Reflection

This week we were given a talk by Lead UX designer from Octopus Energy in London and also a former student at Ulster University. He has extensive experience working for design agencies, start-ups, and large corporations. Ronan shared some some facts about the industry with us and discussed the diverse range of roles available for designers such as UI, UX and Product designers. I found this interesting as i had known of the roles before the lecture but was unsure of the difference between them and it was good to know that these roles are all filled by different designers. Ronan also offered tips on how to enhance our employability.

Drawing from his personal experience of working in different environments and businesses, Ronan also emphasised key factors to consider when seeking employment. The main point of his lecture was to encourage us to reflect on our preferred type of design work and work environment, as we will be searching for placement positions in September. I found this a lot easier to consider after the talk as I had now learnt the difference between all the roles. Understanding these factors will enable us to tailor our CVs and portfolios to better suit our target companies and roles.

After the lecture, Ronan opened up to questions. I was curious about work over the summer as a designer in first year and how I would go about looking for a role like this, however Ronan let me know this is something quite difficult to achieve unless it is unpaid work I’m looking for. Although I may not get what i was looking for he advised it would be great to get some experience over the summer if possible and to look for roles like this on Pale Blue Dot.

He then offered to give feedback on our project work which was great because I find it helpful to get feedback from as many people as possible.

App Design

Throughout the week I worked on with my banking app. I started with screenshots of Monzo as we were given the task of applying our branding to an existing app.

As I had already created a component library in week 07 pulling the app together was quite a quick process.

I put the screenshots in Figma and traced some of the shapes and icons, however some aspects of the app had to be changed to suit my brand and idea. Such as the transactions on the Home Screen, because my app is based around saving and automatic saving options I decided to show how it would look if this action had been completed. I done this by showing the transaction as normal but then adding the amount that had been taken out into savings. I also labelled the transaction with the percentage of savings the user chose.

I also changed the small slider at the top of the Home Screen as I had created this component as part of my style tile for week 8.

I had to make a few changes in the payments screen as I wanted to include my spend less scheme. I done this by copying the layout from other aspects of the app to keep it cohesive and using the noun project to get icons to match the categories. I decided to show what the user has selected currently under the category for quick easy access and then if they wish to change it they would click into the tap.

Overall I feel my app is displays my brand perfectly and it’s really effective. The colour palette works well together and the typeface I chose (Silka) fits in perfectly in the UI.

https://www.figma.com/file/a5XR8ThbQc4RhU6JEDU9RZ/Zura-App-Design?type=design&node-id=1%3A3&t=UbXOihVzutu7fZv3-1