I'm on my horrible week nine slump and am out of ideas. The more I think about it, the more I hate the actual bathroom stall concept of the app. I really like the idea of having a "what happened last night" journal, but I want to make it something more awesome (and frankly less disgusting) than a bathroom stall. Ugh, it's so frustrating when things seem awesome at one point and then 12 hours later it seems dumb. I'm waiting for my partner to come to class so I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to class this up and appeal to a more broad audience that is maybe a little classier than writing on bathroom stall walls, but like I said, week nine my mind is just fuzz. Grrr. Can I just be the class critique lady instead of doing this project? Thanks for reading!
Okay! I may have just thought of something. A cocktail napkin app. I feel like more people will relate to writing things on a cocktail napkin rather than a bathroom stall wall. Also, I feel like it wont be so secret between friends and it will kind of bring back the old fashioned giving someone your phone number on a napkin. I like this better. I hope my partner does as well. I should start designing, but you know, one step at a time. I can't come up with all my ideas in a few minutes.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
App Design Concept Statement
Our app is called Stall Wall. It's in the realm of social media and is mostly used for fun. It is basically a way of keeping a journal of sorts to log your evenings out so you can remember things that often go forgotten. It is going to have four different features: check-in, text yourself, post to a friends stall and take a photo. These days, Facebook is getting to be huge and everyone is friends with everyone. Parents are also starting to join as well as current and/or potential employers are checking profiles these days so it's really important to keep your profile appropriate.
This app is designed to be kept between close friends and used to keep an account of fun nights or crazy events. This doesn't necessarily mean it is focused towards people who get really drunk all the time and can't remember the happenings the next day, but it can be used for any type of day or night. The check-in feature will allow you to check in at your location based on GPS and will account for the time you checked in and the time you left. If the app is on, it will automatically do this for you. The text yourself feature will allow you to send texts to yourself as reminders in case you feel you might forget something important and you want to remind yourself. You can send texts immediately, for example if someone says something funny and you want to remember the next day or you can set it up so it will send you a text later. The post to a friend's stall feature will allow you to write on a friend's stall to laugh or joke or talk about anything. When you type it out, it will show up as handwriting like on a bathroom stall wall in a bar. Finally, the photo feature will allow you to take a photo and will save it to your evening log, such as the time of the photo, where it was taken, and you can add a caption or title if you want as well.
The main target audience for this app is men and women ages 18 to 29. These are middle to upperclass income people who enjoy spending nights out on the town, going on vacations together, and generally have a tight knit group of friends that share these things together. While this may have similar features to Facebook, this app is more focused towards groups of friends instead of a widespread audience and it takes the main ingredients that makes Facebook interesting and leaves out all the boring parts. Facebook has gotten too big, so this is a great app to use if you want to keep your shenanigans between close friends and want to make a fun account of your events.
This app is designed to be kept between close friends and used to keep an account of fun nights or crazy events. This doesn't necessarily mean it is focused towards people who get really drunk all the time and can't remember the happenings the next day, but it can be used for any type of day or night. The check-in feature will allow you to check in at your location based on GPS and will account for the time you checked in and the time you left. If the app is on, it will automatically do this for you. The text yourself feature will allow you to send texts to yourself as reminders in case you feel you might forget something important and you want to remind yourself. You can send texts immediately, for example if someone says something funny and you want to remember the next day or you can set it up so it will send you a text later. The post to a friend's stall feature will allow you to write on a friend's stall to laugh or joke or talk about anything. When you type it out, it will show up as handwriting like on a bathroom stall wall in a bar. Finally, the photo feature will allow you to take a photo and will save it to your evening log, such as the time of the photo, where it was taken, and you can add a caption or title if you want as well.
The main target audience for this app is men and women ages 18 to 29. These are middle to upperclass income people who enjoy spending nights out on the town, going on vacations together, and generally have a tight knit group of friends that share these things together. While this may have similar features to Facebook, this app is more focused towards groups of friends instead of a widespread audience and it takes the main ingredients that makes Facebook interesting and leaves out all the boring parts. Facebook has gotten too big, so this is a great app to use if you want to keep your shenanigans between close friends and want to make a fun account of your events.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Megasuits Final Design
Avery Mulberg Final Design
Ta da!! Here is the final design presentation for Megasuits.com done by myself and Angela Mulberg. It's pretty awesome.
Ta da!! Here is the final design presentation for Megasuits.com done by myself and Angela Mulberg. It's pretty awesome.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Week 7 Reading
Wahoo! The last chapter.
Chapter 12 is about making good decisions. They talk a lot about guidelines for asking for information on a website. The author gives three guidelines: only make the user provide what you need to complete the transaction, don't ask for a lot of optional information and who the user the value they'll receive in exhange for the information. The author also discussed "sizzle" and basically said to keep it to a minimum because it is counterproductive. Most people on the web don't want to be engaged, they're just there to get something done and sizzle just gets in their way.
Even with all this advice, you should never say never. Certainly any good design can work in some circumstance, but don't use them unless a) you know what you're doing, b) you have a good reason and c) you'll test it to make sure you did it right.
OMG, the same thing by the same guy:
http://roachpost.com/2010/03/06/steve-krug-adding-sizzle-to-your-web-site/
Beacon Tech wants you to add sizzle:
http://blog.beacontechnologies.com/top-10-ways-beacon-can-add-sizzle-to-your-website/
How to design the perfect form:
http://webdesigntuts.com/web-design/how-to-design-the-perfect-form/
Chapter 12 is about making good decisions. They talk a lot about guidelines for asking for information on a website. The author gives three guidelines: only make the user provide what you need to complete the transaction, don't ask for a lot of optional information and who the user the value they'll receive in exhange for the information. The author also discussed "sizzle" and basically said to keep it to a minimum because it is counterproductive. Most people on the web don't want to be engaged, they're just there to get something done and sizzle just gets in their way.
Even with all this advice, you should never say never. Certainly any good design can work in some circumstance, but don't use them unless a) you know what you're doing, b) you have a good reason and c) you'll test it to make sure you did it right.
OMG, the same thing by the same guy:
http://roachpost.com/2010/03/06/steve-krug-adding-sizzle-to-your-web-site/
Beacon Tech wants you to add sizzle:
http://blog.beacontechnologies.com/top-10-ways-beacon-can-add-sizzle-to-your-website/
How to design the perfect form:
http://webdesigntuts.com/web-design/how-to-design-the-perfect-form/
Megasuits Redesign Progress
Megasuit Redesign Presentation
Here is our progress for the Megasuits website redesign. Angela took care of the concept statement and the site lo-fis, I took care of the mood board/logo and the checkout lo-fis.
Here is our progress for the Megasuits website redesign. Angela took care of the concept statement and the site lo-fis, I took care of the mood board/logo and the checkout lo-fis.
Week 6 Reading
Chapter 10 talks about the common courtesy of usability. The author refers to the reservoir of good will. If users are treated badly at a website, they'll probably leave and not only not want to use your site in the future, but they'll probably think less of your organization. The reservoir is idiosyncratic, meaning some people are patient, some aren't, some are trusting, some aren't. You can't always count on a large reserve. It is also situational depending on a users time frame. You can refill the reservoir by doing things that improve usability, but sometimes one single mistake can empty it and you're done for.
Things that diminish goodwill include: hiding information that we want, asking us for information they don't need, lying, taking too much time away from us, or if your site looks ameteur. Things that increase goodwill include: making things you know we want to see obvious, telling us what we want to know, know what questions we are likely to have and answer them, be comforting, make it easy to recover from errors, and be apologetic.
Chapter eleven talks about accessibility. Designers and developers are responsible for doing something about this since they are the ones who build the sites. Designers and developers fear more work and a compromised design. Accessibility can seem like one more thing to fit in and it will force them to design sites that are less appealing. If something is confusing on your site, it's probably going to confuse those who have accessibility issues. The way to fix this is to test often and continually smooth out parts that confuse everyone. The way to learn how to make anything is to watch people use it. It's also a good idea to add appropriate text to every image, make forms work with screen readers, create a "skip to main content" link at the beginning of each page, and make all content accesible by keyboard.
Intro to usability:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html
Intro to web accessibility:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php
Usability is good management:
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2003/nt_2003_04_07_usability.htm
Things that diminish goodwill include: hiding information that we want, asking us for information they don't need, lying, taking too much time away from us, or if your site looks ameteur. Things that increase goodwill include: making things you know we want to see obvious, telling us what we want to know, know what questions we are likely to have and answer them, be comforting, make it easy to recover from errors, and be apologetic.
Chapter eleven talks about accessibility. Designers and developers are responsible for doing something about this since they are the ones who build the sites. Designers and developers fear more work and a compromised design. Accessibility can seem like one more thing to fit in and it will force them to design sites that are less appealing. If something is confusing on your site, it's probably going to confuse those who have accessibility issues. The way to fix this is to test often and continually smooth out parts that confuse everyone. The way to learn how to make anything is to watch people use it. It's also a good idea to add appropriate text to every image, make forms work with screen readers, create a "skip to main content" link at the beginning of each page, and make all content accesible by keyboard.
Intro to usability:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html
Intro to web accessibility:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php
Usability is good management:
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2003/nt_2003_04_07_usability.htm
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