Communication Insights:

The Importance of User Experience

Molly Webb

Salisbury University

August 9, 2019

Running Title: Communication Insights

When I think of what makes this world go ‘round, I think of people. More specifically,

relationships between people, and the most essential part of relationships is communication.

Sharing your thoughts and feelings with another person is the only way to have others

understand you, and that is how you mend your differences and conflicts. User Experience is a

career field of hearing what people think of a certain product or service and fixing it to give

them a better experience of interaction with it. I love pleasing people and making them happy,

as well as making their life simpler. These are just some of the many reasons that I was

attracted to User Experience. I believe it is such underappreciated field, because when users

give feedback on a product or service, it gives the chance to make it better to then reach more

people. Additionally, User Experience provides a human touch to our technologically driven

world. Today, we can see computers through almost every walk of life. Providing a human

touch to a product or service usually involves having something relatable or understanding in

the experience it creates. It gives a feeling of trustworthiness, since being relatable gives more

of an emotional response. Through doing an internship at Pine Bluff Storage and Salisbury Bible

Fellowship, I was able to gain expertise in User Experience by transforming various problematic

areas in their businesses to reach a more expansive amount of people.

The things I learned about communication as a whole in my prospective career in the

User Experience field while completing this internship were scattered throughout every aspect.

I had to meet with those people and listen to what they had to say, as well as ask them

questions. I had to communicate with my internship supervisor consistently day by day and

week by week. I had to check in periodically with my internship director. All of these are the

obvious forms of communication that I encountered. However, I found that the less obvious
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forms of communication were more special, which was the communication with viewers and

users. I was changing certain areas to make the experience better for anyone who comes in

contact with them, regardless of demographics. Often times that meant I was helping simplify

the communication of information given to those people whether physically or electronically.

That is what I learned about most during my internship, the fact that communication is most

certainly not limited to just the words we speak directly to each other, but is also the

interaction with the public as a whole.

Something that I found truly impressive about my prospective career field in User

Experience is the impact it has on people. During this internship, some of the things I did were

redesign the weekly inserts for Salisbury Bible Fellowship, create a new website for Pine Bluff

Storage, and manage social media accounts. All of the things mentioned above had major

problems about which many people had shared frustrations. When I listened to what they

were saying and made the proper changes to resolve those problems, seeing their obvious

relief and happiness was very satisfying to me. Furthermore, these transformations can easily

bring more people in to these businesses by being more welcoming and inviting, which is one of

the most important goals for a business of any kind. Another thing that impressed me about

doing User Experience in practice is the technology advances. When I was learning about

Website Design in a class at Salisbury University, I was under the impression that websites were

made only from HTML coding and WordPress. Doing some research in the best way to develop

the Pine Bluff Storage website really proved to me that those methods were only the

foundation blocks for a whole new realm of possibilities. The Wix Editor (“Free Website

Builder,” n.d.) impressed me by the way it can create a website without the common
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complications of HTML coding. Additionally, it is revolutionary in its customization ability, with

capability to design and publish a fully functioning website like it is a digital artboard, along

with many services available to utilize. Wix also provides a service for users to simply enter

their information for their business, the type of business they are, and their logo, and an entire

website template is created for them. This majorly increases the amount of people that are

able to make successful businesses for themselves, and improves the professionalism as well as

maintains the functionality of their websites.

When I started my internship, Salisbury Bible Fellowship had just recently moved to a

completely new styled place in their building. The old style was decorated with mostly warm

colors, which the weekly paper bulletins reflected, in contrast to their mostly cool toned logo.

The new space matches the logo in color palette, and in style it looks much more modern and

spacious, all starkly contrasting the paper bulletins. They appeared very outdated in terms of

style choices, such as the pictures used and the fonts. They also looked quite cluttered, and

therefore amateur. These problems were critical because they are one of the first things that a

new person visiting will see that represents the church. They set up an impression in their mind

before they really experience anything like the people or environment. If the bulletin looks like

an afterthought, it may cause visitors to think about what else is similar and that could be

unwelcoming. That was why I decided to work on changing the bulletin styling first. I took the

new space as inspiration, attempting to let the bulletin be a direct reflection of the

environment. I made everything on the sheet much simpler and changed the fonts to modern

alternatives, and replaced the pictures with more versatile images to cater to many age groups.

After I changed the layout, it was easy to keep the format from week to week afterwards. The
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next step up from weekly bulletins was the monthly bulletin. The monthly bulletin has a lot

more information, so it was going to need many more changes. It took a while, but I

rearranged and edited enough to where it effectively matched the weekly bulletins. This

included completely new formatting and changes to the fonts and colors, similar to the weekly

bulletins. Since I attend Salisbury Bible Fellowship, it was very satisfying to see the physical

changes week to week. I was able to hear the congregation’s true reaction to the changes, hear

what they liked and did not like about them, and use it as feedback to perfect them in the most

satisfactory way.

The next thing I prioritized above all else was creating a whole new website for Pine

Bluff Storage. I would say that by far this was the task that took the most time during my

internship period. The old website was quite difficult to navigate, and extremely outdated in

the way that it was laid out. When people I knew who were customers of Pine Bluff Storage

found out I was doing an internship there, this was the thing that was talked about most. The

looks of the website were bad, but the functionality was even worse. People said the website

was so unusable that they had to call the business number to talk to someone who worked

there in order to understand how to get to certain places on the site. Broken links, incorrect

labels, and nonexistent mobile version were only some of the problems. The website of a

business in today’s day and age is perhaps the most important part of the business because

many people want to check out what features a business offers online first before making the

trek out to visit in person. If the website is professional and clean looking, chances are the

business is as well, all while increasing trust among viewers. I worked on the website in tandem

with my internship supervisor, as far as what pages to have and what information to include.
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Using the Wix Website Editor( “Free Website Builder,” n.d.), I started from scratch and

developed an entirely new layout and color palette based on the Pine Bluff Storage logo. It was

essential to me that the website cater to all age groups, with focus on young adults because it is

strategically so close to colleges. In fact, they have many students who rent units during the

summer and winter breaks. This included keeping everything simple, using high quality imagery,

utilizing white space, and having a functioning mobile version. Throughout making the website,

I showed the people who told me their problems with the site, and their relief and feedback

was wonderful and satisfying to hear.

Throughout my internship period, I would periodically check on the social media

account pages of both Salisbury Bible Fellowship and Pine Bluff Storage, to make sure they

were updated and fresh as well. They did not need many things to be changed, so I just

replaced some old pictures and updated profile pictures, as well as the “About” information. I

altered some of the settings, such as an instant response when someone sends a chat to a

page. Additionally, I sent a lot of invites to like the pages to people, in an effort to reach more

people. Working in tandem with my internship supervisor, we decided that we want to start

live streaming the Sunday Service at Salisbury Bible Fellowship onto its Facebook page.

However, as a result of problems with the HVAC, the service was moved to the old space.

Therefore, we agreed that it would be wiser to start streaming when the service was moved

back to the new updated space. The social media aspect of the internship, while not as major

as others, was still quite important in transforming the way that the public views both

businesses.
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My career interest has been made more secure as a result of this internship. User

Experience is a field that focuses on people and what makes them happy using a product or a

service, and that is exactly what I noticed that I did in this internship. Each of the endeavors

that I ventured on had one thing in common, which is that they all had problems that affected

people’s interaction with that business in a negative way. It was my responsibility to fix those

problems to make them have a better experience. I always knew what User Experience was,

but had never gotten the opportunity to do it, and it was the greatest feeling. I absolutely

loved the feeling of making people happy. Another thing about User Experience is that you are

able to see the before and after of something. Ever since I can remember I have been

fascinated with transformations, of any kind. For example, taking an old antique and cleaning it

to make it look brand new. I find it amazing that anything can be transformed to something

better. To be able to do that combined with making people happy just further assures me that

this is something I should be looking into for a career. It would be something that I would look

forward to doing every day, and I am so grateful for this opportunity to gain experience related

to that field.

If five years ago, someone were to tell me that I would design an entire website for a

business, I would be completely shocked. I never would have guessed I would be able to

achieve that kind of accomplishment. Obviously I had a lot of help from using Wix (“Free

Website Builder,” n.d.), but I credit most to my education at Salisbury University. Specifically, I

credit my Web Design class, because it was that course that not only introduced me to User

Experience, but taught me how to design an attractive website that functioned comfortably and

was satisfactory in a business forward type of way. The Pine Bluff Storage website
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transformation has by far been the most dramatic shift that resulted from my internship. All

the details that had to do with the renovation of the website from the new color scheme, to the

different layout of information, to the updated pictures, all are completely satisfactory to my

liking. I could not be more proud with the result of the desktop version. However, I am

definitely open to any changes that the business owner would like to make, and would happily

offer to help them. Since I am a member of the congregation at Salisbury Bible Fellowship, I see

the transformation of the paper bulletins every Sunday, and I am so proud of everything about

those, too.

There were some things that I could have done better throughout my internship, that

were disappointing to myself and a little bit to my supervisor. The website was supposed to be

able to go live by the end of my internship period, however, I worked on it all the way up to the

end and was unable to transfer the domain successfully on my own. My supervisor did it

himself, but I had wanted to leave my internship with it all done without needing any extra

work. Similarly, I had worked a lot on making sure it was mobile friendly, but since I worked on

it until the very last minute of my internship period, when I left apparently there were some

problems with the mobile version when previewed. My supervisor has since fixed it, but if I had

worked more diligently throughout my time there, maybe I would have caught that myself. The

internship contract that I signed upon submitting my internship request had percentages of

what I would be working on throughout the internship period. However, I did not complete the

brochure portion of the percentages that were mentioned. Part of this is because the sheer

magnitude of making a whole new website took a lot of the time, but it is also because I did not

separate time for it. I would say of all the things I could have done better, this would be my
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biggest disappointment, because it was something that the two businesses wanted that I was

not able to complete. Additionally, my supervisor and I really wanted to be able to make the

Facebook live stream of the service a reality, but were unable to. While that was not a result of

mine, rather of circumstances, it still disappointed my supervisor and I. There was a time that I

accidentally overslept and was a half hour late to the internship, and a couple times I was a few

minutes late, and those are things that also disappointed myself and others as well. Though

there were quite a few things that I was not proud of, there were many things for which I was

incredibly proud of that I completed through this internship. I believe it is important to notice

failures, but it is more important to learn from them.

The reason that an internship counts as a credit towards your degree is because it is just

like a class in that it is truly a learning experience. I thought I knew a lot about communication,

User Experience, and website design from learning about it in college as well as on my own, but

nothing touches when you fly solo and put that knowledge into real world practice. It makes

you learn in a much different way than from a textbook, and gives you a whole new perspective

to look from. I believe that everyone should take an internship, because it helps people who

have a different type of learning style. By completing this internship with Salisbury Bible

Fellowship and Pine Bluff Storage, I was able to learn what it was like to work in a User

Experience field. Also, I learned from the mistakes that I made throughout my time as an

intern. Though most importantly, I was made aware of what I am capable of, and to not

underestimate what I can achieve if I put my mind to it. Moving forward, I am so thankful to

have gained this experience in an amazing field, but overall I am most grateful for being able to

be a part in the positive changes of these businesses.

References

Free Website Builder: Create a Free Website. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.wix.com/