SAS Day 8

Today was the last day at SAS. Day 8 started with two hours of shadowing, which I spent with Sierra, Mark’s coworker that also worked in UX Design. Instead of creating designs and working on how things work visually, Sierra was in charge of designing how graphs work and making sure that data visualization apps were as efficient and effective as possible. She showed me some of the equations she uses to create graphs, and SAS’s Visual Analytics (VA) app that she worked on. SAS’s VA app had very intuitive ways of creating graphs, plots, and maps that helped visualize thousands of data rows and columns. Finally, she gave me a lot of time to play around with the app and simulate a potential customer using the app for the first time. I gave her feedback on what I liked and what was challenging but for the most part, I found the VA app to be extremely helpful. I was glad to see the visual analytics side of design since it is something I had never experienced before. After working with Sierra, I said goodbye and thank you to Mark and headed towards building A to eat lunch with the whole Cary Academy group.

After lunch, we all headed to a meeting room where we would present our projects that we finished on Monday. We were given some time to practice our presentation and my group went first. Many workers, including people of high position at SAS, showed up to watch us present. We showed the video we created and answered questions. We watched the other groups present and discussed the projects and completed a survey to conclude the experience at SAS. Working at SAS for 2 weeks gave me the opportunity to learn about areas that I was already familiar and passionate about in a way that I had never experienced before. I would do this Work Experience Program again at SAS and would strongly recommend it to anyone considering it for future years.

SAS Day 7

Today marked the second and last full day with the UX Design team. I met up with my host, Mark, in building R and went over a few tips on Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is different from Sketch, the program that was taught to be yesterday, in that Illustrator is used to create icons and vectors and Sketch uses Illustrator’s creations and puts them in an interface for a website. Unlike Sketch, which I had learned from scratch yesterday, I was already familiar with Adobe Illustrator and Mark showed me some tools and resources in Illustrator that he used often and that I didn’t know about. We sat in his office for around 30 minutes playing around with Adobe Illustrator and creating different vectors and icons. Mark and I went to a fellow coworker Cheryl’s office where we discussed some of the issues in efficiency and design in one of SAS’s data analytics apps. The app worked differently in a computer, iOS, and Android and we were tackling the issues brought up when the app was used in the different platforms. After the meeting, we visited many of the Design rooms that were flooded in whiteboard markings and sticky notes about every tiny element of a website you can think of. This includes buttons, drop-down menus, links, and everything in between. Every element had several designs for when it is unselected, hovered on, clicked, and selected. After this we broke out for lunch, and since Mark had work to do, he let me drive to building A where I met with another Cary Academy student and had lunch with him.

After lunch, I went back to building R and met with Mark. We reviewed what I learned in the past few days in both programs before heading towards a meeting with the whole UX Design team, including Cheryl and other coworkers I was introduced to the day before. They each talked about their progress in their individual projects and tackled some big software design issues together. Mark let me use the Mac that he loaned to me to learn more of both programs while I listened to the meeting. Even though yesterday helped me learn about the tools and resources UX Designers use, today helped me get a better idea of what a regular day is for a UX Designer.

SAS Day 6

Today was the first day of the second shadowing program at SAS. I had come from spending 3 days shadowing people at marketing, and today I started shadowing Mark Malek at SAS’s UX Design (user experience) field. UX Design deals with the presentation and efficiency of a website. It does not create ideas for websites, but takes an existing website and makes it as presentable and enjoyable as possible for the user. I met Mark for the first time and we sat down at the cafeteria introducing ourselves and talking about my background in technology and design. We then spent a few minutes going around the UX offices and meeting people that worked there. We then settled in his office where he ran me through his profession and the tools he uses to get work done. He uses programs like Adobe Illustrator and Sketch to make interfaces, but we focused mainly on Sketch today. Sketch is a good tool to lay out a website page or draft and brainstorm appealing visuals. He pulled up a random website page from SAS’s drive website and he recreated it so I could become familiar with the program. He provided me with a MacBook that I will be able to use throughout the week. Once we were done, it was time for lunch and we both broke out and I was able to eat with some fellow Cary Academy students.

After lunch, we attended a quick one-on-one meeting that Mark has with another intern regarding Sketch. The intern had a few questions on Sketch and it was helpful to learn from the questions asked and answered. We then went back to his office where he showed me several websites and tools that designers use to get inspiration and showed me more advanced and nifty tips on Sketch. We went over tomorrow’s plans and finished for the day. This was the first time I have ever experienced something like this since it merges two string interests, design and technology, that I have not always been able to put into practice and allows me to see how they are applied in the workplace.

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