow designers
Medium – Showcase your writing skills and reach a wide audience

You are one of their girlfriends. Yes I spelt it right.

Next Topic is about

1)Creating a Portfolio
2)How many projects should you have as an upcoming designer.
3)Types of projects to include in your portfolio.
4) Where to post your works for optimum exposure.

In the meantime, could you help you fill this short surveys on e-commerce platforms.

My team is working on a project that deals with e-commerce platforms & we would like to get your opinions on your experiences on these platforms.

For online Shoppers
https:///ZbXodyaiXbEvmBaj8

For online Merchants/Vendors/Services
https:///hbUwRjq2zPiCQLAf6

Thanks.

PeaceJoyLove:
Actually, I have many activities on my plate. I started a thread on content writing recently. If anyone has any question, I will answer if I know the answer. And if I dont know the answer, I will be straight in my response.

What I want everyone to take note is that we should all invest in a very good laptop and a phone. We should go into any of the following: coding, digital marketing, passive income strategies, etc. Trading is a good one too (crypto and forex. Learn it. Dont give anyone your money to trade for you), etc.

God will help all of us.

Understood, already followed your content writing thead. Thanks

PeaceJoyLove, Please don't abandon this thread. Some of us have learnt a lot from your posts here.

Salesbay:
Please who has tried GoDaddy Auctions? How esay is it to make quick flips? It seems you have to pay for membership B4 listing your name in actions.

Depends on the name, there are hidden charges also pertaining to displaying your names on front page etc. It isn't worth it imo but you can't bid on their expiring auctions without a membership, you can only buy the closeouts.

By the way, Follow DesignPal HQ on YouTube for useful insights. They have an ongoing UI/UX cohorts and folks are still joining.

Twitter: Agba akin and Joseph Brendan, learnt a lot from these guys.

How to write a case study.

A case study is simply a record of UX design projects you have done. See it as a captivating story that tells how you went about a project from the beginnings to completion. You get to showcase your thought processes and decision making skills. Imo this is the hardest part. Trying to compress a lot of data into 1, 5, 9, 13 etc. pages.

You ask why? Because the target audience is different most of the time and are broadly categorized into 3:

1) Recruiters/HR
2) Fellow UX designers/Developers/Tech people
3) Non tech people like Founders, CEO’s, Investors etc.

Now imagine if I mainly explained in only full tech jargon on this thread, how many people do you think would fully understand? Try going to a programming/data science thread and see how many terminologies you would understand. The same happens when writing a case study. Always write with your target audience in mind. Writing in tech jargon would be good for team project meetings while any other person would think you’re speaking in tongues.

This is how I did mine, I documented everything first in a long ass boring case study of 12 PowerPoint pages in full UX jargon (80 percent text 20 percent pictures) using the format below:

1) Project Details
a) Project Title
b) Subtitle (summarize what your project is about in 1-3 lines)
c) Role
d) Tools used
e) Company/Client/Type of project (B2C, B2B etc.)

2) Problem Overview/Statement

3) Problem Solution:
a) Process (research to iteration)
b) Methods (Surveys, competitor analysis, usability testing etc.)
c) Features (product features that address users problems)

4) Results: Success Metrics, Reflections, Link to prototype.

Then in my frenzied search for more information on the web on how to write the best case study like Gollum looking for his precious , think I spent like 2 weeks racking my brains, opening up more than 80 browser tabs and despairing at the info overload before I stumbled upon a simple technique on a foreigner’s portfolio website (Jeremyr/Bird/.com/portfolio). Remove the / in your browsers, please don’t write out the full thing here, make thunder no fire you.

The STAR technique: Situation. Tasks. Actions. Results

Like a newly elected politician that just got access to office funds, I rushed it, did a little more research and went back to cut my stories that touched the brain into 5 pages if we ignore the 1st project details page, then down to 1 power point page! All within 4 hours. Damn! It was that good, Udacity had their own case study guide so I did that and submitted before them fail me but I’m definitely sticking to the star technique in my own portfolio.

This technique allows you to summarize your project in 4 easy steps for all target audience especially those with short attention spans.

S – Define your project overview.
T – List the tasks you undertook in the course of the project like I posted some pages back.
A – Explain the tasks in short sentences (I have attached a screenshot, the sentences could be shorter if I removed some keywords).
R – Showcase your wireframes, prototype link, features, and notes here.

And ended it by including a “read the full report here” at the end of the report. We all know most recruiters won’t , they are busy skimming thousands of portfolios in minutes, but just in case someone more thorough comes through, it would be better if you have the long ass case study down. Try and make it more interesting though, so they don’t get brain hurt. Story telling is a core UX designer skill, I really need to learn copywriting .

In summary, have 2 case studies, one for the general audience and the more detailed one for those looking for in-depth views on how your brain works. Write in simple English, don’t neglect keywords, spice things up with animations and make it a narrative story. Don’t worry if you don’t get it right at first, me sef still dey polish my case studies constantly.

As usual, I cut out many things but I’ll drop a quote from a medium article here that helped me, lost the link, go find it yourself. I read myself blind searching for UX articles.

“Good employers are looking for your approach to problem framing, problem-solving, real-world impact delivered through applying your skills, and your ability to articulate your research process within a given context. A portfolio full of hypothetical redesigns and group work class projects won’t deliver much depth or be viewed as unique.”

Another very useful link: https://medium.com/designatmeta/5-ways-to-improve-your-design-portfolio-today-eb63e17560dc

Note: It's competitor analysis not competitive analysis. Think I wrote that under duress. Make nobody tell me nonsense my nigga .

3exe3

Be like say na woman & same person as OP, you're too nice & naive for a warri person. They knew that & used it to their own advantage. When e no be say you no carry money go. Even if na family I will stand my ground, make we scatter everything.

Don't listen to those who say there are no Health disadvantages. There is. Just don't live nearby. Leasing is fine.

Fatale:
We just received the payment for the domain name fashion/solut/ions.com from!

To get paid out faster it is advised to login to your Dan.com account and provide us with more details about how you'd like us to manage the transfer.

View invoice

Thanks,

Dan

US Office: +1 844 951 2224
EU Office: +31 20 244 10 97


Critics and advices are welcome

It is never late to learn
Am open for your response
Thanks You

That name is 19years old and domiciled at uniregistry. It's obvious you aren't the owner if you don't even know what a registrar is. You have no option than to go back and explain to Dan, let them void the sale and ban you. Then if you're really serious about learning, you can start from page 1 or contact the owner of this thread for training. There are other marketplaces you can focus on. Perish that idea that you would somehow get that money, you won't.

Edit out the name of the buyer also

Explaining the tasks posted above in understandable English

Research & Recruitment

This is the stage you empathize with your target market product users, say you're working on something like an e-commerce platform like Jumia. You draw up your research plan where you state the type of research method you will use (quantitative or qualitative), background of your study, research goals, Research questions, type of people to be recruited, how they would be recruited and the script to be used. While doing all these you should also look for previous studies done in your selected research problem, the data collected and recommendations can be a good leverage to your own project.

Then you reach out to people to get their opinions/experiences on similar products. Ask them why they use such products, how they feel about them, what they would like to change or include etc. Competitor analysis is another good method. Like the banking applications I mentioned above, just go to the competitor's google play store to check and compare reviews, It's a rich source of information, you will know what features could be recommended and what to avoid.

Mind you this stage is very important, once you screw or jump over this, you're not designing with your users in mind anymore but what you think will solve their problems. Quality research can be expensive, that's why platforms like usertesting etc. pay people money for their time to help them test websites etc. But our Nigerian reputation precedes us, Hiss. Many organizations will offer treats, gifts in exchange for user interviews but as an upcoming designer just focus on free resources- friends, families, forums, slack channels etc.

Note: Some folks don't go past this stage, they are called UX researchers and you can make good money from it if you know your onions.

Research Synthesis & Feature Ideation-Prioritization

At this stage you start arranging all the data you've gathered from your interview, surveys etc. in an app like Miro under categories like pain points, common themes , possible solutions and recommendations in order to define your problem statements, design goals, solution overview. This is where you also get hints for creating your user personas and empathy maps.

Once that is sorted out, you run a design sprint to ideate ideas, user journey maps, features to be added to your product e.g. Jumia does not have a voice search option, we would add that to ours and also let it recommend products with the most reviews etc.

During this stage you would have come up with multiple options, features and ideas, but you can't possibly implement all of that! So how do you choose? This is where Prioritization comes in, this allows you to choose the best options to create the best[b] minimum viable product (MVP)[/b] within the shortest available time based on factors like costs, complexity, value to users, engineering concerns etc. There are many techniques available, I used the Value vs. Complexity Quadrant, It basically asks 3 questions:
1) Can we build this?
2) Is it cost intensive?
3) Does it add value?

From what I saw on twitter, it seems most UIUX designers are at loggerheads with their development teams because they hardly put the first question into consideration , coming up with fancy designs that turns collaboration meetings into warzones. Design is one thing, developing it is quite another but what do I know, I don't believe in anything, I'll rather stay taliban

Concept Sketching, Rapid Prototyping and Usability Testing (UI)

Here you would start putting your ideas to paper, how would your features look like, using designs on dribbble, behance for inspiration, translate them to basic wireframes and start iterating.
Paper to lofi-wireframing is the best option especially when dealing with stakeholders, you can make changes faster without worrying about colors, icons, accessibility etc. You sketch, create design systems, wireframes, create basic prototypes, test the user flows etc. with colleagues, users, stakeholders etc. note feedbacks then go back to iterate your designs.

When you have done this 3-5 times and have a clear idea of what your prototype looks like, then you can move on to high-fi wireframes where you flesh out your prototype into something more robust, create a prototype and conduct usability and accessibility testing (Is it responsive, user friendly, easy to use, contrast switching, screen readers etc.) using tools like Lookback and webaim contrast checker. You will still iterate, it's a lifelong process until the product is taken down. That's why the top nigerian bank apps are different, their app designs and flows are not stagnant.

After I was done in my own project, I documented my style guides & component libraries using Zeplin for easy handover to developers. System Designs are very very important to ease work process among team members.

I obviously skipped a lot of things so I'll just add a screenshot of some of the documents I had to create in the course of this project. It is a whole lot of work.

Next Up is "How to write a case study".

iospen:
It’s not about competing or creating a forum that look like NL, the inforum is not even look like NL
All this is from scratch trying to figure something great out, It’s not a copy of any website or forum in any where of the world
CHECK IT WELL!!

User reviews/feedback are very important and he just gave you a very honest review. Don't be defensive, this is how you get better.
I like the card UI designs though, you can keep those but your UI definitely failed Web content accessibility guidelines. Try to come up with something more unique or leave it to the designers.

While looking for more projects to add to my portfolio especially refractoring case studies, I came across the UBA banking app , See damning reviews, Why hasn't anyone tried to redesign their UI? I've seen that of zenith, first bank & GTB. Although the UBA app UI looks basic, I think the problem is from the development phase..

Polaris banking app is another Very frustrating app. I always pity the users.

I just wonder whether they even do research first or use feedback from their users to make their designs better, what do you think is the problem?

Well this is nigeria, don't catch you slippin' now....

More like organ traffickers. There was a story about a Nigerian man abduction in one of the US cities. By the time they found him, what remained of him couldn't fill a poly bag. The press covered it up, the police in that town also covered it up. Only the wife was trying to push it on Twitter. I don't know how it all ended but the fact remains, Africans are saints compared to what happens in asian countries & the US but you'll never hear or see it because they control their media. Same way we're not even in the top ten list of countries with the highest population of scammers. But that's what you get when you swallow foreign propaganda hook line & sinker.

Tasks done during UX case study & User Journey example.

Research & Recruitment

Explored young professionals experiences with existing social media app blockers.
Validated findings with surveys.

Research Synthesis & Feature Ideation-Prioritization

Identified pain points, common themes and determined possible opportunities.
Ran a design sprint for brainstorming.

Concept Sketching, Rapid Prototyping and Usability Testing

Created and designed easily adaptable features or solutions.
Tested and iterated prototypes.

Nl compressed the pictures By the way those aren't the colors I used in my final designs, this is just for presentation, Just in case senior Designers are lurking around here. I have adequate knowledge of WCAG & the psychology of color to know this won't be comfortable with some classes of users.

My Udacity Capstone Project
We did assessments at the end of each course using what we learnt to jumpstart our own projects. You either chose the Udacity coffeshop Project or you find one yourself. A quick search on the coffeshop project brought out hundreds of such projects on dribble, linkedin etc. To me it didn’t make sense, how can your project stand out amidst all that, even if your work was better than the rest it doesn’t show ingenuity.

So I opted to choose my own project and find my own resources, sounds nice and bold to you right? It wasn't funny. I contemplated switching back to the Udacity Coffeshop project more than twice, they had data down from interviews, surveys etc that you could just use, I had to get mine by conducting my own interviews and surveys, I got stuck, had a brain freeze for weeks where I would just open my laptop and stare at the screen, Imagine a zombie with a laptop, nothing was processing and the deadlines were fast approaching. I almost ended up frustrated like a LASTMA official but na me find work, I had to finish it but the experience was worth it.

Now I can state I have experience working under intense pressure in my CV

Back to my project, I had to find a problem and create a UX solution for it. Not just any problem would fit the bill, It had to be relevant etc.

I choose to go with an app blocker for young professionals. I'll explain how to write a case study later, for now I'll just showcase the tasks I did and a pictorial explanation of how the app works.

Yampotatocarrot:
So, basically instead of wasting one's time doing anything online, one can just walk into the closest INEC office and do it all at once.

Thanks, I'll check out the closest office to me next week. If I may ask, can it be completed in one day, as in registration, biometrics and collecting the temporary card?

Don't know about other locations but yeah. Just find the nearest Inec office. Everything is done in minutes except for the temporary card, they only gave us signed receipts not temporary cards.

Back to my own experiences, I took the Udacity UX Nanodegree course, quite comprehensive if I may say and easy for anyone who is totally new to UI/UX. It takes you through the fundamentals of UX, User Research (very important) and UI design. Then you round off with a capstone project.

Submissions are reviewed by an assigned supervisor.
Course duration is 3 months but if you can power through it in less than that like I did, deadlines have a way of bringing out the best in someone .

You can see the skills gained and the course assessment process below. This should give you a basic idea of what you have to learn as a UI/UX professional, dribble and co mostly gives the impression that UI/UX is about fancy designs but that isn't the case in real life. If it isn't backed by researched data, It's just visual design and would likely not solve your users problems.

I’ll be posting a summary of my project from research to prototyping next.

Don't start what you can't finish. If you give in to this, expect many more arm twisting schemes. Stand your ground.

silibaba:
According to the Bible, and God said let us make man. Who is he referring to? Satan. That means God never created Satan. Satan existed along with God.

God is a generic term like king, lord etc Same with Satan, it can refer to any entity. That verse was referring to the pantheon of gods that ruled the earth in the old testament and were referred to as the Elohim. Remember where they said let us go down and confuse their language at the tower of babel? Na Dem. There were multiple gods in the old testament. Please do your research.

As for your last line, if Satan existed along with God then that means someone created both of them, who was that?

2horsePOWER:
Access Bank @ #410

This is daylight robbery. Folks should try & open a Dom account. Black market rate was 564-66 as at Friday.

Electrochemistry:
Going by the idea that nature is multidimensional don't you think there's comparison in the words of Christ? In my Father's house are many mansions." I suggest the physical world is just one of these mansions we can see, but it is far less influential in our lives than the mansions we can't see.

I can't really comment on that verse, Many modern religious concepts, stories & verses were borrowed from ancient mythology and religion. It might have been a snippet of an excluded story or infer something else totally. Take the word Christ for one, it doesn't denote one person, there were many Christs before the christian one. What holds true across all time, creed, race & religions is the Christ consciousness. Google that for more info.

Back to your suggestion, Man is a multi dimensional being but modern man has been taught to fixate on the physical aspect, hence your belief that one plane of existence is more influential than the other, to use your language,that somewhere like heaven is more important than earth. That's how religion cages folks.

They are complementary. As above, So below.

Let's say you have an idea pop up in your brain (etheric plane) for instance, where do you do manifest it? In the real world(Physical). The airplane was once an idea in someone's brain, without this world, it would have remained, just an idea.

AllBusiness:
Pls send it to me by nairaland email please? 100% safe bro.

Post your email let me send it direct, You can edit it out later

Gadgets Importation. Buy cheap from abroad and sell for profit. Do your findings first. Everything you need is on this forum.

Alternatively find someone who is successful in it and have him/her mentor you. That's the shortest route. No carry money give anybody o.

FluxEmpire:
That's my business certificate for me being a scam to feed your stupidity.

Why you are you replying him? Your profile speaks for you already.

Lol, something anybody can do with practice. Go and research about lucid dreaming, astral traveling. Then read The Phase by Michael Raduga(contain step by step instructions to achieve what you experienced).

You're not a Christian by true inner choice, you're one by fear like the majority. The human race is constantly evolving, Religion was supposed to be just another signpost on that path pointing you forward but no, they turned it into a final destination and a chain around the human psyche. Imagine travelling to Germany and you preferred to start living at the Lagos airport. No religion has the monopoly on truth nor is the real one. Know that and know peace.

Go to Sabo Yaba. That new plaza they just built. 1st Floor, Building on your right, directly opposite the parking space.
You'll see the banner sef from downstairs. Ask for Abu, he's very honest, still went there to exchange yesterday. Sorry can't drop his number on a public forum.