Alan Hilligoss's Archive

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.

1. Pulse
2. LifeLine
3. MobiStat
4. Stat-o-Sphere
5. EveryGraph

• View infographics for various category of phone usage or daily activities – use the search feature to find an infographic that looks interesting.
• Export one of your saved infographics and then share it using a social network such as Facebook or Twitter.
• Set up which aspects of phone usage monitoring you would like in the options menu (i.e. text messages, email, app usage, location, etc)
• Start a new custom infographic for something that the phone could not monitor (such as “times drinking soda per week”) and manually enter data to generate the infographic.
• View public infographics that use aggregated data to display nationwide/global trends. Choose to either opt-in or opt-out of sending anonymous data for this purpose.

This project has been interesting for me because I feel like some strengths of mine were brought out while at the same time I had many weaknesses challenged. Throughout the planning phase (doing the interviews, coming up with the task list, making the wireframes, and coming up with project ideas) I felt very at home and was really enjoying myself. While I did need to expand my ideas a bit and tweak my task list to fit the goals of the class, up through the wireframes I still felt very confident about the outcome of the project.

When working on the visual fragments, I have simply had the same problems that I have had throughout the class so far – trying to remember photoshop techniques, paying attention to subtle hierarchical details in the type, and avoiding awkward negative space. I do feel like, however, that I have improved since the previous projects, as I was able to jump into the design of the fragments more quickly, and was able to push myself to come up with varied ideas.

When it came to designing the final comps, however, I began to struggle a lot more. One mistake that I made on the wireframes is that I assumed the iPhone screen could fit more text/buttons on it than it actually could. When making the final comps, I was forced to pick various text blocks and features to leave out of the final design. While I still was able to produce a useful application, I ended up having to cut out some features that I would have preferred to leave in the application.

I also struggled with running behind in this project. Early on in the project I got sick, and while I am mostly better now, I did not get caught up on all my work quickly enough. While this was fine in that I was eventually able to get all my work done, I missed out on several class critique sessions, which I know have been extremely valuable so far in helping my designs turn out with better color choice, better feature integration, and better management of sizing and use of negative space. While I was still able to create a project that I was satisfied with, I will work very hard to make sure I am ready for class critiques on the next project, because that help is extremely valuable for me.

With the theme park app, you should be able to:

1. Search roller coasters by park
2. View line info & stats for specific roller coasters
3. View line info and menus for various eating places in the park
4. Order and use a “FastPass” line reservation system
5. View a detailed park map with GPS overlay
6. Look at nearby attractions using an augmented reality overlay

Robert Huntsman
Age: 35
Occupation: Utility Sales and Repair
Hobbies: golfing, going to theme parks, home renovations, playing drumset

Scenario: Robert decided to meet up with a few friends from college that he hadn’t seen in several years. The four of them used to love going to theme parks together and riding the most intense roller coasters. They arrive at the roller coaster park to find that it is super crowded because most of the local schools are currently on spring break. Robert notices a sign in the park for an app that allows you to check line lengths and read information on rides – so he gets out his iPhone and downloads the app. He and his friends build a list of rides that they want to ride after looking at the descriptions and photos of all the rides (including stats such as top speed, number of loops, etc). They go to each ride based on which ride currently has the shortest wait time, which allows them to ride all of the rides that looked cool while even having time to ride a couple of the coasters twice. Robert and all of his friends agreed that their day at the park was awesome, especially thanks to the help they got from the theme park app in riding all of the coolest rides at the park.

Lynda Uvalde
Age: 41
Occupation: Head of City Council
Hobbies: spending time with her kids, reading, traveling

Scenario: Lynda decided to take her kids to a nearby theme park as a reward for finishing up the school year with good grades. When she gets to the park she decides to try their free app. She looks at all of the roller coaster descriptions and makes sure to avoid taking her kids to any rides that they do not meet the height requirements for. The kids also tend to get antsy in long lines, so she uses the app to make sure they don’t head towards any rides that currently have a wait time longer than 30 minutes. Her kids were also pretty picky in terms of what food they would eat, so she went to the food section of the app to find a good food place with a short line – which was extremely helpful in preventing any temper tantrums or meltdowns from her children. Overall, they had a great day at the park thanks to the information provided on the theme park info app.