Ilana Schwartz Interaction Design

Ilana Schwartz, BSc., User Experience Consultant

What is UX

User experience, or UX is a practice (a series of protocols and activities) concerned with how people interact with products or services.

The goal of UX is to make tasks easier and provide a joyful, stress-free experience for your client. Some people say it's about manipulating how people behave. But I prefer my way of thinking about it.

For me, the act of improving UX takes place in the digital realm, for apps, webapps, and responsive websites. But I could probably use the things I know in other realms.

I like to follow a human-centred design methodology. This is currently known as Design Thinking.

There are lots of things said about standards and UX but in the end, it's about:

Getting to know your client and their users
Understanding the business you're designing for and their requirements and regulations
Finding out what success might look like or finding out what everyone assumes it is.
I can't overstate this: Listening to all interested parties to dertermine everyone's needs and trying to find a balanced path where everyone is happy...then forcing that result through the crucible of your budget.
Converting those strategic needs into a viable design solution (trickier than it sounds).
Then circling back with assessment and testing to see if you are actually doing what they want or just what they said they wanted (Humans can be kind of tricky that way).
This was supposed to be a very brief list.

Why is it needed?

Because planning results in better...everything.

Why I'm qualified to do this

I've spent the last 12 years thinking and reading about making digital products easier to use.

From 2000-2007, I was a bona fide unicorn (in a field of unicorns; it was a dandy time), hands-on, writing, visually designing & coding websites, writing hacky PHP, but still blithly following the web accessibility initiative (WCAG), and thinking about the user experience.

Before that, I spent years working in a biochem lab doing research, using weird machines and terrible software.

But it's more than that. UX is an extension of who I am. I like to deconstruct processes and discover where people find difficulty in completing them.

I often have trouble explaining all the practices, processes and the sheer volume work I've done over the years. I know I'm good at this. I know I've years of experience. But it's a difficult thing to talk about. I've had some heartbreaking interviews where I couldn't wait to work on a project but just couldn't explain my competence to the person who had the power to hire me.

And so, here I am, toiling away in obscurity, writing about my problems on a website that will never be read. So it goes.

Verticals

The work is similar in every vertical but there's always a bit of industry-specific ramp-up. I've worked in many verticals including:

Banking, Energy, Pharma/Health, Insurance, Automotive, Media, Food, Culture, non-profit and Government
Client-side and agency

What I do

Qualitative and quantitative research such as: test protocols, interviewing, focus groups, workshops, results analysis
Strategic work such as journey and service mapping.
Architecture, flow charts, sketches, blueprints and planning for responsive web sites and apps
Mentoring. Teaching. Helping people to help themselves.

Deliverables include

User Test design, User Testing Moderation
User Testing Evaluation
Research
Interviewing
Usability Test Design and Analysis (desktop and mobile)
Wireframes, Flow charts, Prototypes, Blocking Diagrams, Sketch Boards, Personae, Analysis, Presentations
Moxie

Consulting

Consulting from research and design to evaluation
Front-end development and visual design
Standards-compliant & accessible
Sales, analysis and planning
Recruit and manage small teams
Website/intranet management

Education

Information Management Certification
Digital Media Design Diploma
B.Sc. Specialized Honours Biochemistry

Tools

Sharpies, highlighters and post-its, Sketch, Invision, Axure, Illustrator, Photoshop and more.