picPixie
Queen’s Web Internship …
working with software developers
The picPixie app moved into “Phase 2”
Queen’s Web accepted me as a UX Research & Design intern shortly after finishing the picPixie 3-week design sprint.
I reached out to the picPixie founders and invited them to contact Queen’s Web to potentially use a team of intern software developers.
I was once again privileged to be a part of the picPixie team, and I was excited to gain experience working with a cross functional team.
Tools
Figma
Zoom
Slack
Google Suite
React Native
The Team
UX Research & Design:
Kristin White
Prezetta McCall
Software Developers:
Amanda Buch
Keli Bryan
Sierra Moore
June 2020 - April 2021
Welcome to Figma
This is fine. Everything’s fine. 😆
Our dev team had never used Figma before, and so it was up to the UX team to explain how this “spiderweb” would actually help them write code. It only took one virtual meeting to talk it through, we gave them access to the Figma file, and they were off!
Testing the “new”
Pencil & Eraser Feature
We now had the opportunity to test the pencil and eraser feature that was presented at the end of the 3-week design sprint.
I recruited 3 testers from the pool I had already collected from the design sprint. They were screened using the same parameters: “millenials that had ever colored in a coloring book for adults.”
Weekly Meetings
It was exciting to watch our designs be “brought to life” by the developers.
During those weekly meetings, the UX team was able to serve as “consultants” on anything UX. When there were questions or discrepancies, we would not only discuss it in the meetings but also follow-up on our Slack channel. I’d usually send a screenshot of the explanation for clarity.
By communicating this way, it showed the whole team that the users had already told us what they wanted and needed.
Our role as UX practitioners was to simply advocate for them.
Not “Live” Yet
One of the developers was kind enough to record a demo of the picPixie mobile app and send me a copy. Our team of interns (UX practitioners and software developers) worked well together and created a great first iteration. The founders are continuing to take steps towards getting picPixie “live” in 2022.
Lessons Learned
Taking the time to learn how your teammates prefer to communicate is priceless
The team will come up with new ideas or edits to the project… use these instances as design thinking “teaching moments,” and share/reshare the UX research findings (“Ok, let’s test it,” is also a great response)
It is important to meet with the developers often, because there will be random changes made to the original designs (more than likely they are unintentional)
“What success looks like” needs to be defined at the very beginning of the project, otherwise the whole team will be working on something that doesn’t have a clear finish line