Success with this unit came from that first, integral skill that started everything: participatory design. To manage the amount of work, understand a range of perspectives and validate designs, it was integral to work with others. This is often the most difficult part, which makes the harrowing task of teams even more frightening.

Over the past few weeks we took the research and testing we've practiced, facilitated the complete design process coupled with our knowledge of design thinking to apply learned and new skills toward a big, hairy interaction project. Not to mention, you tackled one of the most slimy and twisted tools out there: Axure. Talk about an epic mission.

Epic Mission: Lightblade of Axure and the Many Tentacles of the Mid-fi Space Kraken

If anything, you should leave this unit feeling validated in the progress you're making. Some key takeaways also should include recognizing the importance of iteration, staying agile and value of mid-fidelity prototypes, the importance of research, validation and discovery, and the need for project management. You've gained some incredible skills, there's much to celebrate.

Here's some insights from your reflection:

• 4/5 teams reported issues with team contributions, communication or management
• Those who didn't report points of pride or difficulty also were not likely to laud the contributions of others
• Inverse correlation between folks who reported difficulty with teams and those who considered the project difficult

Leverage IA to organize site and content

Use interaction design principles to craft a digital product

Prepare work to handoff to other teams

Utilize web layout and navigation patterns to direct use

Reviewed nuancing UI to help reduce cognitive load

Balance business, user, and market insights to inform product

Project Highlights

• Worked with a social enterprise (Civic Suds), an OpenIDEO challenge around education, and product that used in an educational study (Corona Diaries via Harvard and MIT)
• Looked at scopes of work of project and product manager roles, UI and interaction designers, information architecture and data, and took on design challenges to apply what we’ve learned.
• Leveraged methodologies like card sorting, heuristics evaluations, informal and formal testing, and questionnaires to understand and validate learning for 5 products.
• Included new methods such as design studios, feature prioritization, wireframing, card sorting, project management tools and agile rituals in building a robust clickable prototype.
• Tackled one of the most complexly, reputable interaction design and prototyping tools, used by a majority Fortune 100 companies, Axure.

Personal Reflections

• Challenges

• Learning

• Inspiration

• Milestones

Individual and Team Recognition

Lighting the way as research commander, ## embraced his inner teacher, receiving three gold stars from peers for help and inspiration.

Tackling one of her biggest challenges, ## harnessed the powers of Axure and growth mindset to tackle dynamic panels and repeaters.

Powering through a hulk of tool, ## evolved his interaction and prototyping skills, evolving as the Axure tamer of the course.

Making a case for their aptly named teacher resource, ##, ## and ## demonstrated mastery in articulating their process and all that goes into validating a product throughout.

Planting seeds of inspiration with a beautifully themed deck and delight all around, ##, ## and ## work paid off, yielding fruits of awe and delight in their presentation and polished prototype.

Showing the power of staying agile, practicing lean and pivoting when needed, ## and ## demoed innovation as a bridge for the business and the user experience.