My first weeks as a UX intern
Written by Rene Koers on 17th February 2016
The first day of my internship at Spindle was great. Horribly tensed, yet looking forward to my day and the rest of my internship. Being here at Spindle is something that has been on my bucket list for quite some time now and I am unquestionably happy and proud to tell others I managed to get my place here.
A short introduction
Now, before I go ahead and tell about what I do here at Spindle, I’d like to tell you something more about myself. A short introduction as you might call it, never a wrong thing to have in my first blog. Anyway, I’ll stop delaying you and get on with it already!
My name is René, 20 years old and I currently live in Groningen where I follow my study Human Technology as well. I have always had the obsession to be working with computers and I always enjoy doing so. Before my current study, I have studied IT for half a year, where I learned that programming just isn’t something I would enjoy doing in my daily life. Human Technology, however, is something I really enjoy, being able to spend time with computers, but also have a more social role whilst working along its users.
Improving the onboarding process
What do I do here at Spindle? I work as a UX Intern with the task to improve the current onboarding process of the VoIPGRID telephony portal. Any interface is something to get used to for new users. I want to guide the users through this learning process in such a way, that a smile can be seen on their face at the end of it.
Right now this process happens along with the help of a wizard that allows users to change a few mandatory settings before being set free to do what they desire. This can be very overwhelming and confusing for non-experienced users. Furthermore, the wizard of this onboarding process doesn’t visually feel that appealing at the moment, which I hope to change as well with a prototype I’ll make. I’m quite confident that I will be able to make some good and user-friendly enhancements, providing a great experience for new users. Especially with the help of my awesome colleagues that like to help each other out whenever possible!
Research proposal
During my first two weeks here at Spindle I have been working on a plan of action, where I made a clear planning of what I am going to do here during my time at Spindle. I wrapped this up in the matter of a few days, followed by some polishing to make sure it would be a good representative document for my project.
This week, I have been working on a research proposal in which I precisely describe how I want to carry out the research and why I chose to do it in such a way. This comes along with a lot of desk research which mostly consists of finding theories to support my research and prototype, which I, to be honest.. not quite like to do. It, however, has to be done and I am glad to say that all things considered it is progressing fairly well, so nothing to worry about.
First impressions
My time here so far has been amazing. I have AMAZING colleagues, work in a super fun environment and am able to drink as much coffee as I like, which is perfect in my books. (I do hope I will become somewhat better at Smash Brothers than I am right now.)
I’m looking forward to updating you all in another two weeks, have a great day and productive week!
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