Interactive Design

Project 5:

After this project, I think I’ve finally found that I really do love this realm of design. I feel like through out the semester, I just kind of had a bad taste in my mouth and found it hard to be fully enthusiastic with everything. Being a graduating senior and just wanting this class for pure experience and not being too concerned for my grade, I realized that I had to really dig deep and find my motivation. With this project something clicked. I LOVED IT! I enjoyed exploring the personality of the app and what all I could make it be. Finding it’s own style and letting that personality come to life was the best part of this project. I feel that I finally understood the balance between complexity and simplicity. I loved that this was something that was purely for entertainment. Designing something just for pure fun and to most likely waste time made this entire process more simple for me.

Especially with this project I found myself wanting to keep going and to have page after page after page to make. This project could have kept going for forever! I honestly enjoyed the group aspect of this and getting the feeling of the collaborative environment.

Every now and then there’s a project that makes you especially excited for your future as a designer, and this was for sure one of them.

Year:

Like I said above, for most of the semester I didn’t feel like this type of design was my strength, but after looking at all of this work and actually letting myself explore all the ideas a possibilities interactive design can hold, I feel that something clicked. Even though I was exactly seeking that “A”, I feel like I’m taking more away from this class than I have any other design class. So glad ya’ll are making this required! It’s very needed. I feel that this semester more than any other, I’ve come to see where design is going, and because of that I couldn’t be more thankful that I’ve had this experience.

Everytime I see a piece of interactive work, I view it differently. I finally see how much work goes into certain things. I appreciate more the balance between design and user experience. I think differently! Which I suppose is good :)

Areas of weakness:
One of the biggest struggles with this project was the conceptual aspect of this project. I didn’t really understand the direction or idea of it until last class. Perhaps in some ways this was more realistic as a client probably has no idea what they want so they strand along until nearly completion date but I dun’t know. In some ways this freedom with direction on this project helped in the end with time and completion. In other ways it made it more difficult with a starting point. So another weakness came from procrastinating. Waiting until the last few days with this project got me in some trouble with the other major projects going on and so  I feel as if my full focus and attention were lacking.
With waiting on this project, I still was able to finish it incredibly quickly in comparison so this could be taken as a sign of improvement. Perhaps the programs are just coming more naturally and I am just getting quicker. From the last app I created to this one, there was a huge time difference and a lot more ease. I didn’t have nearly as much trouble with sizing on this app. I had a lot of issues with the actual data on this project as well. Graphing has never been my expertise. So creating fake data and fake graphs for displaying information that is frankly disgusting (average being on iphone 5 hours a day?!) was a bit challenging. It made me feel like my brain is melting.
As far as this being the last project in this class, I feel totally comfortable with Photoshop and my ability to create an app and a full website. I have definitely been able to speed up my work on the program. I can spot more mistakes in size, colour, level, etc more quickly and efficiently. I still think there is much much much more to learn but I feel like I got a pretty good start. It would be great to take more interactive classes in the future.
When I signed up for this class it was honestly because I have been working on a website for a while now. Even though, we didn’t learn how to full on launch and load I think we learned something way cooler. Actually, I am way more pleased with what I have learned with everything else.

For this project, I don’t feel that I did as strongly as the first app design. During the process, there were several different ideas of how the app should function, and none of them sounded appealing or like something I would use at all in real life. I decided to take a “locked-down” approach that let the app just aggregate data and decide what to generate for the user, which was simpler from a UI standpoint.

On a technical level I was rushed for time, and did not get every detail in that I wanted to. Conceptually I think I left out a lot by cutting features, but got the basic gist of the app across. There wasn’t much navigation to be confused by, and the loose ends I left could (reasonably) be filled in by extrapolation. If I had more time I would have added more graphs and filled in the signup/login and sharing pages.

I also struggled a lot with wondering who would actually use an app like this for more than a few days. This carried over into the design, as I really didn’t feel confident about what I was doing. I didn’t take a lot of risks from our process, or include features that I thought weren’t technically feasible. There were a lot of concepts that I took out of the process that helped influence the final comps, such as Evan’s icons and simplicity.

In this class I really feel that I have gained knowledge from the second half of a whole in UX/ID philosophy. Coming from a novice development background I had a general idea of functionality on the web, but not the subtle nuances of design that we take for granted. I believe I improved the most in exerting control over Photoshop/Illustrator and handling over concepts like grid structure and type, which I had never bothered with before in development. I also have a much greater appreciation for color, and how that can affect the entire visceral feel of an app or website.

As a whole I really enjoyed this semester, and although I don’t feel very confident about my technical ability in designing I took a lot out that will be applied in current and future projects.

This project was one of my most successful for the semester. I had all the elements ready (for the iphone mockups), I felt more than capable in Photoshop, and I had my wireframes to guide me. It all played our really fantastically. Photoshop is still a pain, but I feel like I can work with it now, without fear of causing some catastrophic mistake, or spend hours designing in the wrong DPI. It’s become a lot more usable, and it’s great.

Technical Mistakes: My biggest flaw with Photoshop right now is that I’m disorganized. Much like my actual desk at home, my PSD files hold layers and layers of untold content, none of it organized or named. Any attempts I make at cleaning it up only lead to frustration and anguish, and I quickly give up and let the disorganization take over. And honestly, as nice as it looks to have named, color-coded, and alphabetically organized folders and sub-folders, it doesn’t really hamper my work. One day I will learn.

I had a different approach when it came to this App (InfographX). From the start, I was intrigued by the possibility for randomness, for the benefits that come from a complete lack of user input (or I guess unknown user input, since the graphs tracks everything the user does). Being able to pick and choose topics or turn specific graphs into posters is nice, and for some apps it would be a necessity, but for InfographX, I felt like the most rewarding experience was that of total randomness.

This was a really fun project, and I really enjoyed designing for it. This App and the previous one will (hopefully) both be really good and unique portfolio pieces for the future. Thanks Mike!

The last two projects in this class were my favorites. I enjoy the consistency in screen size and color that comes with mobile products – Apple ones at least. I also enjoy the conceptual structure of apps.

I like the increased level of control I have over the user in an app setting. They have to enter into the environment of the app through the same path. In a website, the user can drop into any page they have a link to. That is fun to deal with in its own way, but also a little annoying.

Throughout the process, I’ve gotten better at – and come to enjoy – wireframing. I find it is makes the design process smoother and I end up with a better final product.

I know all the concepts I need to know to work in Photoshop, but I need to practice different styles. Right now most of my designs are pretty flat because I don’t really get along with gradients. They always look a little clunky or non-existent. I need to keep working on that.

At the beginning of this project I was super excited to start designing it and didn’t really take into account the functionality of the app and how it was going to work. Since we did all that during class, it was very difficult to figure out what I wanted my version of the app to be like.

Technically I think I could have gone more in depth into the settings page and made more screens for that. I also think I could have designed more complex info graphics, but I do really like the simplicity of it currently. Conceptually, I think making it more simple vector shapes and lines allows it to be coded easier. There was a big debate on whether or not the app could actually even get made and I definitely think it could and should! I have definitely seen improvement in my ability to conceptualize and figure out functionality quicker since the beginning of this project and class. Also, I now think as both a designer and interactive designer when I work for web where I used to never think about functionality/interactivity. I think this has its ups and downs, but I am definitely thankful for having that skill set now. There is still a long way to go until I feel perfectly comfortable working with interactive, but its just a process!

I remember when I first decided to take Interactive Design I thought it was going to be my hardest and worst class. Looking back now, thats just kind of hilarious. I think I have learned the most out of this class than any of my other classes this semester. It has not only taught me a lot about interactive design, but coding, mobile, user-experience, wire framing, and just graphic design in general. Everyone should take this class because it will teach you something new, while also teaching you about what you think you already know. Great class and a great experience learning all this stuff! Thanks Mike.

I enjoyed the freedom that came with working on screen. I like print, but I’ve found myself really getting into this class and being excited about each project. This last one was very challenging to me. I struggle with infographics (all the more reason to work on it though), so I had to get over some reservations and fear of failure to complete the project. I always wish I had more time, but it doesn’t work that way, especially when one has at least two other art classes to address. I would have loved to go in and work on the details more. I love that part, turning something 2D into something with the illusion of depth. I ended up with an interesting overall feel to my designs. I’m not a fan of it, but I got to that point where you just have to push forward in order to make the due date. I wonder how this will be when it’s not class and I don’t have other art classes. I know I will have multiple projects to work on and clients to work with, but I wonder if there is a better way of balancing things that I’m not aware of. That’s something I definitely want to improve upon.

On the bright side, my photoshop skills have increased and improved significantly. I feel much more comfortable using the program, it amazes me. I was able to finish my work at a quicker pace. I was crunched for time to begin with, but months ago I would not have had as good of a design as I have for this project. This is definitely encouraging.

The class, I really really like it, for lack of better words. I looked forward to coming each class day, even on the days where we learned coding. I would like to keep learning more about it and hopefully gain a successful competency for it. This has been a challenging semester overall, especially with things that were out of my control like being sick and killing my computer on accident. It has set me back, but I’m really glad that I was in this class. Some good pieces came out of it and I have new skills I can build upon. I still love print, but I definitely have enough room in my heart for both.

The last project for interactive design is complete, the air is light, and yet the atmosphere is still tense. Welcome to finals week.

My project for the final was of course, an infographic mobile app. One thing that I really struggled with was not having to come up with what to do the information graphics over, but designing the actual infographics. Designing them was not an easy task because I had to figure out a way in which the interface would load a infographic onto a single “poster” so that it looked like an actual poster rather than a bunch of statistics on a page (that’s just no fun). I think overall, my designs for the infographics were successful because they all fit into the same dimensions so that whenever the infographic is created, it will use a template of the like.

I’ve noticed throughout the semester that my areas that used to be part of my weaknesses have slowly gotten better. This is especially noticeable in this assignment. I used to struggle heavily with negative space and overuse of motif; however, in this assignment, I think those two problems have been worked out. Thinking of the screen as real-estate really helped me in that aspect.

Even though mountains have been moved by how much I have improved over the semester, I still have things that need to be worked on (shocking, I know). While doing this project, I noticed that dealing with the overall cohesiveness is something that I need to work on. I struggled a lot with choosing a color palette and making the screens have the same feeling. I also had a hard time designing for a demographic for this app since the demographic is a lot larger. I didn’t want to make it too entirely playful; however, since this app does not have a function other than to make posters, I knew that in a way it needed to be.

I did not know what I was getting myself into whenever I signed up for the class (in fact, I honestly thought it would be something like digital illustration for the internet), but none the less, I really enjoyed interactive design. I want to take more interactive design classes, and look forward to doing so in the future.

This project was a lot different from the others in that we did most of the process in a group setting – which was nice in that it helped me think through some conceptual issues with the application (and project idea) before it came time to design the final product. I still feel more confident designing for a full sized screen rather than for the iPhone, but I do feel that I improved quite a bit in dealing with reduced screen size from the previous project. In the last project, my wireframes contained too many features to actually fit on the screen size of the iPhone, so this time, I made sure to design with those limitations in mind from the start.

On this project, I feel that I may have been “too traditional” in terms of what types of graphs I produced. Coming from the IT/business side of things, I tend to visualize graphs in a more traditional way, which leads to informative graphs that may not be quite as entertaining or surprising as the ideas that others had come up with. Earlier in the project, my graphs were all single-layered, so I did improve my graphs by adding some sort of additional information to compare two concepts/information sources. From previous assignments, though, I have become much more willing to experiment with a new idea, and at least conceptualize multiple ideas so that I can choose the best one, even if it isn’t what I initially expected.

In this semester as a whole, I feel like I have grown a lot in my abilities to design for the web. I find myself paying attention to things like negative spacing, type, visual language, etc. when I visit other professionally designed websites, which leaves me more equipped to continue learning to be a better web designer in the future. I also feel that I understand the process behind designing a website much better – hands on practice with designing user scenarios, doing interviews, building wireframes, etc. have given me extremely practical experience that I know I will use often in the future, both in freelance work and in whatever direction my career takes. While I still have a lot of room for improvement in web design and development, I feel like this course has equipped me with the information I need to continue learning and growing on my own after this class is over.