Human-Centered UX Design
- School
- Aalto University Summer School｜Human-Centered UX Design｜2026.7 - 2026.8
- Period
- 2026.7 - 2026.8
- Role
- Craig — User Research, Concept Development, Prototyping Laima — User Research, Prototyping Nihaal — User Research, Concept Development
- Skills
- User Experience Research, UX Design, Figma
During the three-week course, I collaborated with students from different countries and completed a project-based, end-to-end learning experience in Human-Centered UX Design. My Learning outcomes: - Understand and apply the basic concepts of human-centered design method in the early phases of digital application development. - Design an interactive prototype of a mobile application. - Evaluate the usability of a mobile application. - Demonstrate teamwork skills in a design team
Our team selected Culture & Food as our project theme, exploring how we might improve the everyday experience of international students living abroad. We conducted semi-structured interviews to understand their behaviors, challenges, and needs around food and daily life. Starting from participants’ backgrounds and living contexts, we gradually moved into their current routines and pain points. After each interview, we extracted key statements and grouped similar observations into an Affinity Diagram. This bottom-up synthesis helped us identify recurring behavioral patterns and uncover opportunities for further design exploration.
Affinity mapping revealed that participants’ food choices in Finland were shaped by a trade-off between time, convenience, cost, familiarity, and taste. Although they valued home-cooked meals, cooking was often constrained by limited time and energy. When busy, participants turned to simpler meals, takeaway, or affordable restaurants. Language barriers made menus, grocery labels, and unfamiliar ingredients harder to understand, increasing uncertainty during decision-making. Translation tools helped reduce this difficulty, while limited student budgets encouraged participants to compare prices and prioritize value for money. Participants also struggled to discover familiar dishes and ingredients. They used social media, map services, and delivery platforms to find suitable options, while remaining open to unfamiliar food that matched their tastes and budgets. We synthesized these recurring behaviors, needs, and tensions into a research-based persona: Li Wei.
Li Wei represents international students who have recently arrived in Helsinki and manage their everyday meals on a limited budget alongside a busy study schedule. She is open to trying new cuisines, but unfamiliar menus and food labels make it difficult to understand her options. Comparing prices takes time, while unclear information about ingredients and portion sizes makes her worry about spending money on food that falls short of her expectations. With limited time to cook and difficulty finding familiar foods, everyday food choices become a source of stress. This persona focuses the subsequent design on three needs: - Reduce comparison and hesitation when choosing food. - Avoid spending money on food that does not meet expectations. - Ensure access to familiar food alongside opportunities to explore new cuisines. The corresponding UX goals are to help users feel capable and reassured when making food choices and enjoy exploring at their own pace—not simply find a meal faster. Our design addresses not only the efficiency and practical needs of choosing food, but also how users feel throughout the process.