ZAAZ
- 2011
- Project-based work
My role
User Experience Designer
What I did
- Site Audits
- Site Maps
- Content Inventory
- Information Architecture
- User Flows
- Wireframes
About my time at ZAAZ
I was a User Experience Designer for websites and accompanying mobile phone apps. Projects included a Microsoft OneNote Silverlight site with Facebook integration, a Microsoft Sharepoint site to help new and existing users understand and use SharePoint functionality, and the 2012 Imagine Cup website with many social components.
The great thing about being a user experience designer at an ad agency is that you really have an opportunity to bring order to communication chaos. A lot of our clients’ sites had grown organically, and it was our job to clear out a lot of the underbrush and create clear paths for their users. Many times we also got to spread the good usability word to the non-believers.
Content inventory and affinity exercises
A lot of work at ZAAZ was improving existing customer experiences on existing sites. We would do a content inventory of the existing site, usually by printing out all the site pages, and then do affinity exercises and information streamlining and restructuring to help the user to better access the content. We would also identify and fix information gaps and areas that needed paring down, and plan for the inclusion of new content.
User types, goals, and scenarios
We would then identify user types and goals, and compare those with the existing site content, which would then inform our new information architecture and page types. A lot of this work would require us to work with the client to more closely align their expectations with those of their users, and how they could better communicate with their customers.
Wireframes
Finally, we would build out fairly detailed wireframes of the new site or app. A lot of times, we would be working with clients who were unfamiliar with reviewing wireframes, so there would be some education as well in which we helped them understand that clear client-approved wireframes saves a lot of time down the road in the design and development process.
