Welcome to the design challenge folks. My aim with this challenge is to ensure that by the end of this process, you'll have a set of high quality UX artifacts that you can include in your portfolio. And as a result of this course, you'll be able to explain in detail the design thinking that went into its creation. The subject of the design challenge is to redesign your favorite or maybe least favorite health and wellness app, however you choose to define that. What gets under your skin? What do you think you could design better?

What isn't working? I've chosen the subject for design challenge and class project for several reasons. Importantly, addicted apps are often credited with increasing depression, political polarization and anxiety. I'd like us to demonstrate the ways that technology can be used to improve users lives, not just to track secondly, reworking a design of an app that already exists means there's an existing user base and hence less user research. Search holds for us to worry about filling during the design process. Also, keep in mind if it's an existing app, any UX hiring manager you might be interviewing with, may or may not have the background and context of the problem you're trying to solve with your redesign, making the story easier for you to tell.

Also have limited the scope to health and wellness apps because constraints are healthy, and hopefully a welcome part of the design process. I don't want you to worry about boiling the ocean with a redesign. Sometimes limiting actions makes the creative juices flow better. And lastly, I want you to choose something you can really sink your teeth into something that you're opinionated about. Passion is the fuel that will carry you through these assignments. And who knows, you may fall so in love with your project and you might just want to launch it yourself.

Hashtag shipping. I just want to add a few words about how to think of creating the product of your UX artifacts in the context of using this design challenge to build your UX portfolio. In essence, we'll be doing a mini design process to help design and create your portfolio pieces. This gets pretty mad. It's like persona Inception layers upon layers of users needs you need to cater to. Simply put, you're designing the product of your app for your users.

And you're designing artifacts to express your ideas of your process to your primary stakeholders. In this case, you as hiring managers. Remember who your audiences, HR recruiters may or may not know anything about the details of when user experiences and UX hiring managers who, unfortunately, don't have a ton of time to review any applicants material and detail. Keep these personas of your UX work in mind. What are they looking to accomplish by reading your materials? What are the constraints placed on them that prevent them from seeing what an amazing candidate you are?

And how can we help support them given these constraints. Building an engaging UX portfolio requires a few things, communicating the story of your process clearly insistently showcasing the range of skills that your target audience HR and hiring managers care about. highlighting your unique ways of tackling a problem. How do you think being clear is the most important part of any of your job application materials, but being yourself as a close second, hiring managers need to know how you with your background talents and experiences will fit onto their team. The only way to stand out from the pack is to be yourself. Use the constraint of this design challenge to really show off how you think about the problem and what you're trying to solve.

Keeping in mind the what and how of what you're communicating to meet the needs of the audience you're speaking to. So just a reminder, we'll be using the lens of a redesign of your favorite or least favorite health and wellness app to create your UX artifacts. For this class project, you'll be creating at least two personas to help guide your design decisions for your health and wellness app. Best of luck, and remember, feel free to reach out if you have any questions about how to navigate the competing needs of your various users.