About: New Media Institute and Emerging Media
The New Media Institute (the NMI) is an academic department within the Grady College of Journalism at The University of Georgia. The two main programs that the NMI houses are the New Media Certificate and the Emerging Media Master's Program.
Emerging Media (EM) is the integration between design and technology. It's a field that encompasses interactive digital media, data analytics, social strategy, product ideation, project management, user research, digital storytelling, and emerging technologies. The Emerging Media master's degree is a program housed under the New Media Institute (NMI) in the Grady College of Journalism at The University of Georgia.
Through my coursework I’ve completed for the Emerging Media Master's Program, I have learned the foundational skills for web design, including HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Bootstrap, and WordPress. Within the NMI, there are several professors and resources available, but arguably the most helpful are my peers. The most important key I've grasped from this experience, is that feedback is essential!
My EM Journey
After falling into the position of a corporate sellout, as much of my business undergrad peers also fell into, I was not expereincing the creative breadth I desired. Through much research and personal connections, I found myself gravitating towards this program. Diving deeper into web development and digital product design, I found a calling for UX/UI design.
As the world is increasingly becoming more digital, the demand for UX/UI excellence is growing. Learning the techincal skills needed through this program is essential for my post-grad career success.
I am gaining expertise in Adobe Creative Cloud applications, Figma, product development, research, digital storytelling, coding languages, and more. I have also improved my soft skills including project management, brand development, collaboration, presenting, and problem-solving. Please explore my projects and coursework as I document my progress throughout the program until my graduation in May 2023.
Ideation, Beta, and Capstone Narrative
My capstone project began in Summer 2022 in the ideation stage. I worked with my parter, Zoë Phalen, researching and developing our ideas. We created three proposals during our ideation phase. We landed on creating a mobile app for a local gym. After some initial user research, we concluded that this project did not fit our goal to create a lasting, impactful project. We took some hard pivots, revisiting old ideas and ideating new ones. We found great potential with our idea to create an art marketplace website for Athens artists, which came to be known as "Athens Era".
Our Project Brief guided our direction for branding and goals. As we progressed, we updated the document to align with our vision. During the Alpha stage on development, we jumped into creating the website on WordPress, using several plug-ins to assist in its functionality. Also, we built a design system that would later be implemented into our site, including logos, a color palette, typography, and other components. In the Beta stage, we added in more content and functions, including an artists page, community page, policy statements, and more. Defining the two distinct user flows that exist on the website was most helpful is development. With the final Beta product, we presented our current website and research plan at the NMI's Mini-Merge Event in December of 2022. We are proud of our work and are excited for our next steps with user testing.
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