Interface Design: February 2014

Monday, February 24, 2014

Unit 6 Reading Response

Designing for iOS 7 and Long Shadow Love: iOS 7 icons redesign

In designing for 1OS 7 the focus is in the new updated features of the iPhone update. The changes give the phone more life then the old version. The weather screen feels like if you are looking outside through a window with writing on the glass to see what its like outside. The images take up the whole screen to maximize the space on the IPhone screen. The gray screen that comes up looks like you are seeing the city lights through a foggy window. The screen dose not block out the background image it just covers up the text and images but allows the color of the different apps come through the filter. The fonts on the app are easy to read with the ability to highlighted important things yellow and make them stand out. The folders are a nice way to organize all of the apps so they are easily excusable to the user.

In Long Shadow Love: iOS icons redesign the author talks about his love affair with a new icon idea. The icons have a 3-D life like feel to them. The shadows on the icons give them more depth and feel like the user is looking down on a building structure with the sun setting or rising on them. I hope that apple considers this as the next update. I would love to see this on my phone.

Tools you’ll love to use

https://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/

A Guide to iOS app Development for WebDesigners

http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/09/10/ios-sdk-for-designers/

How to Make an iphoneApp Form Scratch (For Non-Technical People)

https://www.udemy.com/blog/how-to-build-an-iphone-app-from-scratch-for-non-technical-people/

Nine Tools for Builiding Your Own Mobile App

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223177

Unit 6 Reading Response

Smartphone project brainstorm

Art Institute app

This app is for The Art institutes. With this app you would be able to do everything from your phone without having to use a computer.

https://mycampus.artinstitutes.edu/portal/server.pt

Hidden gems app

This app would just focus on all the hidden gems in the city. This would included all the best places to eat, drink, and sightseeing. This would be like yelp but just only looks at local places.

http://www.seattlemet.com/insider-guides/hidden-seattle/articles/private-places-january-2014

http://www.seattlemet.com/best-of-the-city/articles/hidden-seattle-january-2014

Parking meter app

To pay your parking meter from your phone. So the user would be able to pay the meter without leaving there home or stop in the middle of what they are doing to walk to the car and pay the meter.

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/seattle-launches-pay-cellphone-parking/nYwfc/

Buying video lecture app

This app would focus on students. The user would be able to sell there videos lecher from a class that they were in. So if somebody missed that class they would be able to buy the class lecher from that student.

http://freevideolectures.com/Course/2565/Finance/10

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/

Sign language app

The last app idea is to have a sign language app. This app would help the user understand and communicate with somebody that uses sign language if they don’t know how to sign.

http://lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/concepts.htm

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

ISSUU Project 1

3 book website for Project 2

http://www.claire-cameron.com/books/the-bear/

The Bear

A powerful suspense story narrated by a young girl who must fend for herself and her little brother after a brutal bear attack. The web page color scheme consists of orange, cream, & light green with an forest background. Using a simple layout for viewers age from 24 and up.

http://davidsedarisbooks.com/owls.html

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls

From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new book of essays taking his readers on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler’s experiences. The web page color scheme consists of dark grey & grey with an one color background. Using a simple layout for viewers age from 30 and up.

http://www.davidschickler.com/the-dark-path/

The Dark Path

Since childhood, David Schickler has been torn between his intense desire to become a Catholic priest and his equally fervent desire for the company of women. Growing up in a family of staunch Catholics in upstate New York, Schickler senses God along what he calls “the dark path”—a shadowy trail that winds through the woods behind his childhood home. On this path he begins his ongoing, frustratingly one-sided talks with God. The web page color scheme consists of white, orange yellow & beige with an one color background. Using a simple layout for viewers age from 35 and up.

Project 2 Wireframe

Project 2 Project Statment

Concept Statement

Overview

The website will match the feel and style of The Goldfinch. Based on the cover and the content inside the book will be represent that in the website. The site and book will feel that if they were one in the same.

Create a list of all users that may visit your site (not from the WWW but those you’d invite).

The people that will be invited to the site will the readers that fallow that author’s work, the publisher, editors and fellow authors. .

What will each of those users want to see in order to enjoy their visit to your site?

The readers will want to see what this book is about before they buy it. What the author’s thoughts are on the book. See what other readers think and feel about the book. As well what the author might be planning next.

The publisher and the editor will like to see how that book is doing out in the market and see what the reader feedback is.

The fellow authors will like to see how the competition is doing against their book.

Name your intended audience (the person(s) you need to persuade.)

The intended audience is the reader. They are the one that will make will make or break this book. The audience is the one that will be buying the book in stores and will be giving the reviews that really matter.

Describe what you need to inform and persuade them of:

Promote my:

We are promoting The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

Goals of the site are:

To make it easy for the reader to find information on the book and the ability to buy it right there off the site.

What is the story you are telling?

We are telling a brief story about The Goldfinch and some background on the book and the author as well.

Concept Statement:

The user of the site will be the reader; the reader is the main target for the book. Off this site they will make up their mind on if they want to buy the book or not based on what information we place on it and what other reader’s feedback is. The persuasion will be that The Goldfinch will be a best seller and one of the best books of the year, so people should check this book out. The navigation of the site will be simple with only about 4 to 5 links to it. The links will be the about page, the review page, an author page and last the order page. The about page will be about the book and a brief summery about it. Like the content in the back of the book. The review page will have reviews from fellow readers. The author page will be information about his thoughts on the book and if he is planning anything like book reading and signings. Then the order page which is just to order the book. The assets will be the value that the reader puts on it, not the critics. The only thing that matters is that the reader will like it.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Unit 5 Reading Response

Chapter 9 “Usability testing on 10 cents a day”

In Chapter 9 the main focus is about user testing. There are many phases in the testing process but making sure that it is done, is that it’s the most important thing to be done. The first thing of all is to make sure not to let the user testing get away from you. The testing should be done at least once a month and not when major mile stones are about to be hit. If the testing process gets too far down the deadline then that’s just asking for disaster in the project. Now that the testing process is about to begin, make sure to find user that you believe will be using the site. These are your target audiences and will be the best options for the testing process and get you the best results. Once the user start the testing process starts the team watch the user and observe them. Have somebody guild the user/tester through the testing process and make notes of what the user says and encounters in the testing. Once the testing is over and the tester have been compensated for their time and effort, get together as a team and talk about what the users/tester have encountered in the testing. After all is done, make all necessary changes to the web site that the multiples tester encountered in the testing process. As a group see what changes will work without losing the feel and what you’re going for in the site. Then re tests the changes that have been made to the site in a months’ time down the road.

Relate material links

http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/website-usability-tools/

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/testing-plan.shtml

http://alistapart.com/article/usability-testing-demystified

Unit 5 Reading Response

Chapter 8 “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends”

Chapter 8 goes over working together at a team and what the team can agree on. When working as a group or a team, there will plenty of things that get in the way of finishing the project with no trouble what so ever. There will be fights alone the way about what people in the group will want to put on in the site. The thing that everybody in the group will have to ask themselves is that “will this work for the site” and not “will the use like this”. Yes, the team is designing for the user but the user likes so many things that it will be hard to please everybody they will some in contact with the site. So the team has to design a site that will work with the feel of the web site is about. So the team has to design the site to give a feel of what the site is going to be like and what will work with it, NOT for the user and what the team thinks they like. There is really no room for thinking of what someone things they might like, they need to know this will work with this. The site does need to be user friendly but it also needs to look like it was design to work and not look like it was just put together with a bunch of random things. So design for what works not for what you think someone else thinks works.

Unit 4 Reading Response

Chapter 7 “The Big Bang Theory of Web Design”

Chapter 7 goes over the home page of a web site, site hierarchy and taglines. The home page is the first thing that the user will see when they visit the site. The homepage should have all the information that the homepage will have behind it. The home page should have a proper hierarchy with the name of the web site clear and easy to find. The top left corner is what the book recommends for the site. The information on the site should also have all up to date information on it. The tagline was the last thing that the chapter covered. The tagline is the headline on the top of the page. The tagline is like a motto or the quote of the website, like McDonalds “I’m loving it” slogan. The tagline should be easy to read and about 8 words max on the header. Keeping it simple will make it easy to remember for the user and hopefully keep the user coming back to visit your website. The homepage page is the first thing that the user will see and they well decided on if they will use your website or not in the first few second of seeing the homepage. So make the homepage nice and eye catching to the user to keep them coming back.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Unit 3 Reading Response

Unit 3 Reading Response

Chapter 6. Street signs and Breadcrumbs: Designing navigation

Chapters 6 talked about the importance of begin able to easily find ones way around a web site and the different ways to help the user out. One of the first ways to help the user is by having the links legible and easy to understand. If one clicks on a food menu, you would expect to see a food menu not a contact page. The links need to have the proper information that relates to what is being informed by the link. Another way is having a good color system on the links. Once you click on a link, the color should change to show that one has already clicked on that link. If the color is the same then the user will more then likely forget what section they are on. Having a proper hierarchy will also help to guild the user. Once they click on the link and it will open up to other selection under then link like a pyramid. With other links opening up under that link so the user can return to the home page if they need to without re-typing the URL address or if they can’t see the home button. Any of the above named styles will help to guile the user. A larger font size is good to have as well. The easier it is to read the better they know where they are.

Material related to reading