These steps are helpful to keep in mind when conducting a cognitive walkthrough because it can act as a 'toolkit' when I'm unsure of what I need to be measuring. Having parameters when doing tests is also helpful for a beginner like me, who has only done one or two in the past. It's interesting to think about how these steps address whether the design is intuitive enough from different angles.

When testing a design, I thinks it natural to want to test all of the capabilities and limitations in one go. So, having this framework when approaching user tests is helpful because it prevents both the observer and user from becoming overwhelmed with the all goals the testing wants to achieve. Additionally, it'll help me be realistic when I conduct user testing, as I won't be able to get the all results I'm looking for in one session; rather, results would be collection over time in other sessions.

It makes sense that you must determine the functionality and architecture of something before you can deem what it looks like. This is a good reminder that design and software development work hand-in-hand, as it's easy to classify them as different fields entirely. I think, as a designer, being aware of how the backend of an interface works can be a leg up!

This excerpt is pretty eye-catching because it gave me new knowledge on what prototyping is. It's interesting to learn that prototyping isn't meant to reflect the final product, rather its meant to help your ideate further. As someone who struggles with perfectionism and minor details, knowing that prototypes are meant to be disregarded (after they serve their purpose) helps with the pressure of perfecting my ideas.

This is a good reminder to prioritize design principles and user needs over aesthetics. It’s easy to copy features you like, but taking time to consider why each element is necessary is valuable practice. Going a step further by adapting solutions rather than simply copying them can also strengthen your design skills.

I agree in the importance of this step because pretesting can also allow you to put design justice principles into practice. In this stage, you can see whether the questions are relevant to the person you're interviewing, and when stakeholders are diverse, you can note any areas of improvement to make sure the questions are inclusive. This works especially well because in such an early stage in the process, you can prevent issues from happening down the line.

I greatly appreciate how the text provides some design principles to refer to for critiques. As someone who just recently began their design journey, I often associated "critiques" with what "looked good." This POV is pretty misguided as it doesn't focus on usability or actual functionality (or the other principles mentioned) so I'm glad that I'll have a point of reference for future design critiques!

I like the ideas of personas because they put a face to the audience that you are trying to impact with the design of your product. It seems like they make it easier to empathize with users needs and remind you that you’re designing for real people, not just abstract requirements. I've created a persona for my INFO 200 course, and it was interesting to put myself in the shoes of a user and their needs in the process.

This really drives the importance of user research in the design process. Without communicating with the people you intend to help, it's unreasonable that you could provide a solution for their problem. In an evolving tech. landscape, optimization and efficiency is oftentimes the top priority, which can easily exclude vulnerable populations. The first example that comes to me is facial recognition, a tool that has repeatedly shown bias against black women, leading to misidentifications and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes.

This sentence really resonated with me because it put into words the perspective I've always had about design. People in other STEM fields oftentimes consider design "easy" or something that doesn't take much effort, when really, at the core of all of these respective fields lies problem solving, which in itself takes effort. In my opinion, I don't think it matters what that looks like in industry, research, or academia.

I agree with this section because I think it's important that direct stakeholders are considered throughout the design process. You can only truly understand the needs of a group by talking to them, so to exclude your target audience from the earliest stages of the design process is counterproductive to me. I draw a lot from Value Sensitive Design, a framework that encourages designers to consider human values from the beginning to end of their projects.