James Blasingame's Archive

This project was definitely the hardest one I had to create for this class yet. I worked on just the home page for about a week and was still tweaking and adding content with how much material was required to be displayed on the site. Once I built the logo, icons, and choose a color scheme the rest seemed to fall into place. But this time even with the wire frames, task lists, and user scenarios all laid out for me when I started designing, the concept was difficult to picture as an end result. Designing however, has become easier since the first project that we were required to work on, and I have a better sense as to where things should be laid out on the page based on my own browsing behavior.  This time around though I felt I had to sacrifice more of the design qualities to the page to try and work on the over all functionality. Had I had maybe a few more days to move the pieces around and really get into the design, I could have come up with a really nice design, but I was focused so much on the technical. During this process I fell behind by trying to establish a mood for the piece even after I already had a mood board picked out. I should have kept trying to push my  artistic side into coming up with more ideas of aesthetics versus the mechanic. The previous assignment I had a clear view of what I wanted the end project to look like after doing the mood board, and was able to easily design various buttons, icons, and pins for the web, but with this one and no clear direction where this was going in my head I let the program decide where the pieces should fall. On the inventory page, I had plenty of space to add the twitter section but not enough to go into full detail on the sliders, so I decided to cover it all up once you clicked on the menu. It was a poor choice and many of similar decisions were made simply because I could and not because it looked good.

This image is an assortment of some of the best logos I could find on the web for already existing Food Banks, or governmental pantry projects. As you may notice many of the logos use the exact same colors and images of either hands, wheat, or silverware.

Feeding America has a really neutral feel to the web design and is nicely laid out. Thought you guys might like to take a look for some inspiration.

http://feedingamerica.org/

Grant is 35 year old middle class male currently working as the manager at Abilene Food Bank. He signs into his email and sees a notification from Full Pantry Project informing him he has not updated their inventory count in over a month. A link in the email takes him directly to the home page where he signs in to the site. Once logged in, Grant is able to update the inventory under specific categories (dry foods, canned foods, etc). While he is updating he notices a shortage in breakfast items such as oatmeal and cereal. Once he is done updating the inventory, he goes to view the map and see if any other food banks are overstocked with breakfast items, and puts out a request on the blog for those items, and is automatically shared to their facebook and twitter feeds.

Shellie attends Abilene Christian University as a Sophomore and looking for a service event to help out on the weekends. She has worked at a food pantry in Dallas before, but is wanting to work more close to home. After some searching, she comes across the Full Pantry Projects site. From the home page she views a full list of Food Banks. She then notices that some of the places have upcoming events and starts to search for events taking place this weekend. Shellie finds an event close to her and looks at what job areas with which the pantry needs help.

Steve is a 54 year old male that has been out of the job for quite some time. A stranger handed him a flyer for Full Pantry Project with a website listed on it. He visits the Abilene public library and gets on the web to go to the home page. From there he see the various food banks and looks on the map for the one closest to him. After checking the hours of operation, he verifies the pantry is open and they have enough food in stock.

Love & Care Ministries 233 Fannin St

Angel Food Ministry Closest Host Site–South Pointe Church 3050 Buffalo Gap Road

Meals on Wheels 717 North 10th Street

Time and Date

Login to Facebook

Create the Event

Switch the clock to 24hr time

Enter in Location, Party Name, Start Time, End Time, and set the event to Public,  Friends Only, or  Private

Viewing the main Map with an option to filter events for public, friends, or private parties

Send invites to friends

Visits the link to create QR code and sends it to his email

Receives email/facebook verification that event was created

Goes into the host back end to tag more friends

User receives a message for a successful check-in from the website and is then prompted to view the web page and find other local events

Gary has a 20th birthday party coming up on the weekend. He is wanting to create an event so that only his closest of friends will know about it. In the past he has used facebook to create his events, but has been displeased with the RSVP results. Sometimes he will invite friends, and they will say that they are coming to his party, but they forget about the event or decide not to show up even after they RSVP. Gary remembers hearing about a website that lets you create events that will sync with facebook and your friends, but will create a location on a map. After some searching he stumbles on PartyQuest. When he arrives at party quest he is greeted by a map that has the current date and time, with any public events in his area. In the corner he sees the login that links to facebook and clicks on the icon. After signing into facebook, Gary is able to create a new event. He inputs the location, time, date, and selects the private party option. Then he is able to tag specific people he would like to invite to his event. Party Quest then gives him the option to print out a QR code, or email it. Gary decides to email it to himself so he will remember to print it out before his party.  Afterwards, the invite sends and event to the people he selected. An hour before his party begins, PQ shows his event on their map and begins a count down. He then goes into his email and prints out the QR code that he had saved and tapes it to his front door. Once the event begins, people start to show up, and he tells some of them about the QR code. Those that don’t have devices he tallies and places at his party.

Tara is a 18 year old English major with an iPod Touch, but she only uses the device for music in her car since she does not always have wi-fi access. On a Friday night she receives a text from a friend telling her to show up to the Auditorium on campus for an independent movie viewing. Since the event is on campus where there is wi-fi available, Tara decides to take her iPod with her to the viewing party. Once there, she sees a QR code, and curious about it, scans the code. The code then checks her in at the event, and tells her how many of her other friends there are at the same event. She then goes on to view the home page and sees the map of all her friends and their events around town. After browsing the map for sometime she quits out of the browser.

After interviewing ten people I found that there were actually a hand full of people who do not like to download apps or use apps. They had when they first received the phone and had the hype of everything the phone could do, but now they do not use more than three or four. A problem I ran into was having to accomodate for people who still do not have smart devices, or only being able to use the device on Wi-Fi connections. Trying to have everyone at an event check in would be unrealistic as there would be no motivation. Several people suggested using either a QR code or linking with another application Bump. Both of these would allow ease of access to the check in system and would not casue too much of a hassel. However, these methods would still miss the demographic without smart phones. A tally system offered for the creator of the event would allow them to mark their friends as present, but only a maximum of two or three every minute. Many people were mostly concerned about the anonymous factor of creating the events and how they would be shared, while others thought the whole process was more complictated than helpful. Of all the things noted, the list came down to a couple of decisions. This should no longer be an app. Even if it is a website, it could be accomodating for mobile devices and then people would also have access to view from a computer and would therefore include more people. The website would have to have a catchy name so that people would remember it and become more likely to use and therefore increase the amount of friends also visiting the site. Those that do have a mobile device would have the benefit of using QR codes or Bump to sync the event with friends and update the map in real time. And finally, since the incentive is all on the host, there could be some tally system offered to check in others and make it easier for them to find friends and invite them. The biggest issue would be to make the design simple, sleak, and as least confusing as possible.