Something Clever

Tuesday 4/5/11

Liina is back from surgery for a short week of classes. We got a good round of advice from Nick Zdon last Thursday, the results of which were seen in class the following Tuesday. Nick gave us some great advice about creating mood boards that were more true to the final website and refining our site maps so that they reflect the actual pages in our sites.

Nick Zdon

I was going to post a picture of an ovarian cyst, but as is turns out they’re pretty gross looking.

Ted Tuesday: Jonathan Harris

Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web. With deep compassion for the human condition, his projects troll the Internet to find out what we’re all feeling and looking for. (Ted.com)

Jonathan has been a part of the creation of several interactive websites including wefeelfine.com, Universe.com and Timecapsule.com. Most of Jonathan’s work involves information mapping. He takes a lot of his information from internet sources like personal blogs and twitter accounts.

We moved on from Ted Tuesday into critiques of our progress and then some work time. This is my progress so far on my mood board, personas and wireframes.

Jewelry maker Personas

Jumpring Mood Board

Wire Frames pg1,2 Version1

Wire Frames 2,3 Version 1

Wire Frames 4,5 Version 1

So far, I need to make a few tweeks to the mood board and do some major over hauling on the wire frames. During the work time Claire and I met and she gave me some great content to put in the site which also helped me figure out how to organize the information. Here are my notes for the brain sesh:

Notes for refinement

My notes are almost illegible, however I can pull some useful information from them.

In case I forgot to mention, I am partnered up with Claire. I am the designer to her website: Jumpring and she is the designer to my site: Cork Board. The other match ups are as follows:

Christina is designing a wine site for Jackie who is designing Christina’s endangered animal site.

Maggie has Adams scuba site and Adam is designing Maggie’s dressage site.

Jessie wanted a graffiti website which Claudia is designing and Claudia wanted a Feng Shui site.

Maria loves puppets and Kyle is realizing her dream in the form of a puppet making site. Kyle loves to stick things in holes and Maria is creating his body plug website.

For next class we need to have preliminary designs for two pages of our sites. There will be a quiz on Thursday on chapter 13 in the UX book.

At the moment I am almost finished with a bag of Whopper Eggs and my mouth is raw and I might puke. Happy Easter!

3/8/2011- Halfway There (almost)

Another TED Tuesday

Dan Phillips creates houses out of almost anything he can find.

These houses are created out of found objects and recycled materials.  Dan uses everything from hen’s eggs to Budweiser beer cans, to hand made two person tubs (good for recreation as well as washing).  It was refreshing to watch a TED video in which the speaker came off as little more than a good-old boy done good.  The TEDs are always informative, and sometimes funny, but usually they seem to take themselves all little too seriously.  In my opinion, a little well-done humor can make your point much better than facts and testimonials about how great the work your doing is.  All the TED videos have been good, but this went beyond to someplace that was easy to connect to, and to realize that if that can do it- we all should be able to.  His personality made me want to ENJOY  doing it as well, which is important.

Work, Work, Work

We had some time in class to work on our current project.  I think it was the first time that I had ever seen an entire class there five minutes after the time class was supposed to end- it kind freaked me out a little bit.  Are we all that dedicated, or simply that worried about getting it done on time?

Working on a collaborative project has many upsides, and some challenges as well.  I’m used to working alone and being in charge of every detail of the concepting and creation.  It’s nice to have other people to put in ideas, add their own creative spin, and to share the work load.  The downside is that even with a group as amazing as ours it’s tough to depend on someone else, because you’re never quite sure if some freak bolt of accidental lightening is going strike down with the Wrath of God on one of your members right before the project is due.  Overall though, the necessary experience of collaboration is one that we need to get used to (should we ever want to become employed), and in my case a great one that will end up with a much better project than I could have done on my own.

Our team’s KFC touch screen drive-thru is coming along quite nicely.

We started out with some pretty string research including interviews with a manager at the local DQ.

DQ Manager Stephanie

She informed us that their accounts for 85% of their business, and that the worst problem that they have is their speaker.  Sometimes they get complaints that you can’t understand it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also interviewed a loyal drive-thru customer.

Drive-thru customer Chris (McLovin) Tripp

Chris uses the drive-thru at least once a day because he is salesman who does in-house appointments, so he travels a lot.  Plus he is lazy and wouldn’t cook anyway.  His major problem with the drive-thru is not being able to understand foreign accents through the speaker.  He also does not like to wait in line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found some other drive through problems as well.

Crowded Drive-Thrus

Unusually Slow Vehicles

 

So we came up with some ways to deal with the problems.

KFC Touch Screen

KFC Frame Board1

KFC Frame Board2

Main Menu Screen

Chicken Style Choices

Pieces n' Sides

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still Working Stuff Out

Pretty much every group still had some issues to iron out in their projects.  The thing that amazed my was how far everyone had come in just a week!  Not only did every group have good work to show, but the creative ideas and concepts for solving the widely differentiated problems were truly inspirational.

With only a few hours left til the final project is due, everyone hang in there, don’t sweat the small stuff just yet, and remember break is only 8 hours and 42 minutes away!!

Also remember that while I do my own share of the last minute work- I’ve had “The Final Countdown” running through my head for about 2 days.

Thursday March 3rd 2011 (Making Bacon)

Hey everyone,another blog post is here for you to read and enjoy my thoughtful words and well in case you missed class i guess?

For Starters.

We had out usual Thursday quiz on our readings. That went well everyone scored about average considering some people didn’t read the readings. (me) These are the books we’re reading. If you need to get a hold of them they can be found in the CVA library.

Second.

We talked about the expectations for the current assignment and reviewed the previous assignment. We talked about the things that were successful in the previous assignment that we should continue to do or even expand on. Some of those points were to have all the boards unified and have a standardized layout with titles on each board, hand in the assignments in 17″ x 22″ envelopes with out names on them, make sure craftsmanship is pristine, use backing boards (Bristol) when mounting, have a complete documentation of research and inspiration, and also show some exploration into different approaches or ideas you had. Here are some great examples from the class.

Annie's Groups Tskflow

Christina's Homepage

Adam's Groups Wire frame

Christina's Recipe Page

Lastly.

Continue to work on the current assignment and have more layouts, wire-frames, and designs to show for class. Document all research and exploration and try to make something that will wow everyone. The final mounted boards are due on Thursday this week (03.10.11). After that we’re free to enjoy a well needed spring break and relax for a week before we come back and finish up the semester.

Here is a very well illustrated and thoughtful video on what motivates us. I thought it might tie in nicely because its talks about how what motivates creative ideas, and since we’re all creative people here I thought you all might enjoy it.

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Poodles, Robots, Layers and Due Date Anxiety-

Henry Is a Poodle.

Henry George is staying with me for a whole week and he made a guest appearance to class on Tuesday. Henry was a little freaked out initially probably because he was insecure about never having been to school himself. I’m sure all talk of artificial intelligence was quite too much for a small poodle.

TED Tuesday: Robots

 

About the Talk

 

Cynthia Breazeal dreams of a world where robots are not sci-fi enigmas but as  living room essentials. Cynthia and her team explore the ins and outs of mechanized emoting, teaching and play. Ultimately she would like to see a fully interactive robot that responds to human behaviors.

Other Robotic Enterprises

 

 

 

Robots We Know and Love

 

 

Layer Group Demo

Liina has been demonstrating handy tricks in photoshop and Tuesday was no exception. She Showed the class how keep organized when working with a photoshop document that has many layers. Here is a video I found on Adobe TV about all the functions of layers in photoshop.

object>

Basically, all you have to do is click the folder button at the bottom of the layer palate. A folder will pop up and will be labeled group #. You can change the name by double clicking to the right of the folder. Drag the layers that you want to keep together into the folder. the flipper allows you to contract and expand the grouped layers. Using layer groups allows for better organization and continued workability of your layers.

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Work Time

We finished class with work time. I found myself increasingly frustrated with how my designs were turning out. here is what I have so far.

 

What’s Due

for Tuesday 2/22/11

Mounted on 11×17 foam core

-personas

-wireframes

-mood boards

-design boards

home

category

recipe

And

design files-photoshop and JPGs

Research documentation

 

 

Class Review 2-15-11

In last weeks class we were introduced to some new Photoshop tricks.  We learned how to use different brushes and how to pull free ones off different sites.  We also further discussed different ways to create our direction pages for our iPad apps.  It was mainly a work day and we spent most of our time further improving our apps.    

This brush was created on a site called www.bittbox.com.  The site also includes a step by step tutorial on how to create your own.

iPad apps

 

This is my direction board as it is now.  I was told in critique to add some sort of background to it.  Another good suggestion was to move the eyeball icons to the bottom of the page and to make them look more like buttons.

The goal for next class is to further improve our apps and to start on the other pages.

 

Reading Assignment for Thursday 2/17

Krug: Chapter 8
UX: Chapter 4
Saffer: Chapter 3

02.08.11 TED Tuesdays!

Hey guys!

TED TUESDAY

Well another TED Tuesday has come and gone and this week we checked out Emily Pilloton: Teaching Design for Change.

If you watched the video above then you probably do not need to read this overview. But in case you’re an odd person and you’d rather read then watch an awesome video, be my guest.

In February 2009, Pilloton and her Project H partner Matthew Miller began working in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state, to develop a design-build curriculum for high-school kids, called Studio H. In August 2010 they began teaching their first class of 13 students. Read about their experiences in Design Mind. Designer Emily Pilloton moved to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina, to engage in a bold experiment of design-led community transformation. She’s teaching a design-build class called Studio H that engages high schoolers’ minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state. (Citation: http://www.ted.com/talks/emily_pilloton_teaching_design_for_change.html)

Final Assignment Overview:

Next we talked about the final assignment, and the requirements and expectations that went along with it.We discussed the grading criteria that will go along with the assignment and all the fine details of the assignment. You can get further information from the PDF below.

Project: iPad App:
Visual Recipe Book Final Project Deadline:
Tuesday, Feb 22, 2011
All project deliverables due 7pm at beginning of class

Assignment1

Photoshop Tutorials

Next we had a crash course in photoshop. We talked about the proper sizing for the iPad and the screen resolution (dpi) it should be at for the final assignment. (72 dpi and 9.56″ x 7.47″) We learned some helpful shortcuts on the keyboard. We talked about “smart objects” which let you create outlines of the images or type that you’re working with and move it independently. Finally, we talked about creating the typical ipad “button” and how to create that look. The photoshop tutorials were very helpful, and would of been nice to have gone through before we jumped into the creation of the iPad design. Now that we have done some intro photoshop I think we are all more confident in creating the design aspect of the assignment.

Our teachers wonderful app design.

Make sure you steal all the work already done by Apple and apply it to your own apps!!

Journals?

I thought that this class required a journal entry, so I will give mine as an example. I found a website that I think is designed very well and it fun and easy to use and navigate. Check it out and let me know if you agree with me. TOKY Branding and Design

Final Conclusion

Class last Tuesday was informative and educational. The TED video was very interesting and I think made us all feel excited to be going into the design field because of the opportunities and interesting places and projects you can either start or become involved in. Being able to discuss the assignment in full and receiving a hand out with all the requirements laid out was extremely helpful. The photoshop lessons helped everyone and we all clearly appreciated the tutorials. Keep um coming! The class had ample work time and left me with not much to discuss or talk about on here, but I think everyone would agree that we all greatly appreciated the work time and being able to ask questions as we worked.

Funny video of the week. Usuability in the classroom!

Final Note

Make sure and check out Dribble.com =]

Free Brushes!!

http://www.deviantart.com/

Search for brushes.

“keyword” brushes.

Thursday } 2.3.11

Hello Class!

Does anyone read this besides the teacher?

Well if so, I apologize for not having this up and ready to read for last Tuesday’s class … but! better late than never right?

So last Thursday,
We started off the class with dun, dun, dun … a quiz. Some of us did better than others receiving scores anywhere from 2/10’s to 10/10’s. Although these quizzes may seem mundane and minuscule compared to our project work, it is important to keep in mind that these points add up and will ultimately accumulate to a significant percentage of our final grade. So … with that said, make sure to stay on top of the reading ! Alright, enough of the lecturing.

Next,
We watched a video from Youtube that took a closer look into the mind of the author of one of our books called Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug which can be reviewed here if you so wish :

Even with its cheesy music, and borderline corny visual effects, Mr. Krug offered a lot of useful information and interesting insight to draw on. I imagine this to be especially  useful to us as students, but also extremely beneficial for working professionals as well. It was even noted by a fellow Youtuber that Krug is “one of the greatest usability experts”. So, it seems, that we are in good hands guys.

After the video,
As a class, we reviewed the blog from the previous Thursday. Maggie did a great job recapping the class both in linguistics and visuals.

We then presented out moodboards,
and received feedback by both each other and Liina. Some of us need to go back and make major refinements, while others only need to do a little more tweaking. All in all, we did good for our first “design” based project. Liina talked about the importance of craft when it came to printing and mounting.
Basic rule of thumb when it comes to design,

CRAFT = EVERYTHING.

As, we read in our textbook, even the best design will come off weak and unreliable if the craft is not there. So keep this in mind for projects to come 🙂
Here are a few examples of some of the moodboards presented :

 

Pretty shnazzy right?

*One thing to keep in mind throughout the revision process of our work, is that this is a potential portfolio piece. so of course you want it took look great and professional. So with that said, take the time to master this design and the craft involved in creating not only a visually pleasing piece, but a presentable one as well, and ultimately, a piece you are proud of.

Finally,
after critique and a 15 minute break, we were set free from the firm grasp of lecturing to work on our design for the recipe page of our Cookbook Ipad App. Work time during class is always appreciated, especially (well at least for me) because there are too many distractions at home to keep me from putting %100 of my attention and efforts into work time so when I am forced to work during class I feel much more productive and also get 150 times more accomplished. Plus, the teacher as well as classmates are there to help 😀

Alright,
Have I bored you out of your complete and utter mind? I hope not, because this is all good information to look back on at the end of the semester and be like “Oh so that’s what all those thousands of $$$’s  are getting me.”
So for now, farewell my friends. I shall leave you with this ridiculously cute baby hedgehog. Don’t you just want one now!?

} Christina.

1/27/11 Class Process and Site Mapping

Journal Entries

There was a wide variety of examples for the journal entries, and here are some examples of that were shown durning class.

Some chose this website because it was slow moving and very confusing, and was seen as not a good example of usability.

http://www.metrotransit.com

This website is clearly a horrible example of usability!! It is at art.yale.edu

The Menards website is horrible! It is the complete opposite of user friendly because it is extremely hard to navigate through.

http://www.menards.com

PROCESS

In class the first topic of discussion was the process a person should go through in order to have a good out come come for his or her project. We began by watching some videos of the process that taught the class first to not hyper focus on the hompage and second most clients are crazy but the designer still has to please them.

The process a person should go through is:

Define

• Audience is the main objective
• It should have content, deadlines
• Than comes the creative brief
• Than the overall concept
  DESIGNERS HAVE TO REMIND CLINETS OF THE DEFINING STEP QUITE OFTEN

Design

• Themes
• concept
• colors

Develop

Deliver

SITE MAPPING

Site mapping was the second topic of discussion that was discussed.  In the end a person’s site map should look something like this

Site-map

ASSIGNMENT IS

The final three wireframe on foam core board

The final three personas on foam core board