environmental design projects
Before switching my focus to UX Design, I was an environmental designer, creating visitor experiences in garages, hospitals, and apartment buildings. Yet, most of the skills relevant to physical product design apply in the UX and tech fields, such as understanding people’s goals, and making the product memorable, useful, and visually appealing. There was also research involved - focused on material selection, feasibility, and county regulations. The prototypes we made were sometimes as small as paint swatches, other times full-scale prints of impact logos. So the steps applied are quite similar to design thinking, with a noticeable difference - if the product is built incorrectly, oftentimes it has to be redone from scratch.