From Gaming to UX: My Journey into Design

The Beginning

Gaming has always been a strong interest of mine ever since I was a kid. It was always amazing how well the gameplay kept me intrigued for hours, my interest only waning after I had my fill of one of my favorite past times.

Video games have the uncanny ability to immerse the user in an entirely different world, whether it be fantasy like one of my favorites the Final Fantasy franchise, or horror like Resident Evil, there’s plenty of room to explore, be in awe of realistic 3D graphics, and resonate with a well written character story.

Learning about the process behind a product

Once I got to high school, I decided to major in game design. After getting accepted into my alma mater, and after taking a few of my major classes, I quickly learned that a lot goes into creating a product that will go above and beyond a users expectations.

Working on games early on in my undergraduate career made me realize that it is a long and actually quite fun process to take an experience from idea or inception to a finished product. I worked on teams spanning from 2 to 10 people during the creation of a few mobile games. There were also times where the team had to recruit others outside the team, such as a sound design student, to work on the sound effects for a game.

This was also a time where I learned to wear several hats. During both my junior and senior years, I juggled being one of the main 3D environment artists who created nature and indoor environment assets, programmed a few environmental changes in the Unreal engine, met with potential users to play the initial version of a game and get their feedback, lead a few team meetings, created early sketches, and several other tasks.

Check out the rest of this article on Medium and share your thoughts.

The Beginning

Gaming has always been a strong interest of mine ever since I was a kid. It was always amazing how well the gameplay kept me intrigued for hours, my interest only waning after I had my fill of one of my favorite past times.

Video games have the uncanny ability to immerse the user in an entirely different world, whether it be fantasy like one of my favorites the Final Fantasy franchise, or horror like Resident Evil, there’s plenty of room to explore, be in awe of realistic 3D graphics, and resonate with a well written character story.

Learning about the process behind a product

Once I got to high school, I decided to major in game design. After getting accepted into my alma mater, and after taking a few of my major classes, I quickly learned that a lot goes into creating a product that will go above and beyond a users expectations.

Working on games early on in my undergraduate career made me realize that it is a long and actually quite fun process to take an experience from idea or inception to a finished product. I worked on teams spanning from 2 to 10 people during the creation of a few mobile games. There were also times where the team had to recruit others outside the team, such as a sound design student, to work on the sound effects for a game.

This was also a time where I learned to wear several hats. During both my junior and senior years, I juggled being one of the main 3D environment artists who created nature and indoor environment assets, programmed a few environmental changes in the Unreal engine, met with potential users to play the initial version of a game and get their feedback, lead a few team meetings, created early sketches, and several other tasks.

Check out the rest of this article on Medium and share your thoughts.

The Beginning

Gaming has always been a strong interest of mine ever since I was a kid. It was always amazing how well the gameplay kept me intrigued for hours, my interest only waning after I had my fill of one of my favorite past times.

Video games have the uncanny ability to immerse the user in an entirely different world, whether it be fantasy like one of my favorites the Final Fantasy franchise, or horror like Resident Evil, there’s plenty of room to explore, be in awe of realistic 3D graphics, and resonate with a well written character story.

Learning about the process behind a product

Once I got to high school, I decided to major in game design. After getting accepted into my alma mater, and after taking a few of my major classes, I quickly learned that a lot goes into creating a product that will go above and beyond a users expectations.

Working on games early on in my undergraduate career made me realize that it is a long and actually quite fun process to take an experience from idea or inception to a finished product. I worked on teams spanning from 2 to 10 people during the creation of a few mobile games. There were also times where the team had to recruit others outside the team, such as a sound design student, to work on the sound effects for a game.

This was also a time where I learned to wear several hats. During both my junior and senior years, I juggled being one of the main 3D environment artists who created nature and indoor environment assets, programmed a few environmental changes in the Unreal engine, met with potential users to play the initial version of a game and get their feedback, lead a few team meetings, created early sketches, and several other tasks.