James Utley's Archive

Name: Olivia

Age: 19

Location: Denton, TX

Occupation: Student

Olivia is a student at UNT and she has such a busy schedule but one thing she enjoys doing is running. She runs about four times a week to stay fit. She normally goes on the universities track but she is getting tired of seeing the same thing over and over so she decided to start exploring new places to run around town. The problem is she is unfamiliar with the town and she doesnt really leave campus much because she is so busy. She is worried she might go running into the wrong neighborhood or run into some rediculous traffic. One of her friends told her about the application “Urban Runner” which allows you to map our different routes for running around town. Not only does it do that but it also provides rating systems for existing routes that others have posted showing the level of terrain, amount of traffic and overall safety. She feels much more confident and decides to try it. Once she gets on she realized that through  her contacts in her phone, many people she knows are using it as well and she connects to them. Eventually she starts running with friends who have shared their favorite routes with her. No more boring old track for her!

Name: Doug Funny

Age: 35

Location: Seattle, Washington

Occupation: Insurance Saleman

Doug is an insurance representative for a large insurance company based in Seattle. He is in avid runner and often run in some local competitions for fun when he is free. For the most part he is always on the go. He travels from city to city for his job but that doesnt stop him from going running. One thing he really needed was to learn where the locals would run. Everytime he would go out running he would run into issues, hed get lost or he would hit a dead end. He was browsing through the app store on his Iphone and he found a running app called “Urban Runner” so he thought he would give it a try. To his amazement it allowed him to map out his routes from city to city and see popular routes that had bin posted about the area based on his current location. Not only did the gps navigation of the app ease the fear of getting lost he was also able to find popular and safe routes in every city he visited. In his eyes this was awesome he could feed his two passions while on the go, adventure and running. Hurray!

My proposal is to design an application named “Urban Runner”.  Essentially the idea is that this is an application geared to those that run. The main purpose of the application is to pinpoint a start to finish route based on your current location or even any GPS located starting location. But from where ever you are or wherever you intend to be the application would map out a route of your chosen distance and terrain. Individual users can create accounts that also act as a social network with friends.

The demographic for this application can be very diverse but primarily geared toward those who are avid runners and enjoy exploring new places to run. This particular application will have a friendly social aspect to it.  It will serve anyone from the range of  those who enjoy running as a fun fit pastime to those who are more serious runners that want to test their limits on all types of terrain. This will primarily be used on a mobile device but would ideally be formatted to other screens to update profiles.

The interviews served to be very helpful in determining key points to include in this app. Many people if not most people view safety as a big determining factor in where they run. This application will allow those who typically shy away from unfamiliar routes to try something new because safety will be taken into account. There will be levels of safety for any route inputted and saved based on many determining factors such as traffic, terrain and elevation, and access to emergency assistance. A rating system will be set in place so the user knows what they are getting into when they begin a route. One positive experience people often enjoy is running with friends and how motivating and uplifting that can be. The application will have to have certain social aspects in place to facilitate and encourage this. There will be a news feed in the profile and users can post group runs so that several people can run a route together. Friends can share routes with other friends and through GPS navigation can allow friends to see their location while running a route.  Another thing I found in my interviews is that people enjoy the idea of planning a route to go and get coffee or do another activity, the application will utilize Google maps navigation system in order to search things such as coffee places or restaurants so that they can be planned in a running route.

1. Are you a runner, how often do you go running?

2. What are some of the most memorable times of running?

3. What is the primary reason you go running?

4. Can you describe any extreme positive or negative experiences you have running?

5. Where do you usually go running, why?

6. How often do you explore new running routes, do you like to mix it up or keep the same routes?

7. How do you decide on the route you will go running?

8. Do you use any technology to aid your running experience, such as a heart monitor or pedometer?

9. Do you use any applications on your phone for running at the moment? Do you visit any websites about running often?

10. How do you feel about an app that would map out a route for you based on a chosen location or your current location, that would provide you a route in a loop for any chosen distance? What ideas does that concept bring to your mind?

I really enjoyed this project. Blogs are one of the most commonly used formats on the web and i use them constantly, the decision to create a typography blog was an obvious one to me. Its something that I am most familiar with viewing but this project has definetly changed my perspective on their functionality and how delicate the hierarchy and layout of a blog can be. Overall I think my idea was much stronger with this project and the process work helped enormously in formulating that idea. For this project specifically I decided to focus more on my preliminary drawings, which I am increasingly learning more and more that the process is vital to producing a good quality website. On this project I still struggled with finessing the fine details that really made the hierarchy work. Although i feel my design solution was functional and pleasing to look at, I think next time I will approach the initial concept and try to find as many diverse and dynamic solutions as possible. I believe my websites have been lacking a sense of originality and i hope to change that in the future. As far as techinical difficulties it is still takes me quite some time to do work on photoshop and im hoping i can add some more three dimensionality to my work which i feel it is lacking. Overall i really enjoyed this assignment and i find interactive design to be quite a challenge, but also something i would like to continue to improve on. I find that my work tends to use a strick adherance to the grid, while sometime this can be very positive, but i really want to push back the grid. Use it without it dominating the design which is definitely something that can increase the quality of the design.

1. An application that allows the user to pick lengths of running routes and the app will map out a five mile or so route that goes in a loop back to your original location. The user can save their routes and save it with their friends.

2. There could be an app for people with children. The user profiles would allow them to identify age groups of their children and the application would give suggestions for fun activities around the town to partake in. It could also provide information for community and after school programs and resources for parents.

3. A how-to application that provides the user with image based how-to’s for on the spot information.

4. Job line, a job app that provides up to date information about jobs and internships available in your field. Could draw from AIGA and websites similar to that.

5. A video app that combines selected videos and selected audio files and juxtaposes them into some random music video.

With this project I found myself become even more comfortable with photoshop, I don’t believe I have ever used photoshop this much ever. I have still been struggling with some technical difficulties, especially when it comes to using quick commands, and dealing with how the grouping and layer system works in photoshop, which is a little bit different than illustrator. For the most part I have improved and find that with the use of groupings, it has become much easier to stay organize and to find elements i need to edit much quicker. On the concept side I feel that it is often difficult to really pinpoint a cohesive look and feel for a specific style of restaurant. I chose to go two different directions, an older more down to earth japanese restaurant, and a more upscale clean and modern restaurant. I chose the prior because i found it aligned with my own personal style much more, I found it difficult to maintain a clean and modern look, although completing the menu fragments later did help alot. I think doing the menu fragments was a very good learning experience for me because it helped me explore more typographic options. I found myself explore stuff that I know i might use in the future on other designs. I feel like throughout that part of the process and on to the final piece I have improved significantly on the use of heirarchy. Im beginning to learn to differentiate type using different values, which is much different than in print, more than size or weight value is becoming increasingly important in my interactive design work. One thing i really want to improve is creating more dynamic and interesting buttons, the subtle nuances of a button or a intended looking typeface, all those little details are difficult to iron out well. I also hope to get even more comfortable with photoshop so that I can move much faster and accomplish much more in my work. I would also like to incorporate a more strict adherence to the grid. I also want to learn how to better incorporate hand drawn elements into an interactive piece while keeping the entire piece cohesive.