I’m Jenn Dahlke and I am a UX Designer with Softrams. When I’m not doing awesome stuff for work, I like to read, play video games, and spend time with my husband and our 3 cats. I also own a small home-based business called Datapike Design, where I create various arts and crafts to sell online and at craft fairs.

My background is pretty varied and has given me a good deal of insight, which I apply to my design work and my life in general. While in college at UMBC, I studied both Animation and Psychology. My career roles have covered many parts of the digital design spectrum, including graphic design, animation, illustration, web design, web development, and now UX design.

Throughout my UMBC coursework, I learned a great deal about digital design and began to apply psychological methods to my artistic works. In the traditional art world, there is rarely a place for trial and error, but in digital design you can easily erase, alter, and even delete elements based on feedback from a peer, teacher, or client. You can even make several versions of an initial design draft to show the client, in order to discover the proper direction a design should go. This greatly opens the design possibilities and allows for experimentation.

I tend to go a somewhat scientific route for my design experiments. First, I contemplate the goal of the design and brainstorm various levels of a design that would reach, surpass, or fail that goal. Then I consider the goal of the user who will be utilizing the live design, whether their goal aligns with that of the design, and to what extent. This starts the really important part: designing with the users in mind. Questions arise that can range from “What color should we make this button to increase conversions?” to “Will the user understand what to do next if we organize the page like this?” and even “Is this a problem worth solving?” Next comes design iteration with both client and user feedback, or as it can also be deemed: Trial and Error. This allows for the eventual resulting design to be, maybe not perfect, but much closer than if only the client was involved. If the result aligns with the original goal for the design and also allows the user to reach their goal, I call that success.

Behind the UX — Meet Jenn was originally published in Softrams on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.