Author: makst299

Madisyn Kovach

Reading Thoughts on Interaction Design: Chapters 3, 4 & 5

• What information can ethnographic tools give you to improve the interactivity of an online banking website? (pp. 48-54)
• Ethnographic tools used by Interaction Designers attempt to understand what people do and why they do it. Most ethnographic tools are generally poor methods of determining if someone would buy a certain product, identifying how much someone would pay for a certain product, and understanding what color, texture, material, size, or shape to make a certain product. While tools like surveys or interviews can certainly ask questions relating to these details, people have a difficult time in estimating or remembering details related to this type of preference. Instead, ethnography helps designers identify problems.  So, if I was looking on PNC’s Bank website, I would be looking for the design of the site. I would also be questioning if I can use this easily or if I struggle while I am using it. In my opinion, when looking through PNC’s website, I feel like it is a great website. For example, the layout is understanding, nothing is out of place, there are colors that make my eyes pop, and there are different size of text used.  
• At what point is a design finished? What makes it a success? What is its purpose? (pp. 54-62)
• It is known that a designer will create a mass of ideas, test them, and gather good feedback, all the while honing in on a particular solution. I feel like a design is never completely finished how you expected it would be.  You have to remember to please your audience. So, things might have to change in the future to keep the incoming crowd happy with the product. There are several things that can make the product a success. One thing can be the satisfaction of the customers that are using the product.  The second thing is people purchasing the product. The final thing is the reviews online. Getting good reviews can cause other customers to purchase your product.  A good designer, however, balances convergent thinking with a healthy level of divergent thinking.  The purpose of the design is to please the user and the person who created the device.   
• Identify a product family you use regularly (can be anything from technology to consumables except for coffee). How has its branding affect your use, relationship and experience with the product? (pp. 78-84)
• A product family that I use regularly is Apple.  I currently own a MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Headphones.  I also have owned several of their iPods including the nano, touch, and shuffle.  I started using Apple when I was about seven years of age when I got my first iPod.  I continued using the iPods when I was younger because I thought it was easy to just transfer my songs through iTunes.  When thinking I was younger I started with the flip phone and in about 8th or 9th grade, my dad told me I could choose a smartphone.  Having several Apple products before, I knew an iPhone would be the best decision. I can tell you I have not had any other smart phone other than the iPhones.  Anytime I had a problem with my phone, I would always look on Apple’s website because I knew there was a step by step process to walk you through the situation. When going to trade my iPhones, the customer service in the Apple Store was amazing.  They would always answer my questions, as well as, walking me through how to set up my phone. They also have helped me transfer everything from my old phone to my new phone. I feel like I have stayed with Apple because I never really had issues with their products or staff before.  Also, everything on their devices are user friendly.      

• What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?
  • Worrying about:
    • Fragmented user journeys & clever but lazy users
      • Trying to get everything on the website/app but making things as easy as possible.  You do not want them to get confused using the website or app but you still want to get all of the information onto that page.  
    • New interaction paradigms
      • EX: tapping on social media apps like snapchat
  • Making sure the page is visually attractive
    • You want to make sure you are pleasing the users eye.
  •  How much information you want on your page
    • You want to make sure you are putting an equal amount of text and photos on a website.  Chances are if the website is all text, your viewer will probably not look at it.
  • The simplicity on the page
    • Making sure you can function it as easy as possible. 
  • Making the device looked finish
    • When it fits the user at a specific time
• What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?
  • Interaction Designers- find themselves in the unique position of being at the center of several worlds, all of which are presently colliding within the global marketplace. These worlds include industrial design, engineering, psychology, art, and business strategy. All of these elements must be present and well integrated in order to create a successful Interaction Design, and the Interaction Designer often seeks out the role of project manager—in charge of ensuring that all of these fields are adequately represented in the development of a product.
  • Good design is as little design as possible
  • Users should not have to think about the design. It should feel natural. 
  • Interaction Design- is the design of interactive products and services in which a designer’s focus goes beyond the item in development to include the way users will interact with it. Thus, close scrutiny of users’ needs, limitations and contexts, etc. empowers designers to customize output to suit precise demands.
  • Different Fields:
    • Interaction
    • Graphic
    • Photography
    • Multimedia
    • Interior 
    • Advertising
    • Film
  • Design shapes behavior
  • There should be a meaningful relationship between the person and the thing.

Madisyn Kovach

Designing for New Media

What are the goals of Apple’s website? How does Apple’s website address the needs of a user who has just purchased their first MacBook? (Chapter 3)

The goals of Apple’s website are to make the company money and to save the company money. When looking at Apple’s website, there is a step-by-step process listed on their website to help users that just purchased their first MacBook.   Apple wants the users to have a quick and simple service when having an issue.  Apple has also set up their website based on demographic. If you think about it, people from the ages of 10-70 could be purchasing their first MacBook.  So, the website is user friendly to all ages.  Also, the Apple site wants the user to have good impressions.  Apple wants to make sure their site is helping the users with questions, so they are saving their own time and money.  If the user has a good service, they will probably buy another one of their products.    

What are the functional specifications of Facebook’s wall? If you are not on Facebook what are the specs for the signup page? (Chapter 4: Functional Specifications, Content Requirements a Prioritizing Requirements)

Functional specifications provide the developer and the designer with a vision or concept of the final website. A functional specification does not define the inner workings of the proposed system.  Instead, it focuses on the people interacting with the system.  When looking on Facebook, the functional specifications include tagging friends in posts, posting your thoughts or pictures, and scrolling to see what other people have posted.   

What are four architectural approaches to information structure? Find one example of each. (Chapter 5: Information Architecture)

There are four architectural approaches to information structure. These four architectural approaches include hierarchical structure, matrix structure, organic structure, and sequential structure. The most obvious example of a hierarchical system in computers is a file system, in which directories have files and subdirectories beneath them.  When looking at a matrix structure, a good example would be on Amazon. When looking up a product, you can look on the left side of the computer and see different boxes that you could check off.  For example, you could say I just want prime items to be shown. You would hit the box that says prime and then Amazon items that are only prime will pop up.  For organic structure, a good example would be when you are on an educational website. You can find a several page document but if you were to leave the page, it would be hard for you to get back to the same exact spot on the page.  The final architectural approach is a sequential structure.  A good example for a sequential structure is when you are checking out on a website.  It takes you through a step by step process. These are examples of the four architectural approach to information structure.    

What percentage of The Huffington Post index page is navigation, and what percentage is content? What about Google, Wikipedia, and Etsy? (Chapter 6)

When looking at the Huffington Post, I say there is about 90% navigation with 10% content.  When looking on the website, there are several options that you could use to navigate your way through the site.  While searching Google, I found that about 65% is content and 35% is content. Searching for the presents of Wikipedia’s navigation and content, I found that they have 15% navigation and 85% content.  While searching Etsy, I found that almost 80% is navigation and 20% is content.    

How does http://landor.com guide the readers’ eyes and focus their attention on what is important? (Chapter 7: Follow the eye)

When looking at landor.com, I found several things that could guide the readers’ eyes and focus their attention on what is important.  You could tell just by searching that they were trying to interest you in research, design, and consulting methods that the branding industry still uses.  They also used several navigation keys that brought you to a lot of the content. In my opinion, this website also used a strong color palate.  When having a black screen with white font, and then you hover over a word and it changes to yellow it will catch the readers’ attention on something different. Also, this website uses a very strong grid.  The readers will not get confused or lost when looking at images and reading what it put down.