SMART PHONE APP PERSONAS

SMART PHONE APP STRUCTURE/PAGES SKETCHES

Sketches of app structure, from splash logo page, to 2 options of navigation: 1. You Are Here locator (first press of button into app), shows you where you are and what art is around you within a local parameter; 2. Search by name (e.g., specific piece of art, or artist) or by category. The latter is available through icons located at the top-lefthand-side of the screen, and stay with you in that location (even if tilted, they remain, but tilt to conform to portrait justification), unless you have chosen your location -of which you will only see a full map and name of app at top/side.

Week 8 Reading

In this wrap up chapter, Krug asks us to think about our own experience: the sites you enjoy using. Is it because they're “flashy,” or because they have content you want or need?

'Never say never' is a quaint thing to hear with regards to site design. But the explanation is better. It's reassuring to be told that almost any design idea—no matter how appallingly bad—can be made usable in the right circumstances, with enough effort. The flipside (also good to be reminded) is that almost any good design idea can be made unusable, by messing up the details of the implementation.

Rule of thumb: stay professional and attractive, but avoid flashy and what you may think is engaging –you’ll just end up either annoying or confusing your client from their task at hand. The only engagement you want to provide in a site is enough tools to assist in the goal and gain just enough information as needed so as not to distract or intimidate.

I will miss these mantras. The ending was sort of anti-climactic, but I guess it should read more like an instruction manual than a narrative. And it was odd to read such a short book over such a long period of time, but I appreciated the slow digestion.

All the theories and rules of application in the world is only matched with the tools to implement them. 

How do you get into Juilliard? Practice, practice, practice…

Application Definition Statement: "iSpyArt"

"iSpyArt"

Specs:
iPhone App/Interface
Portrait orientation, 320 x 420 ppi

The primary task of this waypoint application is to operate as a locator and report hub for art in public spaces. The interface will primarily rely in a dynamic GPS mapped interface, that tells you how to locate public art, and interactively shows you what the art looks like.

A visual as well as logistical example of this is the City of Seattle's Police Department crime mapper, which shows you, via various icons, what crimes have happened on a dynamic grid of the greater Seattle area. Unlike the City website, our app will allow for the icons to be clicked on, and openned, to view the destination and subject.

What our app will do, is act simultaneously as a compass to look up and locate various kinds of art in a public sphere (tagged categories will include "Mural", "Public Installation", "Sculpture", "Commissioned Graffiti", "Interactive Art", "Industrial Art", etc.), as well as a database to enter unmapped art via the public eye/hand. It is thus a growing crowdsource-dependent map. Like a Facebook group, people will be able to (within strict parameters and rules regarding appropriateness, legality, and quality), post newly created, found, or undocumented art in said categories, adding to the city grid database.

Once a piece is successfully entered into the system, it will be represented on the grid interface, and show you on a map and/or in steps how to locate it. (e.g., Mapquest, Google Maps)

Page elements:

• Search Bar
• "Search By Category"
• Art Showcase (Images of Art/Location)
• "Get Directions"
• Dynamic Map/Icons
• Step-by-step Directions
• "Post Art"
• Login
• Post Interface

Job 1: Research and define the nature of your application concept.

            Device:

Screen Specifications, portrait and landscape, primary device orientation

What is the primary task?

What page elements need to exist to perform this task?

Main:

What elements need to be highlighted in order for the user to be able to perform the main task easily and efficiently?

What are secondary tasks that can be performed with the app>

E-Commerce Site Moodboard

Matt & Quinn E-Commerce Site Project Moodboard

Considering this project is more about logistics and functionality, I can't foresee doing a major aesthetical-overhaul. We would like to see more product, more gritty artist material visuals, more of the look of the store and how they display their items inside. And more use of their logo, which we all (locals) recognize, but they only place at the bottom of their site now. Time will delegate how much of this is possible in the hi-res version. For now, our major hurdle is consolidating their overabundant categories and streamlining their messy grid.

E-Commerce Site Rough Sketch #1

THIS SITE NEEDS AN ENEMA

Homepage as of yesterday. I needed no critique, I knew I needed to go in a different direction....

Week 3 Reading

I don't know what happened....my post must've fallen into a black hole...

Websites can be like Alice’s rabbit hole: disorientating, no sense of time or space, quirky, and hard to find ones way out (successfully making the right choices to achieve ones goal/s.) Krug tells of the best methods of assisting one thru such a surreal, time/space-less journey: homepage as the anchor, north pole, Alamo…; “breadcrumbs” that indicate the steps one’s taken to get where they currently are, und thus how to get back if desired; markers that are obvious and not too subtle. And these are tools for the designer, first and foremost.

Chapter 6 starts in on real nuts & bolts, visual and physical strategies for reinforcing his rules on best usability/navigation. This chapter is like a suggestive users manual for web authors, and I'm appreciating his increasing use of graphics now that we have something we need to visualize. I plan to use the tabs suggestion, and have some good ideas for implementing that on my site that lacked an over-all theme, feel, and character. It means more work for me, but hopefully a better finished product, and thus less work for my users.

Also, his trunk test is definitely a good exercise in learning to read your own web compass. Getting a bearing on a site can sometimes be a blind alley with no doors. Good practice to not only find which sites work and which are difficult to navigate, but to use in designing your own sites, in the test run: Make a good map –even the designer can get lost in his own labyrinth. 

3 Sites related to reading:

http://thrashermagazine.com

Too much, too busy, (too obnoxious), too long to load, too many individual Flash files, lack of good structure, easy to get lost, and no easy way to get back aside from the usual: click on the header logo. Dammit -I grew up on Trasher! Get your act together boys.

http://www.dlxsf.com

In contrast: great distribution/parent site for their many companies (all listed at the top, if you want to go to an individual company site....nice!) Delux has a great streamlined site, prominent markers, clean and easy navigation. Nuff said.

http://www.misterart.com

This one is a little content heavy on the secondary nav, but ultimately, it's pretty clean. Big obvious search box, shopping cart on the right, most important ads/sales made huge and front and center, and they make use of tabs. Good job guys. (We'll probably be using this as a model for Daniel Smith overhaul...)

Week 4: E-Commerce Project Statement

Client:
Daniel Smith  
Local Art Retailer
www.danielsmith.com

Problem:
The site in its current state suffers from a number of issues, mostly related to navigation. The primary navigation, placed per usual at the top, is reiterated on the left side bar in a convoluted, exploded list that lacks clear organization or priority/hierarchy. Navigation by supplier brand sits just beneath the main navigation with the same visual look and size, and would benefit from the establishment of a visual hierarchy, or axing it completely and placing important links elsewhere, linked from the homepage. Persistent navigation disappears from the following item pages, making it easy to get lost in all of their multitudes of products and their according pages.

In addition to navigational issues, the layout of the site is similarly cumbersome, with several size inconsistencies in rows and columns that don’t flow well. Items compete on their own page with suggested products (placed directly adjacent) and item customization choices, which are listed at length and could use the aid of drop down menus.

Solution:
We will begin by building a new site map, to tighten categories and make sure the site follows a logical path. We will then focus on navigation, making sure it is as intuitive as possible by establishing a clear visual hierarchy and making use of established design conventions. We will finally focus on content layout, to make sure the site is visually appealing as well as functional.

Week 2 Reading

Okay, re-reading the syllabus…I’m going to give a response rather than a summary, as I did last week (in which 200 words was just inconceivable) –make it comprehensive and personal rather than regurgitative....

As guiding principles go (Chapters 1-5), I think Krug is spot-on. Our reading for this week summed up:

·      CHP. 3: Everything rests at a glance.

·      CHP. 4: “3 mindless, unambiguous clicks = 1 click that requires thought.”

·      CHP. 5: Clearcut the words like you should the content.

While I read I am reminded: as a designer, my two major weaknesses are a) prioritization and b) brevity. The former causes the latter. Choosing what to keep and what to throw away, when it is your own handmade material, is like choosing which child to drown in the bathtub. (you choose the scenario) But ultimately, it has to be done. Often, if it’s similar content, like multiple files of 1 kind of my work, I line up the ones that display the best work, most versatile, and wipe the rest. Then, as Krug says (“Get rid of half what’s left.”), I cut it down some more. This I do mostly arbitrarily, as again, I’m terrible at making these choices. They’re my babies.

But when it comes to prioritization in hierarchy, I feel intuitive enough to do this well. Once the stacking is in place, it’s a matter of managing visual cues, (e.g., “The more importantsomething is, the more prominent it is…”) maintaining a consistent and logical design, and editing while you go. As hard (yet swift in many cases) as it is, editing can be the most cathartic part of the process –when you realize and actualize simplicity in its most efficient form, you are left with elegance. And yet elegance –similar to how the trimmed characteristics of the shape of a jet can determine how maneuverable and thus powerful it can be– can make design more stunning, and functionally more effective. 

What I find most intriguing with this book so far, aside from its succinctness, is that it’s common sense that we perceive, but tend to forget to repeat to ourselves. It’s powerful information laid out in the most simple of terms, like a Daniel Pink or Malcom Gladwell book.

Week 1 Moodboard FINAL

Week 1 Sketch

Week 1: 3 Sites I Like

1. Don Pendleton has worked with Alien Workshop since its conception, and is its image. very grpahic, very stylistic, and very talented. Doesn't have his own site, so you have to go to the company:

http://www.alienworkshop.com/#

2. Local outfit, I check them out occasionally, they seem to do a lot:

http://www.wongdoody.com

3. One of my old (and contemporary) favorite artists, and Director of Design for another great skateboard company, Andy Jenkins:

http://www.bendpress.com/

Week 1 Reading

Chapter 1 touches on logistical theory (“Why?”) and explores the question, “what makes good usability –and is thus good for both the user (them) and the website creator/author (us)?" 

The goal, he says, is to minimize cognitive workload so that a user goal may be easily achieved. Workload can refer to any element on a page that requires thought: the worse being ambiguity, arbitrary words or images or placement, obscure wordage, etc.

Minimizing space (vs. risking over-minimalism) requires a balanced approach: a logic between the dictum that ‘the competition is one click away,’ (client leaves) and the fact that many-a-user will doubt their own intuition and persistently toil (client stays).

“If you can’t make a page self-evident, you at least need to make it self-explanatory.“ Ultimately, what this means is, eliminating question marks (e.g., 5 W’s attributed to potential site) should be the overarching practice. i.e., “Brevity is the soul of wit” but don’t outwit your viewer...or yourself.

This is theory.

Chapter 2 focuses on practice: actual use and design application. (“How?”)

Krug reminds us we have to keep in mind that people tend to scan or glance, rather than absorb. It’s quicker, easier, and taking in an entire site is unnecessary in terms of getting to the goal/s. People are also obstinate and habitual. Often we do things the hard way, because we don’t take the time to figure out how things work, or “get it.” This irony lends itself to a dangerous (for us and them) duality of sticking around on a non-intuitive site, and yet getting frustrated by having to do so.

Best to make sure, by designing simply and unassuming of the intuition or savvy of the client, they can easily “get it.” If this is achieved, they get what they were looking for and got what you had to offer. They’ll explore your site with more confidence and thus afford more time and attention, and chances are better they’ll return.

This is (good) practice.

Assignment 1 Cont. : Color Scheme Results

Here are the results, and this is a permalink to said results.

Assignment 1 Cont. : Color Palette

This will be the image I drop into Colorsuckr to get the color scheme for my moodboard and thus possibly new site. I'm curious about the results. (Next post) The typewriter I shot, the roving army I had found somewhere else, before they were armed. Probably a village fleeing Germans...

Note: I'm doing this process last...probably should've done it, uh, first.