What UX Designing Is, From The Perspective Of A Ghanaian Female UX/UI Designer
Oct. 13, 2022, 12:18 p.m.
Today's Creative Digest features Jacqueline Asare-Dartey, a product (UX) Designer specializing in UI Design with over three years of experience in the industry. She has worked on several mobile and web apps spanning industries like Fintech, Edtech, and Agritech, which have had a significant positive impact on her users. Jacqueline also teaches Design sometimes, an action that stems from her passion for Design and sharing her knowledge.
The journey for Jacqueline began in her final year when she joined a National Mobile App Hackathon, which introduced her to UX. After her first encounter, she fell in love with UX and decided to learn more about it. Today, she is one of the few Ghanaian female UX/UI Designers causing tremendous waves within the community. "Funny enough, my first design as a UX designer was terrible, but with time, I improved, and even now, I keep improving," the Designer stated.
The UX/UI designer has worked on projects including Digital PASE, Ladies In Tech, Damirifa, Eganow, Shoperal, and many others. One of her proudest and most impactful projects is Digital PASE, an e-learning platform (website and mobile app) that equips unemployed individuals in Ghana with in-demand digital skills. The e-learning platform has trained many individuals and led to them getting employed in various companies. "To be part of someone's journey like that is a blessing and fulfillment to me."
Over time, her passion for her work and constant learning and unlearning have made the Ghanaian UX designer stand out. "Also, I am intentional and purposeful about how my works impact my users. Due to this, I have handled many impactful and successful projects in the past, some of which have brought several partnerships to my clients, trained over 10,000 individuals, and led to their employment."
"I have also increased customer engagements by 15% and overall revenue by 50% through digital income generation. I also have good collaboration skills due to working with many cross-functional teams in the past. I believe these experiences and the skills I possess allow me to contribute to making intuitive, accessible, and inclusive products for users."
To the UX/UI Designer, UX Design is crafting or defining how your users interact with your product and their overall impression of it from the moment they launch it until the moment they close it. With that said, you can give your users a good experience or a bad experience based on how much you understand them.
"A UX designer is basically like the user "whisperer" but also the business advocator (That is how I will term it). So, to be a good User Experience Designer, you should be able to understand your users and, with that understanding, provide solutions that are useful and usable to them. Also, in doing this, you should be able to balance business goals and technical constraints to create a product that benefits the users and grows the business."
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"So before any of my projects, I research! I talk to them, listen to them, and observe them. You can only put yourself in the consumer's mind if you're committed to learning about and understanding them, and doing that too means studying them without any biases."
"I mostly use the guerrilla research method where I send out surveys and recruit a few people willing to participate in user interviews for free or little incentive. The user interviews are usually done remotely, and I use this method because of the time and budget constraints I face."
The research, in turn, determines the features she adds to her products. Simple. The research helps her understand her user's needs and provide solutions through features that will effectively solve their needs and accomplish business goals.
"Now, if I am being honest, I haven't always been given the adequate resources or time to perform user research, and so with that, I have always had to find my way around by using the guerilla research method by mostly sending out surveys and also recruiting one or two people who are usually willing to participate in user interviews."
For individuals looking to join a UX community, there are a lot of communities (both in Ghana and globally) out there that could be beneficial to UX Designers. Some of these are UXGH, Friends of Figma (for Ghana), and globally, Does.Design, Game Changers Club, We Design, and many more out there. One needs to google to find out more.
"UX Design has been around for some time, but one thing hindering its growth in Africa is that many company leaders don't see the need for UX Design. So one thing we can do as African UX Designers is to own our craft and be confident enough to defend and preach about why UX is important. Also, we should be open to constant learning and bettering our skills. We should also be ready to impact what we know to those that are upcoming in the field; that way, we also learn."
"UX Design is growing and becoming more recognized in the tech industry. I also believe UX is going to revolutionize a lot in the tech space though it has already changed a lot, especially how products are made," Jacqueline concluded.
tag: Web Development, Mobile Apps, tech, design, UX design, creative digest, Digital Creatives, women in tech,
Verny Joy Author
Verny loves to write poetry, fiction and quotes. Her love for writing landed her in journalism. She loves gadgets and travelling to explore new places.