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Week 6 Reading

What information can ethnographic tools give you to improve the interactivity of an online banking website? (pp. 48-54)

By understanding the habits and customs of a user, a bank can design its website to most quickly serve the greatest number of users. For example, the majority of visitors to a bank’s website will be looking for their personal account. They need to be able to get into it immediately. The rest of a bank’s visitors are probably either looking for information on the bank, or for a service the bank offers that solves a problem they have. Therefore, the site should also have helpful features that help users determine what products they need.

At what point is a design finished? What makes it a success? What is its purpose? (pp. 54-62)

Since a design exists in the context it is designed to be used in, and the context is always changing, no design for a given product category can be regarded as final. A successful design is one that seamlessly and elegantly integrates into the cultural context and solves a users needs in an intuitive manner.

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)

I recently bought a camera, and in the process of making the purchase decision, evaluated many variables and brands to choose one. Ultimately I went with a Pentax camera, because they were known as rugged, affordable, and played nicely with older lenses. The branding of being reliable gives me confidence that I can use the camera in most situations and not have to worry about it.

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Objectified Review

There are very few movies or documentaries that require a tremendous amount of thought and concentration while watching; However, Objectified is an exception. From the very beginning of the film, images and clips were shown that made the viewer think and the context had a profound impact on my views of design. There are many professionals that appeared in the documentary who had opinions on design and views of society that I had never heard before or thought of on my own. One of the first ideas the film mentioned was the fact that every object has a story behind it. Everything one uses on a day-to-day basis has been strategically designed, yet no one thinks about it. Maybe here or there someone ponders why a toilet looks like a toilet, or why a door looks like a door, but it is a rarity. In my opinion, the people shown in the flick have molded their minds to automatically think about these background stories and incorporate that knowledge into modern design. Because of this, effective designers know what people need or want before everyday people realize it. For example, a company designed a new handle for hedge clippers without anyone even bringing up the fact that they were hard to use. By having a grasp of the stories behind products you haven’t created, one can incorporate this knowledge into other products – ultimately improving performance by design without anyone noticing or thinking about the change.

Someone in the film stated that good design is “un-designed”. Allowing users to say, “well of course it is this way.” A person using said hedge clippers would assume that having notches in the grip for your thumbs would be an obvious feature, but at one point it was not. Some designer had to have an “ah-ha” moment and realize just how obvious that feature was, and eventually implement it.

Being inventive and ultramodern is an important aspect of design in general, but someone in the film mentioned that one of the hardest parts of design is removing what is unnecessary. Although having a lot of features can be attractive, it is not always user-friendly. The documentary emphasized this point a lot. It is all about the user, and that must be kept in mind at all times while designing. A good design should be unobtrusive, easy to use, self-effacing. A good design should have as little design as possible. I completely agree with this statement. When things don’t work properly, individuals automatically assume that they are too stupid to use the product, but it is the design that is actually stupid. Design is supposed to allow humans to interact subconsciously, while producing the expected result of some object.

Watching this film has really changed my view on everything I touch. I have begun thinking, “Why is that the way it is?” and, “Who decided that that looks ‘right’?.” Before watching Objectified, I had always thought of design as simply aesthetics. Much of design still pertains to aesthetics, but even more of it has to do with usability. I had always thought that much of those aspects of design were left to engineers, architects or inventors, but it dawned on me that we are all people, living in the same world, using similar products. Anyone from a plumber to a doctor to a pilot to a small child has insights to usability, but it is how you train your mind to acknowledge potential changes. Being a designer, the world is virtually in your hands.

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Reading Response #2

1. What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

Interaction design is defined as the process of finding the issues of design through user testing and reviews. Many of the common challenges with interaction design come from a lack of understanding from clients. This means that it is up to the designers to help clients define their own needs and describe the end product accordingly.

 

2. What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

Interaction design is design focused on the user and how they are dynamically interacting with the piece. Interaction design draws from many types of art and beyond. While it is often made up from graphic, web, or game design, it also draws upon sociology and psychology to build compelling experiences.

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Reading Response #2_AWolfe

1. What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

Interaction design is a process of creating and defining what the issues of design are through tests and getting user reviews. There are many steps that go along with this; define, discover, synthesize, construct, refine, and reflect.  Some challenges that the industry faces is that many people do not understand what interaction design is and therefor put a lot of strain and difficulties on those who work with it daily.  A lot of problems that occur are also a direct result of communication and resources, some might lack one or both of these.

2. What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

Interaction design is a user-oriented field of study that focuses on meaningful communication of media through cyclical and collaborative processes between people and technology.  In order to have a successful interactive designs, setting clearly defined goals, a strong purpose and intuitive screen interface.  It is evolving through the sociological and psychological field. These people study consumers use with certain products. How the encounter with it went, whether negative or positive.  It draws in knowledge mainly from sociology and psychology.

 

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ecarrington_Week 5 Reading

  1. What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

Interaction Design is the process of creating and defining what the issues of design are through testing and asking users. The steps may sound formal (Define, Construct, etc.) But it comes down to who you are solving a problem for, and whether or not your solution works. Through designing interactive products, the process of interaction design makes more sense. Consumers and clients alike do not understand what interaction design is, resulting in a lack of straightforward communication and limited resources. The client cannot know what they want unless they are shown what is possible.

  1. What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

Interaction design is creating for people and understanding the process in which people interact with digital products and environments. The fact that interaction is reliant on the consumer means sociology and/or psychology are applied to this activity. By anticipating what users will do, what errors they may encounter and the paths they take will enhance their overall experience. Social engineering is factored in as we naturalistically observe their interactions and act upon them.

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Keeping an Audience by Brandon Kreiser

While I was navigating my way through onepagelove.com I came across a fun and visually stunning site, easyrocketstudio.com. When I landed on the page I was immediately impressed by the animation and design  of the page. I was able to quickly pick up the information that was being presented, and within a matter of about three seconds I knew exactly what easyrocketstudio.com was all about. The main reason I did not return to onepagelove.com was because this information I was getting from easyrocketstudio.com was easy. I was able to gently scroll down the page and read the information while appreciating the art that accompanied it.

Easyrocketstutio.com is a site that sells e-sport services to any online sports, gaming, or betting companies, which means that the site is meant to target a specific niche. While the site is visually stunning, it is far from perfect. The site has quite a few grammatical errors. It has two language options, English and Russian, and the primary language is Russian. It’s most likely that these grammatical errors are translation errors. The only major coding issue can be found at the bottom of the page where some text is lost behind an image, an easy fix once the problem is identified.

One of the strongest elements of this web page is its use of artwork and visually interesting elements to guide the eye to different information.  “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug states that websites need to have elements of visual hierarchy in order to organize information for the viewer (2014). The use of the graphic elements in easyrocketstutio.com help to establish a strong pattern of hierarchy that separates the general information from the details.

The separation of detailed information is another strong point of this web page. Krug mentioned that it is key for sites to refine information and make things as minimal as possible. The goal is for the user to get as much information as possible with little to no effort. This is accomplished by keeping information clear and concise, something easyrocketstutio.com executed very well.

One element that many one page sites fail to include is a navigation section that allows the user to travel to different areas of the page without endless scrolling. The sites that do have navigation tend to be less graphical and artistic and more structured. I thought that easyrocketstutio.com did a great job at keeping the navigation bar easy to find and simple to use without taking away from the stunning artwork of the page.

 

Easyrocketstutio.com is an engaging single page web site that utilizes many of the important elements of effective website construction. The most important areas it capitalizes on would be its effective use of graphic elements combined with concise information that is easy for the viewer to read. The web developers of easyrocketstutio.com did a good job at building a site that people won’t want to click away from, which after all, is the ultimate goal of commercial websites.

 

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Week 5 Reading

What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?
Interaction design is a system of design that focuses on people by defining a problem, then investigating and designing based on the way people use things. Challenges for the industry would include a lack of understanding of the process or its importance. Because of this lack of understanding, designers are often not given the space, time, or resources to conduct proper research, and their input may not be taken if other specialists have different opinions.

What is interaction design, how it’s evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?
Interaction Design is a design philosophy that focuses on people. It is interesting in that it is actively evolving in both academic and business settings, with universities and companies making advances independently and jointly. It draws from more conventional, ‘fine art’ style design philosophies, as well as social sciences (e.g. sociology) and applied sciences like engineering.

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Review #2

On the site called Echo at echo-pr.co.uk, the concept that they pushed out to the general audience is very intriguing at first, but it can be very hard on the eyes for some or almost all viewers. First things first, the site starts off with the word ECHO in bold lettering but the texture is thin stripes running down from left to right through the text. The text itself is a light grey color that is put in that color only to showcase its idea behind the website which I will explain later on. It throws me off a bit not only with the stripes, but it is very hard on me to read such a contrasting color with a bunch of stripes running through the page. I get their idea behind it, but it creates such a distraction to the site that could potentially turn away clients/consumers.

Their website has a “switch” widget on the upper left hand side that turns the texture from black stripes with a white background, into white stripes with a black background. This idea is what they called their “switch-on” implementation of making an impact on the layout. The next page while scrolling down switches the text ECHO into diagonal type, which is very interesting in my opinion, then later on breaks off the lettering each time you scroll down.

Now the site’s design is very simple and basically bold with black and white textures and formed layout, but overall it connects in such a way that it flows directly from top to bottom without any contortion through navigation, layout, or scrolling sequences.It’s grid, although some images and text overflows through one another at times, is in a proper format and doesn’t throw off the set details behind the sites idea and design.

Overall, the grid used in the website’s design may be simplistic to a degree, but it controls it’s own layout and the colors and textures are primarily created through implementation of black and white. Although the colors may be simple, it all comes down to how the website portrays it’s usage to the colors.

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SMild_Thoughts on Interactive Design Chapters 1&2

  • What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

Define, Discover, Synthesize, Construct, Refine, and Reflect make up interaction design.  Designers rarely start with a blank slate and they have to convey/understand what the client is asking for/wants.

  • What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

Interaction Design is a creative process focused on people.  It draws knowledge from fields such as engineering and marketing.

 

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1_ecarrington_Web

I chose Puma.com for my review. Puma is a clothing site that sells sporting equipment and sport-related active-wear, including shoes, clothing and accessories for men, women and kids. The main navigation shows an image slider that presents the viewer with ways to use their products, and inspires a purchase. These images have buttons that are linked to relevant pages, making them effective for the main spot of the site (What is called a hero image). There is a navigation bar with their logo as an identifier, dropdowns for genders and age, sales, categories and a search bar.

Scrolling down, there are big image views that link to shopping for different categories, such as ACTV, men’s and women’s. Near the footer, there is a social section, which shows items that are trending and social media links to follow Puma. At the bottom is a site map, email sign up and find a store search bar.

Following through with finding an item, I clicked on the semi-annual 50% off sale because it caught my eye and offered a discount on items that I know will be somewhat expensive. I know of the quality of Puma, even without owning a lot of this brand, by taking into account their web presence and images I have seen so far. On the sale page, the first thing I see are shoes and a bright red bar that says “Free shipping on orders over $75.” I clicked the Price[Low] button to sort the sale items. After scrolling for a bit, I found a hat that I liked and clicked on it.

When on that page, there were no reviews, which immediately caught my eye. Being someone who depends on quality of products, I like looking to reviews for reinforcement or more information. I added the item to cart and a dropdown showed me a button that said checkout, which condensed. I clicked the checkout button on the shopping cart page and was told to enter information, if I had a Puma account or guest checkout.

On the next page, as a guest, I auto-filled my information and tried to go to the Payment page. This did NOT work. I rechecked my information and required fields, and did not find anything missing, and nothing on the site said I was doing anything incorrectly. After trying 5 times, I gave up on the purchase. This has never happened before, but I will not be shopping on the Puma site again. Upon inspection, an optional button that says “My shipping address is different than my payment address“ was unchecked, but contained many errors when checked. They should require this button, instead of marking optional.

 

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Review 1

For my website to review, I chose Sony. Sony’s website and company altogether deals with technology, such as T.V.’s, video equipment, phone accessories, computer software, etc.. The layout is a bit simplistic as it deals with the interface. The top layout is very simple and easy to navigate through for what I was trying to search through.  For most websites the search bar is located at the top right hand side of the interface.  Now with this search bar comes the great addition of adding in a query and locating terms that many other consumers have come across. This helps with a quick and responsive user interface experience. Not only was the search for the item easy and obtainable in a matter of seconds, but based on the tabs that contained the different categories, it was easy to maneuver around for what I was trying to look for. If I needed to go back a step with a category tab, I could easily look to my top left corner and click on the link stating, the previous page and the homepage.

When I need to search for something dealing with a certain category, I found a bunch of bundle deals that were put on display for consumers looking for a particular type of item. For example, in the book called “Don’t Make Me Think” it describes the normal consumer trying to process their thinking by quickly finding and containing the click- able tabs that don’t puzzle or creates a long thinking process of “is this___? or is that a way to get to this?”. This website greatly uses the images to work well within the background and it uses the rule of thirds decently. I say decently due to the fact that the tabs on the top of the page are a bit meshed together. The first row of tabs deals with relatively first look items that consumers look for, plus deals within the company for that week or month. The second row is the different categorical items that you can choose from and uses the images to provide a definitive look at what each software, equipment, accessory can look visually.

If I could choose a couple of things I could improve on with this website, it would be the text color on the small text which is a little harder to read if you have somewhat bad eye site. If anything, I would just make it a bit more darker hue. Furthermore, the first row tabs could be moved towards the left side of the page to grasp at the readers attention and since it is native for most people to read left to right. Other than the small little tweaks that can be made, the overall site design, user-interface, and tab location is very well done and user friendly. Controlling what you want to click on and being able to not think about what a certain search bar or click function will do is very important for customers, because it makes for a better experience and creates a better understanding to the site for others out there.

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Reverb site review

Much like Etsy, but for musicians, Reverb.com is an online marketplace that allows individuals to buy and sell new, used, and even homemade musical instruments and accessories for just about anything one might want to (or can) play.

From the start, the webpage is well organized and easy to navigate: In the header of the page next to their logo is the search bar and links for their blog, login, and if I’d like to sell something; the header stays at the top of the page as you scroll, making it easy to search for something if you remember what you want at a time when it’s not convenient to click on another link. The top of the home page is dusted with a few ads for different parts of the site such as deals, sales, and interesting products they have to offer. Scrolling down a bit, one finds a grid of various products that they have to offer, lined to the side with a category box narrowing down the types of items they carry (guitars, amps, drums, folk instruments, etc…); followed by a list of brands throughout the site for those looking for something more specific, and another which filters the year the product(s) were made, for the more enthusiast types.

I’m in the market for a delay pedal, but aren’t too sure of any brand or type, so I scroll down to the categories box and select “Effects & Pedals” knowing that’s where I want to start looking. I’m then redirected to page similar to that of the home page, but with the grid to the side focusing solely on pedals, and the different kinds listed beneath my initial selection in the categories panel. I click on “Delay” and am taken to another gridded page showing the different delay pedals they offer; I click on a Boss DD-7 as it’s one of the first on the page (and one I’ve been looking into), and am taken to a page that shows me pictures of the product the seller has posted, details about it that I might be interested in knowing, and options to buy, make an offer, contact seller, and so on. I click “Add to Cart” and am redirected to a page that gives me the option to either finalize my purchase, or continue on shopping; I click on the logo in the header and return to the home screen.

As described in the reading for a functional and well-designed site, navigating Reverb.com was effortless and near thoughtless. Everything was organized in such a way that getting to where I wanted to go was literally just a few clicks away. There weren’t any confusing hard to understand headings, series of listings that had nothing to do with what I wanted, just straightforward and to the point navigation.

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Ease of Access by Brandon Kreiser

TigerDirect is one of the most popular online retailers of computers and other electronics. The site provides an easy to understand and fun experience for the user and/or possible buyer. I used the site to look for an Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor. Buying computer parts can be one of the most challenging things to buy online because of the limitless part models, retailers, and manufacturers. TigerDirect does a very good job at keeping electronic purchases simple and understandable.

One of the first things I noticed when I went to the TigerDirect website was the simple design and layout. The company name and search bar were the first things I spotted, helping the user know exactly where they are. The close proximity of the search bar to the site name helps the user that knows exactly what he wants to buy. For the user that may not be sure what they are looking to find, there are many buttons and pictures on the screen to assist in the search of an item. While there are in fact many buttons to click on, TigerDirect keeps things obviously clickable. The book “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug discusses the importance of keeping buttons clearly clickable to avoid user confusion (2014).

Another effective strategy used on TigerDirects website is the way that users check out once they have found the item(s) they were looking for. The process is not as quick as Amazon’s one-click-purchasing, but I think that it’s even better. After clicking the purchase button and finalizing the items in the shopping cart TigerDirect brings you to a page where the user can log into TigerDirect and enter their billing information. But even better yet, the site lets the user pick other vendors to pay through in order to make the payment process more customizable. The user pay through TigerDirect, PayPal, VISA Checkout, MasterPass, Amazon, or Google Wallet. I’m not able to think of many other websites that gives the user so many payment options. To make the deal even better TigerDirect accepts American Express, Master Card, Visa, and Discover; not all sites accept American Express, and Discover. This ease of payment actually makes this part of shopping, when the buyer loses money, seem like the best part of shopping. It could not be a better system in my opinion.

The last element of design incorporated into TigerDirects website that impresses me the most is their easy-to-scan pages. “Don’t Make Me Think” stresses the importance of keeping information easy to read and scanable so the user does not need to spend vast amounts of time reading information (Krug, 2014). Buying electronic parts can be such a difficult process because of how much technical information is involved. I personally hate buying electronics from sites like Wal-Mart, Target, and especially Amazon. They all fail to give me the technical information I need on a computer product. For example, when attempting to buy an external hard drive on Amazon.com the technical information provided with the product rarely has information of the rotation speed of the disk; which requires extra research on the users end. TigerDirect always gives every technical detail of electronic parts that are given by the part manufacturer. In the case of the external hard drives, TigerDirect provides the rotation speed of the disk as long as that information is available from the manufacturer. TigerDirect even gives links to the manufacturer’s website so the user can look for even more information about the part before they purchase it. This ease-of-access system for computer and other electronic pieces is what makes TigerDirect a very easy and simple to use website.

There are many online retailers that have easy to use designs and unbeatable prices. I feel that TigerDirect is one of the best retailers for any electronic equipment because of the easy to navigate pages, obviously clickable buttons, numerous payment options, and easy to scan, yet detailed technical information provided with each part. Attempting to buy and find the Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor could not have been easier, and I would recommend TigerDirect to anyone shopping online.