- Ethnographic tools can be utilized by an online banking website to show the growth in interest in an account, where your money is going, and the cores in your account(s). A flow chart would help the account holder see where their money is moving and what it is going towards, which could then help that person save money and be more aware of what they are spending.
- In the text, it says design is an argument, “the argument has a subtle, nearly invisible, immediate effect on the audience.” Once that is achieved, and the design communicates clearly, it could be considered finished.
- A family of products I use very often would be Jeffree Star cosmetics makeup. This piece about integrity made me think of his brand: “integrity to materials requires a sense of respect for both the natural world and the human-made world.” This stuck out to me because he has made all of his makeup vegan, which is respect to the natural world, while also adapting to the makeup crazed culture of today. The cosmetic company is heavily branded with bright pink packaging, and very innovative colors in the makeup world. Jeffree Star, the owner, has really encompassed his brand by being very unique, very pink, and always experimenting with different colors in his own makeup. The branding by the packing and by Jeffree himself has led me to use makeup differently and more creatively.
Objectified
It was very interesting watching real interaction designers at work in “Objectified.” Prior to the movie, I never would have thought of furniture as a means of interaction, let alone something that takes intense design work. However, there was one comment made about a man who does not make uncomfortable seating, but very clearly made uncomfortable looking plastic chairs. Other than that main comment, I did not particularly disagree with any of the designers. They were extremely insightful on how everything needs to be functional, yet personal. Without a personal touch, the design becomes meaningless. I also found it intriguing how one of the designers had branded his own appearance. Usually when thinking of design work, a person will think of a designer’s personal style. This man made something totally different of that; once seeing him, the image of him will always remain in memory. The movie definitely opened my eyes to more of the possibilities of design. Design becomes a brand, a statement, a part of every day life, and eventually trash. As a beginning designer, I never once thought of my work one day ending up in a landfill, or crumpled up in a trash can to never be looked at again. It was mentioned that design should get better with age, and be able to handle wear, and I couldn’t agree more. I don’t want to see somebody just throw away something I worked my hardest on. Moving forward, that is something I plan to keep in mind and work on achieving. “Objectified” opened my eyes a bit more to the endless possibilities of design.
Review #2: Keep Portland Weird
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.
Reading: Interaction Design
Interaction design is creating products for the user. It is the way a person interacts with products, systems, and services. The design must speak to everyone, and be usable by all. It can be troublesome to find a happy balance between those with more advanced minds, versus those who are not as educated. For the design to be able to work, the designer must think of the conditions the product will be used in, collect data from possible users, test the product, and then market the product. Many changes occur in the process, which will help to strengthen the final product. However, it may take a very long time to reach the final stages. While going through the process, designers may work with engineers, marketers, and project developers. Interaction design is expanding on many platforms; there are now smart phones, tablets, laptops, virtual realities, and many more ways for a user to interact.
Reading Questions
- Apple’s website is extremely simple. It is laid out so that new and old users can easily navigate to whatever they need. Apple has it set up so that you can find the Mac that is best suited for you, and from there, they have a ‘support’ tab to answer other questions. The tab shows commonly asked questions, and also lets you search for any other questions you might have.
- Facebook uses content inventory to know what to show you on your wall. It acquires a list of your friends, and updates your wall based on that list. If Facebook didn’t keep that inventory, it wouldn’t know what to post to your wall, because it doesn’t have any of your personal data. To sign-up for Facebook, you must list your first and last name, your email, and a few interests. From there, it has your content to go though, and can find ads and people for you to be friends with.
- Organic, sequential, hierarchical, and matrix are four architectural approaches to information structure. Forever21.com is an example of a hierarchical website; it has base categories, which are split down into more specific categories when scrolled over. Amazon.com is mostly used as an organic website; one thing is searched for, and many options are pulled from many places, without much consistency. Wikipedia operates as a matrix website; it leads you to other, pretty random, places after finding the one page you originally searched for. Instagram is a sequential website; it shows you posts in order of the time they were posted.
- The Huffington Post home page is 100% navigation, but its article page is about 25% content, and 75% navigation. Google’s homepage and search page are both 100% navigation. Wikipedia’s home page is 97% navigation and 3% content (if you could the name, small description, and image), and its search page is split about 50/50, with links shown all throughout the given article. EST’s homepage is 100% navigation, even though it shows you things you may like, they are all links; once you click on a pace, it splits about 50/50 between navigation and content.
- Landor.com clearly focuses on color and type. I was very surprised when I opened the page, and saw that it was mainly yellow with white type. As I scrolled through, I noticed all the headlines and text before the images. They used a huge san serif font, and even though it was white on a yellow background, it was super easy to read. The website had a very innovative look to it.
Review #1 Forever21
I work in-store at Forever21, so I don’t do much online shopping there. I was super curious to see if it was easy to search for an item and find it quickly, because that is often very difficult to do in-store. Instructions said to search for something I was interested in, so I chose high-waisted jeans. Instead of going to women, bottoms, then trying to figure out if they were listed under jeans or denim, I went to the search bar, and started typing in ‘high,’ and a drop-down showed up with multiple search possibilities. That made it extremely easy to find what I was looking for. Then, different prices and styles were listed with pictures. I chose one, added it to my bag, which was then displayed instantly. Then, it took me to the log-in, I logged in (using my previously saved information), then it showed me the jeans, my total, and a big red-orange ‘checkout’ button. However, I clicked on ‘checkout’ a few times, and it never took me to the checkout page. Up until this point, the site has been extremely easy to use, but now I want to completely give up on my order. It’s aggravating not being able to go to the payment page and actually buy the product. No matter how easy it was up until this point, I could very easily go find another website to purchase the jeans from. According to the reading, the user is supposed to think as little as possible, and the website should strive to be better than the competitors. However, I became extremely confused when I arrived at the cart, and was unable to check out. As the user, I completely abandoned the thought of going through with the purchase. And my mind went to thinking about a different online store I could go to for the same item. The poor functionality at the very end cost Forever21 the sale.