For this review, I chose Keep Portland Weird. It was one of the first ones on the page, so I clicked on it, and was immediately intrigued by the site. It opens up with an animation, then one click allows you to enter the website. It comes up with a list of the alphabet, which totally caught me off guard at first, but each letter lists a different thing to do or about the city. Each letter is a different color, but none of the colors fight with each other, and come from an analogous color scheme. Chapter 2 discussed the different feelings given by each color, which was definitely utilized when choosing a color to fit the letter. For example, C is for crocheting, which is a calming activity, and is represented in a blue color. The text said blue is a color that can give a sense of calmness. Also, the letters have a background that appears like a pattern, but is an image from what the letter is describing. It is very clever and a great way to get the user to click on the letter. It is also super great because each letter is different already, and then once the letter is clicked on, it pops up with its own analogous color scheme. A short description is given, and a button is displayed in the upper left corner to go back to the home page, or there are up and down arrows on the right side to navigate forward or backwards through the letters. There is basically no room for user error, which makes the site extremely easy to use. I love it and think it is so so beautiful and well done.
Website Review #2- http://www.federicoguzzardi.com/
For my second website review we had to chose a one page site so I chose the portfolio website of Visual and Web Designer; Federico Guzzardi (http://www.federicoguzzardi.com/). I am a very big fan of the way that this site looks especially because of how minimalistic yet modern the site is. The main colors that he uses for his website are white and a darker greenish/blue for the color correction that he has applied to the images on his site. I am a fan of this because it keeps it simple and clean and doesn’t cause your eyes to go absolutely crazy when you are looking at this website. The navigation for this site is just a simple parallax scrolling site but the transition from one section to the other is very clean and nice looking in my opinion. Each header for each section sort of appears with an animation as you scroll which makes the experience a lot more interesting and entertaining rather than all of the information just being there.
Another thing that I really like about the site is the fact that once you get to his work it is all very clean and organized. Everything is spaced nicely and if you hover over the project you get a title and description of the type of project which I think is nice. It allows you to get an idea of what the project is but if you want to see more you have to click on the project to see the full thing. Overall I think the design of Federico’s site is done very well and is presented in a way that is minimalistic and organized and is very easy on the eye and allows you to really enjoy not only his work but also the site itself which is really nice.
Thoughts on Interaction Design: Chapters 3, 4, and 5
- What information can ethnographic tools give you to improve the interactivity of an online banking website?
- At what point is a design finished? What makes it a success? What is its purpose?
- Identify a product family you use regularly. How has its branding effected your use, relationship and experience with the product?
- By using ethnographic tools one can gather information on what users of an online banking website do and why they do it. By learning more information about the website’s users one can easily make changes to improve the interactivity of the banking website.
- Design is finished when the product is ready to be marketed. Design is considered a success when the product becomes a functional advocate to humanity. Designs purpose is to “create usable, useful and desirable creations”.
- A product family that I regularly use are the Apple Iphones. The Iphone’s branding has helped attach me to the product due to the luxurious easy to use marketing appeal.
Review 2: Single Page Site
Z Creative Labs
Z Creative Labs’ single page site uses only black, white, gray, and pink in terms of color. The page scrolls from top to bottom. Along the side of the page there is a navigation bar that has an arrow pointing down to further emphasize the way the page is meant to be navigated. As you scroll there is a “Get in Touch” button in the top right corner that is clickable to contact the creators. At the bottom right corner there is a “Return to Top of Page” arrow that moves with you as you scroll. Most importantly, Z Creative Labs’ logo scrolls with you along the top left of the page.There are drawings that are “drawn” in the background of each section of the site to match the information that is being provided. These drawings are moving and are actively “drawn” when you scroll over its section. All of the drawings and uniform colors provide a sense of unity in terms of design. As you scroll down the page the title of the subject is in bright pink and is the largest font size in each section, which makes it easy to scan and read and see if it is the information you are seeking. The content is very straightforward and written in in a way that is easy to understand with common, everyday terminology.
The single page site for Z Creative Labs creatively depicts their company’s purpose in a creative and effective way. The consistency with color, graphics, movement, navigation, and scrolling capabilities works for them. It is easy for any user to find the information they seek. The site is easy to scan, read, and interpret the content provided. The site is easily navigated due to the scrolling, navigation bar, and clickability.
Objectified
“Objectified” is a feature length documentary about the role that objects play in our everyday lives while also examining the creative people who design them. Each designer interviewed talked about the importance of the design process and how it effects ones everyday life. At first I thought it was a little ridiculous of the designer’s to stress how important the design process is until I thought about it. It wasn’t until I realized that every object I use everyday had to have been designed by someone with the intent to satisfy the user that I started to agreed with the designers. The designers definitely helped me change the way I think about design as well as gain more respect for the people designing today. First off I had no idea how important subjects such as Sociology, Psychology, and Philosophy were in the design field. “Objectified” taught me that design is so much more than creating objects, but understanding people and how they interact with the world around them. Before watching “Objectified” I would have defined design as the process it takes to turn a idea into a physical object. Now I would define design as the overall process of studying how people interact to create an object that meets the aesthetic, functional, economic, and sociopolitical needs of the consumer. Overall “Objectified” helped me to understand the real need for designers in todays society.
Objectified
After watching “Objectified”, my views on the interactive world changed a lot. I learned that the key to designing is that the goal of creating is to design something that is different than what’s common. When designers are brainstorming ideas, they can’t just think about the average person that it would be using it, they should consider the extremes. They used an example of not making a product the average person, say 22 years old, would be able to use—they want to create something that somebody even with arthritis could use. It taught me that even though as designers we put a ton of thought into our product, we shouldn’t over-design it. The product should be fairly easy to use and make sense to the user—it should feel natural. We as designers should look at a design in a formal way. Although we want the product to look appealing, we have to also look at what it does—function vs form. Sometimes a product might look appealing, but it will do what it is supposed to. Also, designers need to take the future into consideration. You want to create a product that lasts, but only an amount of time until the designer feels it should be replaced. The product should be able to be used in a year or two years after the purchase without being outdated. “Objectified” taught me a lot about being a designer and entering the field I am going into.
Torchia Review 2
Review 2
Morgan Torchia
The website I chose to review was “The Wedding of Ashley and Jeff.” The overall design of the website really accentuates the theme of love and marriage throughout the entire single page site. The layout consists of of two short bios about each person, and as you scroll down you gather all the wedding details.
I enjoyed the use of color in this website. It was very light and clean with nothing standing out too much, taking away from the content. I would’ve liked to see a few more pops of color, just for some added flare, but overall it worked well. The layout and overall organization worked well. The pictures served as a nice break between content, and all of it was organized thoroughly.
The website starts off with a nice big picture of the couple and the wedding date, immediately establishing who the website is about. Next you scroll down and learn a little about each one of them. To break up the content, there’s a quote off to the side and a few pictures as you continue down. It ends with wedding details, the schedule, and the couple’s registry. It is organized very well so nobody can get confused about the information.
Overall the website is very nice. The layout works for the content in it and the it is very easy to navigate through. There is nothing overly flashy, but for a wedding website it is very clean and too the point.
Chapter 3,4,5 reading responses
- What information can ethnographic tools give you to improve the interactivity of an online banking website? (pp. 48-54)
The different types of diagrams can help give information to improve interactivity of a banking website. An ecosystem diagram (pg 48) gives user engagement points. It illustrates the various system touch points, and can give the banking site information on how to structure things. It will show them how the user will interact with their site and find them. This is valuable information and can help improve the relationships between users and the their interaction choices. A journey map (pg 50) actually describes the sequences the users take as they go through the different touch points. This is used to hypothesize how this site will be found, navigated, and learned. This can help the site focus on how intuitive they need to make the site, where to place the site, and the process that users go through. It can help with best case-scenario steps, or focus on failures and deviant paths to help make the site more interactive. This can help direct users to the right place.
- At what point is a design finished? What makes it a success? What is its purpose? (pp. 54-62)
A factor of success in design is the relation from form to function. Can you convince users that the form you created is what it is supposed to look like? If form does not relate to function anymore, how can you relate form to emotional and social qualities? These are important questions to answer in design. (pg 56). The proper understanding and use of signification also plays a role in success (pg 56). Design can have a lasting and substantial effect on the world. Every design decision matters. (pg 57). Visual form is one of the most basic methods to be successful. The purpose of design is to improve all aspects of human life. (pg 60). Design has many stages, but is finished when it begins influencing the outside world. In a sense though, it can never be finished if the design has longstanding effects on the world.
- Identify a product family you use regularly (can be anything from technology to consumables except for coffee). How has its branding effected your use, relationship and experience with the product? (pp. 78-84)
Labtops: The branding, particularly by apple, has affected my relationship and use of the product. Apple markets with a lot of integrity and attention to detail (pg 79-82). They focus on the most minute details and have created a strong trust between their products and consumers. This affects how I view my labtop, and enhances the experience of using it. I feel very mindful when using it, there is no unnecessary clutter or details. Everything is very sleek, professional and virtually perfect, which in turn makes the experience a very smooth feeling to it. Using my Macbook for designing makes me feel more professional. This is because of their marketing and design choices. Apple pays attention to the concept that consumers will pay the premium price for the premium experience (pg 82). I did not really enjoy the price, but the experience definitely is worth the price and then some. It creates a poetic interaction, which keeps bringing me into their products (pg 83).
Review 2
For the second review I chose the website Keep Portland Weird: Earthquake Preparedness. When you first open the website you are greeted with a loading diamond shape and then the page automatically scrolls down to a enter button. There you can click which enters you into the site and then you get lowered into another page that has the alphabet. When you click on one of the individual letters it drops you to a different page that lists that activity that is coordinated with that letter. This website is very colorful and has very nice artwork. The colors all work together and are all pastel like, the colors change as you scroll through different pages. When you are navigating through you also see the different graphics change when you select a letter, the graphics range from different bars of colors that start at the bottom and it takes you to that page. Each of the different letters have their own color scheme. This website isn’t scrollable able, it is only accessible through clicking the different boxes. When looking through the different subjects you are able to share them through social media. The textures thought the whole piece were very attractive and they are the pictures from the interactive pages. The background images throughout the whole website are very cool, they are all the art work made up for the select pages or the devastation from the earthquakes. The content through the piece is every read because you have a picture of the item and the text matches the color scheme of that letter.
Overall I would say that this website is very well done. They did a very good job with the overall design of the whole page. Being able to interact throughout the whole website through clicking while also getting the effect of movement through the whole piece. It was very nice to be able to navigate and read each part easily.
Review 2
The single-page website I chose to describe and analyze was http://www.ashleyandjeffwedding.com, a website highlighting a couple that is planning to get married this upcoming year. The website seems to be acting as an invitation/information page both about the couple and the day of the wedding itself. The website scrolls from top to bottom is separated into five sections: the home page, info. about the couple, their engagement photos, details about the wedding with a schedule, and link to their registry. The website as a whole is very simple.
As described in Chapter 2 of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, it is important to create a color palette when creating a website because it gives you more options to work with than a color scheme would. The website, though simple, is not very visually pleasing. I believe the theme they were going for was rather calm, simple and rustic/outdoorsy. They chose shades of tan and creme to match their engagement photos, all of which were taken outside in the woods. Green somewhat acts as an accent color because our only see it in the picture on the home page and in their engagement pictures. The text is very light in some sections and could be hard to read on certain low-resolution screens. I think the palette works cohesively and visually goes together, but it is very bland and could use some warmer colors to make it a little more exciting. Not that I would know what the color scheme of their wedding is, but I would make the website match those colors (I highly doubt the wedding colors are tan, green and more tan).
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design defines texture as “anything that gives appearance or feel to the surface of a design or object.” The first thing you see when you open the web page is a picture of the couple in front of a beautiful rock waterfall. The picture gives the home page texture through the texture of the rocks, the wood, and the water. When continuing to scroll through the remainder or the website though, there is absolutely no texture. I don’t necessarily think the website needed a lot of texture for its purpose, but this continues to make the page very bland and boring.
The website as a whole is easy to navigate and flows in a very natural pattern. The text, though light in color, is easy to read through and tells a story. I do think the website’s design works well, but I think it could have been more creative and more visually pleasing. I do think, though, that a website is a cool way to get information out about a wedding.
Review 2
When I opened up One Page Love the first website that caught my eye was one named Meet The Greek. I had no clue what the website was about or why a man was just sitting on a couch in an otherwise empty room. After exploring the website for a few seconds I noticed the website was for a restaurant that could be found in Australia. My initial thought was how amazingly smooth the transition from one tab of information to the next was. Navigation was easy and the video of which showed the sitting man changed depending on what tab you were on.
As for color and texture, most of that was found in the video itself. The floor and the walls along with the close-ups of the man himself all brought depth to the website alongside the white panels with text. The panels come out when you navigate throughout the website and the panels are white with what seems to be an off black/brown text. All outside text is black or white and the logo is black unless there is a transition video going on, then it turns white.
Navigation is easy on this website. You click a tab and you are there. The only thing that I wished that they would improve upon is the menu. The menu for the website is way too long to be set up the way it is. Continuously scrolling down a menu of which doesn’t even have a scroll bar is obnoxious.
I already praised the navigation for being easy, the design for being beautiful, and the videos for being unique and easily relatable to the tab of which you are exploring. It’s easy for me to say that this website is well done and I am even envious of Australia for being able to eat there.
Thoughts On Interaction Design Chapters 1 & 2
Interaction design is composed of the communication and dialogue conducted between a person and a product, service, or system. Basically, any exchange that conducts a physical and emotional experience through a person’s senses, BOOM! You’ve got yourself an interaction. The main concept of interaction design creates a lot of challenges. Making something look pleasing to the eye is the very last thing to happen, which is often misconstrued as the only thing that designers do. The struggle and challenges happen when trying to create a smooth and enjoyable experience from interacting with a product. You don’t want to create something that will be enjoyable for a short time, but something that will become better with time, something timeless. That in itself is a goal that will last a lifetime. Discovering what people find enjoyable and a necessity is also a challenge because many companies do not have the budget or funds for research, so the step is often glazed over.
Interaction design is constantly growing and moving forward, with new concepts and ideas growing off of older inventions. At this time today, things have been moving more quickly due to the major companies competitions amongst one another. Inventions nowadays are growing in more ways than just one. Yes, they are gaining newer technologies and aspects of use, but they are also growing in ways of design. For instance, there are watches that display your phone for easy use, and there are phones being created to project onto your arm and that are water-proof. There are self-driving cars and Ubers. To create these products that people want and need, interaction designers need to pull a lot of their information from psychology and engineering. They need to have a strong understanding of people.
Review #2
This site is for an advertising industry that produces award-winning content. The sites use of color is a little dull. It is just black and white with a little bit of pink and light blue thrown in places. I personally like it because of the simplicity. They do have a lot of texture, though. The black and white background on their landing page is a bunch of stars and constellations that move around, which make it very interesting. That is where the motion and texture end. There is another video further down that shows their work, which is a nice edition instead of a list. However, there are only black and white words the rest of the way down, which lost my interest at some place. I don’t think it was because of the color, but because of how many words were condensed into a small space. The site scrolls from top to bottom, which I like because it’s uncomplicated. They also keep the tabs off to the side, which I can not decide if I like or not, but it is interesting. The easy colors make it easy to understand while scrolling up and down make it easy to navigate. Overall, I like the site and the simplicity. I think it could use more pictures and fewer words, though.
It is a well-made site. It is easy to use and look at. You know what you are looking at immediately. Anything you want to find is easy to locate with the tabs. The video also makes finding information easy. They could obviously do some things better, but, overall, I like the site a lot.
Review #2
For this review, we were supposed to find a single page website from OnePageLove and analyze it in different ways, shapes, and forms. When looking through the site, the website I chose to look at was Kod & Form, or kodochform.se, simply based on the bright colors used for the layout. Upon reaching the site, I was very intrigued by the color and texture of the page, and think that the styles used overall worked very well. Each different section or “page” of this single page site had it’s own unique color scheme, but no scheme in itself varied too much from any other. The textures were very nice, and to the eye the site was ultimately pleasing. When it came to navigation, I was a tad bit annoyed. I personally am a sucker for different text boxes and hyperlinks that help you jump and move around on the site, which this page offered none of. There were no clickable options until you reached the bottom of the long single page site, and the only way to get to the bottom was to manually scroll to the bottom yourself. The text along with other various things confused me as well, but I came to the conclusion that the makers of the site were most likely from Sweden, which ultimately made the alternate text okay.
Overall, I think the site is done very well. I wish the navigation was easier, but the fact that the site was easy to look at makes up for it. People’s eyes have to physically meet the site first before they even begin to try to move around on it, so to me, look is a world’s more important than any other feature of a site. I think the site is a 7.5 or so out of a possible 10, with obvious room for improvement, but overall a well-done job.
Review 2: Native Swinson
I chose to review the single page site NativeSwinson.com. My eye was drawn to this site because of it’s simplicity and nice design. After opening up the site, I first analyzed its texture and color. I think its use of white and black backgrounds keep the site clean cut and allows the content to stand out on the page. The use of both black and white as backdrops give the website depth. The homepage stands out the most with its use of background images that look almost as if they were drawn in the background. I think the use of the paint brushed drawing that change on the homepage give the site even more depth and dimension. This is something that I think works really well in the design. Native Swinson also uses a set color palette of cool colors that go together nicely. The choices of blues and greens give the site a serene, and nature like feel which is appropriate for the content of the site. Overall, I genuinely liked the use of texture and color throughout this site and find that the design elements work well together.
As for the navigation of the site, I find it to be slightly chaotic. In order to scroll through the site, you do not scroll but you have to click on the words in the navigation bar. Once you click for example “About” button the entire screen shifts either left, right, up, or down. I feel that not everyone will grasp this concept as quickly as I did and may be confused that you really can’t scroll and that there is no blatantly obvious indication on where to click to get to the next portion of the website. As I mentioned above, I liked the different images on the homepage however they only appear if you click an arrow key on your keyboard. I think there should be some indication that there are more images, like with the use of arrows on site’s homepage. Another specific portion of the website that I would like to mention is the setup of the Gallery. At first, I did not even realize that the list of content on the left was even clickable. Then I noticed that if you move your cursor across the content the image changes on the right. The problem I find with this is if you move your cursor the image changes, so I think it could become frustrating to some users that the image they want isn’t staying up.
There are design elements of this site that I find make the site easy to scan, read, and understand despite the criticism from above. The site is very well organized with content that is clearly sectioned off, making it easy to read. I like the simple fonts and overall layout. I also find that the site has a very clean look, it doesn’t overwhelm you and has no clutter. Although I find that the use of the navigation bar to scroll may not immediately stand out to some users I do find that the flow of the site overall works very well.
All said and done I think that overall this site is done very well. To highlight some key points I made above, the texture and color design elements are done very well. As far as the navigation I think the site can be improved with some minor adjustments. For example, I think that making it more clear what is clickable would be an improvement. I think making what’s clickable more bold to users will help them to more easily understand and navigate this site. Also, making it a point to display that there are more images to be viewed on the homepage would be another change that I think would improve the site. I think adjustments on the sites Gallery portion might be something they want to consider. I think the Gallery could be more user friendly by using thumbnails of images with their titles below them. Like I said overall I think Native Swinson did a great job at designing their website, but there is always room for improvement.