UX Testing my Website

 A helpful exercise to understand how the end-user reacts to the interface and navigation through my website. Understanding if the user enjoyed it or not and having the chance to have feedback helps me to improve my work.

Creating this form was easy. I knew which questions I wanted to add there. I shared my website with some coursemates and friends to get feedback from different people in different areas. 

I opened Google Form, and after adding a name to the form, I could start thinking about some questions. I clicked on the toolbar on the right-hand side to add some questions. I had the chance to create different answers with different options answer such as multiple-choice, writing responses. In total, I had nine questions, and all of them were mandatory to make sure I had the feedback that I needed. 

After completing the form, I added this to my website to give a chance to the users to go through my website, testing and give me some feedback. This was in the menu bar that I created. The feedback section will be removed after I have completed this task. I think it worked very well following my website design. I had a total of 10 responses on this. 

Lets have a look on the feedback that I got:

From this feedback, I can see that people liked my homepage, with more than 50% of the users agreeing that it was excellent. Having some users say that it was good means that I would proceed with some changes according to the feedback that I will get.

 

I have chosen the writing option for these questions to have a more constructive comment about this section. It is the most important page where I will showcase my projects, and I want to make sure that it looks appealing to the viewer. The feedback was good in the majority of the commentary. I will do it some changes according to this feedback.

From the feedback I got on the About me page, I can see that I have made good choices here. Most, 70%, of the viewers said it was excellent, and only 30% said it was good. It makes me happy to know that people liked this section.

This section was where I got more diverse commentary from Okay to Excellent. In my opinion, it is the weakest page on my website. I want to change the picture and add more text in this section. This it will be done by the deadline. 

I got some written feedback in this section rather than a multiple-choice option. But from what I can see, people are happy to see a dark colour or a minimal look on my overall website. However, having feedback about adding an orange colour almost brick that goes with my About me page picture could be a possibility in the future. Very happy with the feedback.

This graph show us that people are happy with the overall experience throughout my website. 

The feedback about my logo is good and some of the answers constructive commentary. I wanted to make it professional, with a good design but also easy to people to identify my progression route.

The overall feedback was good just having one commentary saying that was not easy at the beginning to find this. Although the commentary is positive and in my opinion I think it works very well in my website.

Final questions for the users. I had some good commentary but also constructive. By the time I did the website live was a few things missing such pictures missing, the mobile version updated. I still need to rectify some last few things to make sure everything is working good before the deadline.

The overall feedback is very positive, however, I still have to work some things out based in some commentary. 

Photoshoot 2 - Contact Sheets

We can see my pictures from the second session in this contact sheet. In this second photoshoot, I had the chance to try more light settings, such as low key. I started the session with more exposure than I wanted for my work, but I could quickly adjust the correct setup for the purpose I had in mind. However, I had to make more adjustments throughout the session by moving and adding other lights. It was a challenging session when I thought about the final result I wanted for my project. But step by step, I could know where my project was going. The light that I used for this session was primarily key to creating shadow spots in my subject. I tried to add some fill light, but the result did not come as I expected. 

Also, I have tried a few shots with a white background, but I wouldn't say I liked the result because of the contrast. 

This second photoshoot, in my opinion, went better than the first one. I could be aware of the equipment that I could use, the space, and the previous feedback from the tutor. I had the chance with my tutor feedback to adjust the depth field, bringing the subject forward to create a better picture. It was beneficial because it improved the final result. 

I have tried different compositions during this session and consequently achieved great pictures. I used a chair to have my subject seated. 

Some of the pictures are blurry or out of focus due to the lack of knowledge. But having the chance to practice and focus on my progression route will undoubtedly help me in future projects. The overall experience went good for my first experience in the photography studio.

Light Setup

In this photoshoot, I had the chance to experiment with the light technique I have been exploring through this project: the Rembrandt technique.

Having the chance to play with the lights and understanding which theme I want to bring into my work. Definitely, I do not wish too many lights on my subject for this project. Light and shadow spots are very present in my final pictures. Therefore, I have explored some light setups while doing my photoshoots.

In this project, I have explored three different pointing lights: Key Light, Fill Light and Back Light where I will show 

Key Light - First light that photographers use in their work. This light helps to highlight the subject.

Fill Light - This light helps to fill the shadows that other lights, such as key light, may do.

Back Light - With this light, we can give more depth and add more dramatic effects such as silhouette.

My Project

Also, having other details such as hands or different body language could help achieve what I have in mind. Also, my final project pictures will be displayed in black and white. Firstly, I have a special connection with black and white photography, which I love due to the personal experience and the environment where I grew up. Second, I want the viewer to focus only on the light and shadows that the pictures show without having distractions due to the colours and so on.

In the example below, we can see the use of the backlight where the light is situated just at the subject's back. We cannot see much apart from the silhouette, with some places more illuminated than others. Still, we cannot really understand or see clearly, which adds some dramatic effect to the picture. This light set is shown below the lighting diagram in one of the pics that I took for the project. 

Marta, 2021

The second example is an experiment with a key light on one of the sides. As shown below, one of the sides of the subject is more illuminated to help to highlight the subject than the other. One of the sides has the main light focused on the subject, whereas on the other side, we can add a reflector to manipulate the light into the subject.

Suzy, 2021

The third experiment is an excellent example of using the key light and filling light together. Two subjects and not many shadows added into the subject. However, as I have explained before, I will not include this in my final project, but having the chance to experiment gives me more knowledge of how to set up the different lights available to create further works.

Bart and Fatima, 2021

This was the three lights that I have used in my experiment. Was good to be in the studio and be able to understand a bit more how things work. Looking forward to learn more about photography and the different techniques that I can apply to my works.