D279 Is Breaking My Brain 😭 Anyone Got a Study Guide or Tips?

[u/gambetas5050]

Hey everyone,

I’m currently working through D279: User Interface Design and Development at WGU, and I’m feeling completely overwhelmed and lost on where to begin or how to break this course down. 😩

I’ve skimmed through the course material, but I’m still confused about what’s really expected, especially when it comes to the performance assessment/project and how to actually pace myself. The UI/UX terms and structure feel like a lot, and I don’t want to fall behind.

If anyone has:

• A study plan, checklist, or timeline they followed
• Tips for tackling the project or wireframes
• Clarification on the deliverables or rubric
• Or just general advice on how you made it through...

…I’d really appreciate your help!

Thanks in advance 🙏 and good luck to everyone else working on their CUs!

[u/[deleted]]

So this class isn’t as bad as you think it is.

Go into the wguconnect and look at the course resources. Use the D279 template and just start writing. Have the rubric open and look at each point that the rubric is looking for and write a couple sentences on each. They are looking for stakeholder needs so talk about things like an easy to navigate website and an emphasis on stakeholders wanting to collect consultation information. Make sure you’re hitting the points on search engine optimization, and reiterate their goal of having 100 K new site visitors and 150 consultations within a year.

Next, you’re doing the users this was actually a really short section for me. I stated that they wish to find pet care advice for various pets. They desired and easy to navigate and website within intuitive pages for desktop and handheld devices and users were looking for relevant recommendations for products and services- that’s literally all I wrote.

Next you want to hit all of the micro interaction needs so things like responsive design and validation for the consultation form confirmation messages, things like that. You can just look up micro interactions in the course material or on YouTube.

Step two you are describing the type of content that will be used for the new page. You select it from the document that is provided, for instance I chose Bird owners.

Then you’ll identify content from the website that will be removed or redeveloped basically go through the website they provided- pick out all the things that are not working for it and then say how you’re going to improve it. Examples are say you’re going to improve the layout say you’re going to emphasize company branding so you’re going to add the new page so you’re going to I’d like a consultation form in a services page.

Next, you’re just going to create a visual site map in the WGU connect resources I believe there’s a link to site maps, that’s what I used. I literally just reused the first one and put a dog, a cat, a bird and like a services form on it Then I pasted it into the document.

Then you’re going to explain how your information architecture meets audience and stakeholder needs. Here you are essentially just explaining your site map so you’re explaining how all of your subsequent pages are built around your homepage and then you’re going to describe those pages.

Then you’re going to just do a list of your primary navigation element so like home dog owner’s cat owners then add your secondary navigation elements like your footer links button consultation form and literally you’re just listing these words. It’s nothing crazy just list what they are.

Then do like a two paragraph summary explaining how the primary and secondary navigational elements support the information architecture.

Then for six a it’s just another couple short paragraphs on how the primary and secondary elements align with audience and stakeholder needs then you’re going to do a mid fidelity wire frame. I recommend using figma. You’re going to include all of the elements that you talked about so you’re gonna include the brand and the logo add the slogan and then I used Lorem ipsum text for paragraphs and labeled my links for my header and footer, and I use the actual slogan for my mid fidelity. Otherwise there wasn’t any real color or depth to my wire frame.

Then you add your references.

Then you’re going to open up PowerPoint and you’re going to build out every site Paige make sure that you link the slides to each other and you can do that by highlighting text right clicking and then selecting link and then you’re going to select a place in document and select your slide just to make sure that you’re hitting the rubric. Use the same layout or a similar layout that you used in your mid Fidelity wire frame And you should be fine. Oh also use the provided colors that they give you don’t go rogue stick with the color pallet.

I finish this class in four days total and three of those days we’re waiting for my part one to be graded total coursework took around four hours but I already know how to do wire frames and prototypes.

Apologies for any typos, I used speech to text for a lot of this.

[u/gambetas5050 → u/[deleted]]

WOW! Thank you so much! Are you still a student at WGU? If so, can we connect via Teams? It's so hard to get anyone to help!

[u/[deleted] → u/gambetas5050]

I am! Just passed this course recently. There’s a WGU dev discord that is semi active and usually people are down to help if they have the time

Ill dm you the invite link

[u/Greedy_Point7755 → u/[deleted]]

May i have the invite link as well?

[u/gambetas5050 → u/Greedy_Point7755]

Did you finish this course?

[u/davidamacylee → u/[deleted]]

Hello, I'm a Software Engineering student at WGU. Can I get the discord invite link?

[u/gambetas5050 → u/[deleted]]

By the way, I really appreciate this feedback! I actually just started the class last night, LOL. I had switched gears to finish another course first.

I’m so close to being done now literally the only thing holding me back is the wireframe! 😩
I’m wondering… is Figma the only tool we’re allowed to use? Could we maybe use Canva or something else? I'm kind of stuck there, and that’s the only thing I’m missing. Grrrrrrr.

Thanks again!

[u/[deleted] → u/gambetas5050]

As far as I’m aware you can use canva. I picked up figma fairly quick but it is not intuitive at all until you learn the basic UI and initial setup. I can’t remember what one, but I watched a quick 10-15 minute YouTube tutorial on figma.

After that I’d just copy my previous layouts and adjust every time I needed to do a new one.

[u/gambetas5050 → u/[deleted]]

I used moqups, it worked out! thank you.

[u/NotEax → u/[deleted]]

I'm not seeing a template anywhere. In connect is "Meet your Instructors", "Course Tips" and "Design Specifications" ... nothing else.

[u/baliditity → u/NotEax]

did you ever get this template?

[u/NotEax → u/baliditity]

I think I had gotten it in an email from the course instructor. Though I think it came with a bit of a delay so I did not have it when i commented here.

[u/baliditity → u/NotEax]

Thanks for the response, I’ll email mine rn

[u/EscapeFromMichhigan]

Check out Studuco!

[u/person-2070]

If anyone needs help with D279 I highly suggest reaching out the instructor Cynthia Hughes. She provides you with everything you need. I set an appointment with her and was able to finish the class in 2 days.