Tuesday – 2/1/2011
Class Recap:
As usual, this Tuesday was TED Tuesday where we were graced with the presence of the class across the hall. They came to our room (which was nice because we were already comfy in our seats) to watch this weeks edition, “Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work.”
This was a particularly interesting video in my opinion because many of the work related interruption and management problems which are things that we as students have a lot of experience with. Although a lot of our classes are over two hours long, we don’t often have in class work time. And like the workers described in the video…. we are “banned” from checking Facebook or Twitter. Another thing I found fun was that my mother is one of those “manager/overlord” of the office types who schedules mandatory meetings for 20 people or more every 30 seconds. I sent this to her Tuesday night, she still hasn’t responded. Oops!
Critique of our final Wireframes & Personas-
For class we were to come prepared with our final mounted wireframes and personas for our iPad app. They were to be 11″ x 17″ sheets with three images on them mounted flush to the edge on foam core board. Craft was extremely important, although there is an opportunity to do some final touch-ups to your work before its due. Here is an example of my final personas and wireframes mounted.
- Final Wireframe
Final Personas
These wireframes and personas do NOT need to be printed in color. However the next assignment that I will talk about later will need to be eventually shown with color. Everyone received credit for these if they had them in class to show!
Journals-
The journals Tuesday were fun to see because we got an unexpected comparison of jewelry web sites. It was good to see the pros and cons of each site. Unfortunately I did not have a journal to show the class Tuesday but we got into a nice but brief discussion of the Adobe Creative Suite and why and what we do or do not like about it. It was good to finally be able to talk about the things that we didn’t get to cover (for some of us younger folk) in Foundation year at CVA. Only 96 more to go!
Lecture:
Setting the mood for a Mood Board-
Going from the Defining your problem stage into the Designing your solution stage, we will be creating a mood board. A mood board is exactly how it sounds. It will set the tone and the appearance of what you want your design to look like. You can add inspirational color palettes, illustrations, patterns, textures and typography to your board. This will bring all your personas to life.
How to get started:
- Get reacquainted with your personas. Put yourself in their shoes. What do you think they would be attracted to visually?
- Explore images, styles, patterns, textures, illustrations, color palettes, type styles etc.
Here are some questions you might consider asking yourself while creating your mood board…
1. Is this imagery appealing for potential users?
2. Do the colors look and feel right together?
3. Does the brand, logo, or name speak to them?
Some good resources to use:
Color Palette Site: Kuler
Assignment:
Come to class prepared with your preliminary mood board. It doesn’t have to be printed out, but you should have a file to put up on the server that is clearly organized and includes all of the assignment requirements. As mentioned earlier, these include: color palette, pattern and or texture examples, images, typography examples, and any other inspirations you come across. The file should be formatted to 11″ x 17″ horizontally, as if you were planning to print it out.
Example Mood Boards-
Conclusion:
In wrapping up this post, I hope that everything described was clear. I have never blogged before so fingers crossed! Good luck and its almost THE WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!
-Maggie
Principles of Usability 