Can you describe a time when you had to advocate for a user-centric approach in your design process?

During my final year project, I worked on redesigning a campus navigation app. Initially, my team focused on adding flashy features based on our assumptions about what students wanted. However, after conducting surveys and usability tests with fellow students, we discovered that their main concerns were app speed and ease of navigation. I advocated for a user-centric approach by presenting our findings to the team and suggesting we prioritize optimization over additional features. We streamlined the app's interface, leading to a significant increase in user satisfaction during our final presentation, with positive feedback from peers who found the app much easier to use.

I volunteered for a local non-profit to help redesign their website. The initial suggestions from the board focused on showcasing their achievements, but I realized that potential donors and volunteers needed to understand how to get involved. I took the initiative to conduct informal interviews with target users. Based on their feedback, I advocated for a more user-centric design that highlighted calls to action and simplified the donation process. The new design resulted in a noticeable increase in online donations and engagement, proving that focusing on user needs can lead to better outcomes.

In my first role as a junior designer at a startup, I was part of a team tasked with improving an existing mobile app. While many team members wanted to implement new features based on our ideas, I pushed for gathering user feedback through surveys and A/B testing. I presented the data we collected, demonstrating that users preferred simplicity and clarity over added complexity. As a result, we shifted our focus to refining existing features, which ultimately led to a 30% increase in user retention over the following months. This experience taught me the importance of advocating for users and making data-driven design decisions.