digitalmedia

Week 6: Studio activities

Task: Create 1 UI screen design with 3 alternative layouts

Down below are my three layouts for my interactive website that addresses the cause and effect of marine plastic pollution toward the world and tied to the future event of climate change.

AI Layout 1
AI layout 2
AI layout 3

User Personas

Responds to week 5 lecture pod

Definition

User personas is the representative of your users that is vital to developing a interactive product. They will help you to describe the audiences who use your product and enable you to efficiently identify and communicate their needs.

The most important aspect of user personas

Before creating your own personas for your interactive products, it is crucial that you fully understand your target audience. The essential of creating your own personas is to identify:

  • Goals
  • Behaviour patterns (How they reacts using the product)
  • Attitude, skills and enivronment
  • What platform they prefer to use and interact it on? (Desktop, tablet or mobile)

To further expand the understanding and insight of your interactive products, it is useful to question the users based on:

  • Personalities/attitudes (what type of a person is or how they reacts)
  • Likes
  • Dislikes
  • Interest/hobbies

Further questioning your users will give you more insight into how they approach your products so you can design a better experience to give them what they need.

My example of user persona for my project

My 1st user persona created from Zumio
2nd user persona created from Zumio

Week 4 Lecture pod

Instructional Design

Definition

It is a design process that involves learning and knowledge to develop and design an interactive product. Instructional design is created in many elements- words/language, graphic images and photography. 

Example of visual introduction

A simple, visual images that are word/language free for furniture or other designer products so the process runs smoothly. 

Assembly instructions: assisting the non-visual IKEA customers. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://extemporeapp.com/assembly-instructions-assisting-the-non-visual-ikea-customers/



The National Asthma Council Australia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nationalasthma.org.au/living-with-asthma/resources/patients-carers/charts/first-aid-for-asthma-chart

Health departments (clinics and hospitals)

In many health departments, it is critical that designers/researchers produce graphic images and brief word introduction with a long process of researching. Colour, layout, graphics and typography is still very important for readability and special needs such as impaired people who have poor eyesight. For example, the colour red at the top indicates the critical steps of reliving a person who shows the first sign of asthma. Therefore for green at the bottom, it shows the detailed introduction of how to use the inhaler without needing emergency help.

Week 5: Studio Activities

Dave Smith persona & moodboard

Firstly before getting started on the user persona for my project, completing this mini exercise has helped me to give me the quick insight of what is user persona and how/why is it important in the design process of developing an interactive product for the target audience.

Dave Smith User persona


Dave Smith mood board based on his interest/lifestyle

Design Patterns

Responds to Week 3 lecture pod

Definition

Design patterns are the differentiation of form for design solutions in interactive/interaction design. It was mainly introduced by an architect Christopher Alexander, who argued that pattern language allows the arrangement of the physical environment in relation to effectively solve the problem presented (C.Alexander et al, A Pattern Language, p.xv). His perspective of solving design solutions are defined with questioning: 

  • Does it occur and felt in the way we have described it and the solution? 
  • Does the arrangement we propose in fact resolve the problem? 
  • Depend on what type of problems to be solved? 

Examples

The examples down below are the design patterns which I thought is very important and essential to interactive/interaction design.

The hamburger menu:


Apptimize. (2018, May 4). The Ultimate Guide to the Hamburger Menu and Its Alternatives. Retrieved from https://uxplanet.org/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-hamburger-menu-and-its-alternatives-e2da8dc7f1db
  • It is a interactive button that organises your categories such as menus, pages or options in desktop, tablet and mobile version
  • It usually is displayed on the top left for functionality, save space for eye comforting and is user friendly

Account registration

How to register for an account at beckman.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.beckman.com/support/my-account/register
  • It is a form to fill out your detail of your name, sign up for newsletter, gain benefit (sales, voucher, point) etc
  • Help you guide through the process quicker and smoothly

Hero images

7 CSS tips to add some WOW to your hero image. (2016, October 11). Retrieved from https://www.csshero.org/7-css-tips-add-wow-hero-image/
  • A effective and fastest way to grab the user’s attention
  • It can be in animated videos to showcase the storytelling further and the emphasis on the theme and the environment
  • It is important that under consideration whether if it is suitable for the particular topic and the target audience
  • It can have a strong impact on the users in term of effect and parallel to caught their attention

To conclude, it is suggested and clear that these design patterns follow the design trend yearly to support people’s abilities to interact with technologies and interactive products.

Process & Content in Interaction Design

Response to Week 2 lecture pod

Design processes in interaction or interactive designs are essential for testing and producing digital products to support today’s societies. It is very important for designers and researchers to develop their products involved in many processes to achieve the desired goals for the user to experience it successfully.

This is a new and modern way of the design process. It will give the designers a more streamlined approach of producing products for their clients to have the best user experience (Zurb, n.d). 

Upon preparing for the prototype, it is very important to take this process considering: what people are trying to do, how they may try to do it, what gets in the way or helps and where they might be doing it. For example, to confirm the transaction or see if you had enough money to spent, you log into your bank account in your phone or any ATM machine with protected security such as password, fingerprint ID or face ID to open it. It is apparently useful for those who are out shopping or in certain situations where they needed to spend. 

ZURB — Product Design, Interaction Design & Design Strategy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://zurb.com/word/design-process
Putting Personas to Work in UX Design: What They Are and Why They’re Important. (2018, February 21). Retrieved from https://theblog.adobe.com/putting-personas-to-work-in-ux-design-what-they-are-and-why-theyre-important/

Another essential part of this process is to states your target audience and ask someone to be your persona so they take part in the user experience with your prototype. They can help you with decision-making by understanding the client’s point of view on this prototype to allow your design process to run smoothly and finalising it.