Nifty Navigations

Another part of the assignments for this week was to choose three designs from Mobile Design Pattern Gallery and blog about why we like them. So, let's get started!

First off is Flikr's dashboard design. The search bar doesn't take up too mach space, so it doesn't take the attention away from the main content, the pictures, but it's still in a convenient place for users to access whenever they want. The same goes for the navigation away from the dashboard found out the bottom of the screen. I've never used this app since I don't have flickr, but I wonder if there's an option to change the size of the pictures on how they appear on the dashboard.

Next is the Duke University App's Springboard. At least, I'm assuming that's what this is. I think it's clever to mimic the way the iOS for the iPhone looks for an app FOR the iPhone so it's a way of navigating that the user is familiar with. That's basically what caught my eye for this navigation design choice.

And then third is Net-A-Porter's Springboard. I rather like this because it reminds me of how clothing websites look, such as Gilt and MYHABIT (need a membership to see it).
There's a little preview of what products are available before accessing the gallery of things behinds each of those buttons. It's clean and already sorted by category for users' ease of navigation.

Basic Blogging

In the subject of blogging, I suppose I've been doing so since 2004 in a more-journalistic style through an art/design gallery/community I was a part of back in middle school to high school. Then in high school I got into video blogging, vlogging, via YouTube and blogTV which led me to using the micro blogger Twitter. Unfortumately, I barely use those platforms as often as I used to now. Being restricted to 140 characters for Twitter, I wanted something more, so I moved to Tumblr around 2009 and haven't really drifted away from it since. I find it easy to navigate, but the recent update on the Dashboard's interface is rather frustrating since it's extremely different from what it has been for the past 4 years.

This week, one of our assignments was to pick a blog and write about an article from one of those blogs based on another article on effective blog posts. Randomly from the list, I chose lovelyui.com, which happens to be a Tumblr blog.

Lovely UI's front page as of May 4, 2013

 

Since I'm a frequent user of Tumblr, I know that it's heavily image based, and most of the time those images don't have a description to go with it unless it's sharing interesting facts about the picture, reactions to the image, or witty comebacks to previous comments. Lovely UI is no exception to this rule. I can't really choose an article since there aren't any with words that describe anything in depth on the blog besides the tags that help categorize the photos and help users find those pictures and less-than-a-sentence saying what it is and where it's from. The site itself is more like a gallery of mobile design interfaces that people can use for references. If you click on a post, it's basically the same thing that you see on the main blog, minus the other pictures.

 

http://www.lovelyui.com/post/47379687492/

So, I'd classify this "blog" more of an online gallery than an actual blog.

Balsamiq Building

Little note before I start with the actual assignment, the internet at home as been pretty unpredictable for the past week and a half and will drop at random times, which would require me to restart the router/modem for it to work... Both are in my parents' room which I don't have access to after 9 PM. So doing homework at night proved to be difficult. The electronic deities haven't been very nice to me recently...

ANYWAY... On to this Week 6's assignment!

STEP 1: Revisiting the Heuristic Evaluation Results

Martin didn't really list specifically labeled HE critiques in his evaluation blog about my app, but I understood what could be changed. I think seeing what Balsamiq had to offer helped me redesign a few things.

• Instead of reloading the screen with a warning for a wrong date error, I used a pop up alert
• I moved the Previous and Next Fact buttons closer to the fact, away from the main navigation buttons
• I was going to put a X out of X facts for each date between the Previous and Next buttons, but left it out in the balsamiq since I'm not going to add so many slides to change the number.
  (Although, in hindsight, I could have just put "#/#" as a place holder. Well, a bit too lazy to go back and edit, export, and upload again...) Nevermind, I redid it.
• I decided against putting a picture since it's supposed to be a simple blurb about the fact. Details/pictures can be found at the source if people really are that curious about it.

STEP 2: Start Designing

I rather enjoyed using Balsamiq. It was pretty easy to use (and my copy & paste worked for the text, but not the elements themselves). I had a bit of trouble finding where to export as a PDF, but eventually I found it.
The actual Share button on the Sharing option slide doesn't work as it's supposed to lead to the appropriate app.
(Don't scroll through the slides; they're very out of order since they were made once they popped into my head/in order to keep consistency).

Expert Evaluating

Sooo, I decided to meet up with Martin on the 22nd since he had time after his internship. We met up at HPU's Downtown Campus's Computer Lab in the Mac room since they have gigantic iMacs and there wouldn't me a lot of people at the time we met up.

Here's a lovely video of our antics as I evaluated the prototype for his "Joke Around" app:

As you can see there was a lot of laughs to be had, even unrelated to the app itself.

I pointed out a few things that could improve the app in the video, but let's elaborate:

• Design-wise for the first prototype, I wish the buttons were organized a bit better; perhaps all three stacked on top of one another and center-aligned. Two then one is awkward for me. (Aesthetic and minimalist design - Severity Rating: 1)
• With knowing nothing about the app, the home screen was a bit confusing with just the title of the app and three vague buttons -- Read, Create, and Saved (Recognition rather than recall - Severity Rating: 3)
• Back buttons. I don't know what to do next. (User control and freedom - Severity Rating: 4)
• Back buttons. I don't want to stay stuck on this screen. (User control and freedom - Severity Rating: 4)
• Back buttons. I made a mistake. (User control and freedom - Severity Rating: 4)
• Or at least a home button once you navigate away from the home screen (User control and freedom - Severity Rating: 4)
• For the second prototype, since it's all in one screen, it seemed a bit cramped; can that much information be comfortable on a tiny screen? (Aesthetic and minimalist design - Severity Rating: 3)
• In addition to that, you couldn't really tell where the three sections started or ended. (Aesthetic and minimalist design - Severity Rating: 3)
• (At least you didn't need a home/back button anymore)

I did like the concept of saving jokes so you could see them later. But perhaps there could be an option to share the joke electronically through social media instead of just by word of mouth? It's not necessary, but it'd be nice. (User control and freedom - Severity Rating: 1)

I really liked the option to filter the viewable jokes in the second prototype. That option was kind of missing in the first version. The user was more restricted to the single category chosen, disregarding the vague random button. What if I wanted both animal and food jokes, but not human jokes? Still, the option to view the joke by category was a nice touch to keep things organized. (Flexibility and efficiency of use - Severity Rating: 2)

The option to submit your own jokes is clever as well so users can help build the app and contribute to it. Is there a voting system to filter what jokes can be published? If so, can there be an option on the app to vote for them or a separate site to do so? I know sites like fmylife.com and mylifeisaverage.com ask readers to send their stories that they think qualify as FML or MLIA worthy before the best stories are published on the site or app. (Help and documentation - Severity Rating: 3)

In error prevention, especially with submitting/creating jokes, what if someone submitted a blank one? An error screen would be nice to prevent blank jokes from taking up memory space. (Error prevention - Severity Rating: 3)

I think this app has a lot of potential after some cleaning up.

Let's have the laughs continue as Martin evaluates my app:

Planning Prototypes

Sorry about this post being late (as explained here), buuuut, here it is!

STEP 1: Point of View

If there's anything I've learned from working at Walt Disney World, there should be a reason to celebrate today, whether it's actually your birthday, unbirthday (thank you Mad Hatter), anniversary, or you're spending time with family. But why not see what actually happened in history, backing up your facts on why we should celebrate today or any other day of the year?

Or you can just find out what happened today (or any other day) in history because you never know when you'll be on Jeopardy or some random buy tries to mug you on the street and the only way you can escape is answering what celebrity's birthday is today? (Highly unlikely, but plausible.) 

STEP 2: Storyboard

Scenario #1: Nothing to celebrate with cake.

(Whoops, forgot to make the word bubble for the second to the last panel. Got too excited and jumped the gun into drawing the party, hahaha.)

Scenario #2: Use of most likely useless information as a distraction.

STEP 3: Prototypes

I chose to prototype the fact app since I was pretty familiar with the layout.

(Whoa, what? I actually have index cards this time and not ripped paper?!)

So, I added more buttons to the fact screens than my previous prototype of this app. Um, ignore the button colors for the first version. I accidentally grabbed the wrong Sharpie when creating the second row and I just went with it. The final versions of the colors will most likely be different. I added more sharing platforms to the share page. Another big thing is that I made an error screen for when an invalid date would be entered, like February 30th.

The "big" difference between the two prototype versions is just the button organization. *throws confetti and steals Alan Rickman's cake for such an accomplishment*

STEP 4: Youtube

About 6 minutes of babble time.

RAGING LION

So, as you noticed, I haven't posted Week 4's assignment because my computer has decided to be a butt -- excuse my lack of better word.

I'm currently taking MULT 3910 Advance Motion Graphics, which means I need After Effects. It's a program I've never used before until this class and the professor has be recommending me to try the video tutorials.

Sooooo, I went home and tried to download the trial of Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Edition off of the Adobe site. After two hours of having to download the Adobe Installer, I tried install the programs I needed like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, and After Effects. 2% into the download, it gives me an error. TO GOOGLE I WENT!

I found out that CS6 doesn't support Snow Leopard OSX 10.4-whatever I had... And unfortunately I need it, at least closer to my fingertips at home instead of squatting at the Downtown Campus computer lab for hours to work on my projects...

I'm pretty sure I stated how much I loathe Mountain Lion in a previous Skype interact, but I basically put on my big girl pants and shelled out $20 for the update so I could get a free trial of these darn programs. (And I figured I can download that iPhone OS simulator from a previous assignment.)

SO. DOWNLOAD IT I DID -- This was on Thursday night.
And immediately hated it. Tried to change as many settings as I could back to what I was familiar with in Snow Leopard before trying to redownload anything.

After I could get as comfortable as I could with the deadline of my project quickly approaching, I attempted to download CS6 again. But, guess what? After 2% I get the same error.

Maaaan, was I ticked off. I didn't even want to use my computer anymore.

Immediately I wanted to go back to Snow Leopard. I googled how to downgrade, which involves backing up EVERYTHING, which I don't have the time for, not to mention I don't have all the discs for progams anymore INCLUDING Snow Leopard since my parents cleaned my room while I was in Florida.

It was time for school on Friday, where I spent about 4 hours in the lab trying to figure out After Effects by myself and get 10 second video done. I was mentally drained from being stressed out over all of that.

Soooo, I took the weekend to mentally repair myself. I didn't even touch my computer all that weekend and any facebook update was made via phone.

I'm still trying to get used to this dumb system and I'm still finding things that shouldn't have been omitted for Mountain Lion (like battery time, command+alt+control+8 for inverted colors - it helps with the battery, the different finger swipes for revealing things, keyboard shortcuts, etc. etc.). I think the only thing I like about it is the new way to use Spaces.

I'll get it done. It'll be my next blog post.

Curing the Queue: Part Two - Executing

Oh shoot! I didn't post this, did I? Busy, busy, busy...

Welp, here are the results:

Raf trying out the app.

Changed the app a bit since I forgot to bring the 2/4 one to school.
Ended up making one for 2/7. (Happy birthday to Charles Dickens and Monopoly!)

Melvin trying it out and... posing interestingly.

I ended up trying out my Fact app on three friends, two pictured above are Raf and Melvin, respectively (Melvin's a bit of a ham).

I didn't explain to them what the app was about and they found it pretty easy to navigate.

There was a few suggestions/questions brought up:

1.  Create a back button to see previous facts
2. Shortcut on fact screen to go to change to date, skipping the home screen altogether
3. Is there a limit on facts? 
4. How many facts are there?
5. Credit?
6. Label month and date on Change Date App
7. Add reddit and stumbleupon to share page

As a bonus, I showed Raf my Pizza app which he was generally interested in since he's an English major. I explained to him that I was thinking if this were to be developed as an app, how would it be possible to monitor what words can be accepted or not in the means of relating to the first word (first letter is easy by using if situations). After questioning that as well, he showed me a letter jumbling app that incorporated famous writers like Shakespeare, Homer, and Emily Dickens to be your "avatar" and fight other players or monsters. The bigger the word you develop, the stronger the attack. I thought that was a fun way to involve an interesting element to a simple word jumble game.

I also liked Allison's comments on the Part One blog about "with friends" which made me think of Words with friends. It could be played between two players, but that would mean waiting for the other person to respond like in Words with Friends or Draw Something. There could be an option to play the computer then to immediately pass the time.