UX Research & Design
For every project, the user comes first and design decisions are backed by qualitative and quantitative user research methodologies.
I am an agile User Experience (UX) researcher and designer who can be flexible to meet the needs of users and stakeholders. I believe collaboration is key in UX because teamwork is what brings many great products, services, and experiences to life.
My specialty within UX focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, Qualitative UX Research, Ethnographic Research Methods, The Apple Ecosystem, and Information Architecture.
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In my spare time, I love photography as all images on my webpage are my own and edited in Lightroom Classic. My current camera is a Canon 90D with a Sigma 150-600 super-telephoto lens, along with a USM 18-135 kit lens.
Professional Work Portfolio ofÂ
UX Case Studies
If you are on desktop, feel free to interact with these designs. These designs are fully functioning and interactive prototypes meant for the web and mobile applications.
The following projects are part of a collection of professional work outside of my graduate studies. As I further develop my skills in User Experience Research and Design, I will continue to add more examples of my work within the confines of my contractual obligations.
Touro University New Program Webpage
A chance to apply classroom skills to a live webpage.
This project focused primarily of creating an informative experience for prospective students at Touro University Graduate School of Technology. What I learned the most was working with developers and adjusting my design to make the build process easier for stakeholders and developers.
Graduate School Portfolio of UX Case Studies
During my graduate studies, I found myself specializing in qualitative design research as I progressed through my program. Learning and working with users is what drove me to UX from teaching. Developing research-based solutions is what I strive for as a UX Practitioner.
Working on a collaborative team is why I love UX in order to solve customer, service, and product problems of today's users.
The following projects are part of a collection primarily from my graduate studies. From my first project with Burnout with a primary focus on UI to my final capstone project Cana with an emphasis on UX Research and design strategy. With my capstone, I gravitated to solving user experiences through strategic qualitative user research supported by quantitative user research.
Within UX Research, I connected my background in teaching history to the UX skills I developed during my graduate studies. My teaching experience has allowed me to really learn and understand how people think and behave. When it came to UX, the transition from teaching felt natural to me because I see teaching and UX share the same goal of providing solutions to problems people are facing. Another key skill from teaching was being able to differentiate the value of UX to diverse stakeholders. Being able to share insights in an engaging and fun way makes me a confident presenter and storyteller.
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If you are on a desktop, feel free to interact with these designs. These designs are fully functioning and interactive prototypes meant for web and mobile applications. Since Cana is a UX Research brief, there's a detailed case study report along with interactive prototypes of the initial concept to product prototype built at a place where the development is to be built and ready for QA.
Cana: A Case Study of UX Research, Strategy, and Design
Masters Thesis Project
In the words of my thesis advisor, Valerie Taylor:
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"Cana: a cannabis experience from start to finish. Tariq treated his thesis gestation as a startup idea. Controversial subject. Emerging technology. UXD research, not focusing primarily on the UI. But the strategy and research give richer results. When testing, there was a realization of what service to bring to users, not just designing an app. Not limited to UI, it is the systems, customer experience, and service design as well that drive the user experience. Integrating his anthropological, historical, and teaching background allowed him to design a product with market potential. Melding his background and combining those instincts in the field, influenced his design process. This project changed in real-time throughout the build, as the laws are constantly changing. Since he was designing a product and service in a regulated industry, he wanted to make sure what he was designing fell into current regulations. As well as the privacy and security issues that came up during the research processes, this important lesson was an important lesson about the importance of protecting users' data."
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This project is password protected and please reach out to me directly if you would like to view it directly.
HobFy
Making the move from UI to UX
My first course at Touro University focused solely on UI Design Principles. This project was where I developed skills in qualitative research as I interviewed prospective users. With the added value from user feedback, I felt my designs became stronger along with learning how to provide meaningful solutions to problems a user could face in regards to stress.
Burnout: The Car Finding App
My First Project
Making the transition from history adolescent education to visual and UI design was not an easy challenge for me. Looking back at this design, I see a lot more usability issues than when I first started to become a UX Professional in 2020.
This project I like to highlight as it was when I began my UX journey in 2020. Every great superhero movie has to come with a great origin story.