Designing Software That Is Intuitive, Helpful And Enjoyable To Use
Briana Christey | UX/UI Designer
Briana is a UX/UI Designer who works in Panama’s co-working space. She works alongside leading software development teams in the Waikato to create digital user interfaces (UI) that deliver an optimal user experience (UX).
EMAIL b.christey@gmail.com
LINKEDIN @briana-christey
Panama Riverbanks resident, Briana, is a UX/UI Designer who works alongside leading software development teams in the Waikato to create digital user interfaces (UI) that deliver an optimal user experience (UX). Briana shares about her approach to creating user-friendly software.
As a UX/UI Designer, my job is to design software that is intuitive, helpful and enjoyable to use.
When designing a software application, I always start with research: what problems are users experiencing and how could we could solve these problems with software? It never ceases to amaze me the value of insights gained simply by talking to people.
Then, I define the features of the software application and map out the user journey. When designing screens, I start with low fidelity (usually scribbles in my notebook) and gradually get more detailed, until the designs are polished, tested and ready to be handed over to the software developers. I work in Figma, and highly recommend this tool to any digital designers out there!
What I love most about being a UX/UI designer is the satisfaction that comes from delivering software that is intuitive to use and genuinely helps people complete a task. Software architecture can be really complex, and so is human psychology, but the best digital applications are the ones that feel simple.
Recently, I was working alongside a team of developers at Company-X to design a better way for tradies and construction workers to log their time spent on jobs. Traditional timesheets are text-heavy and manual, and all existing software solutions felt equally cumbersome too. We needed a fresh approach. One evening, as I opened my iOS alarm clock app to set my waking time, I realised there was the inspiration for our solution: a simple spinner for workers to set their start and end time. This product is going to market in the next few weeks and will be used daily by thousands of kiwis.
I feel very privileged to help improve people’s day-to-day lives with well-designed software.
If you’re interested in learning more about UX/UI Design, here are some great articles on medium: