Week 14.0 Outside of Class: Completed Usability Tests Write-Up

Week 14 Day 1: Usability Tests Results & Laying Out the Write-Up

Week 13 Day 2: Case Study Critiques & Setting Up Usability Tests

Today we did four one-on-one critiques per person.  The critiques were handed in to our professor directly afterwards, so no word yet on how that went.

We also began our short term usability testing project, which ties directly into the projects we've been doing for the past two months or so.  After our professor presented a short lecture on kinds of usability tests, I made two, one for the Pier Hotel's current website on FiveSecondTest.com, and one for my revised wireframe on Chalkmark.

Week 13.0 Outside of Class: Final Case Study Documentation

Since Monday I've been very busy, plugging away at completing page layouts, write-ups, and any revisions to my graphics.  Here are my spreads for today's critiques.

The process was definitely rushed these past two days.  I hope to go back & fix a number of things: a more continuous narrative to tell a story, consistency within captions, more explanations, some subtle color underneath imagery with white backgrounds (to lessen the white on white), & overall better develop the case study.

Week 13 Day 1: Progress Critique & Revamped Persona

This weekend I was in New York, so I didn't have my pages complete for the 50% progress critique.  However, I was able to get some helpful words from what I did have.  Layout variations and typefaces were overall well-received.  I got mixed reactions on the amount of blues that I used.  With that comment, I decided it may be better to keep the monochromatic theme I had going, to keep it clean, rather than trying to incorporate the rather wild colors from the Pier Hotel's website and building.  I also got useful reminders of what to put on the title page and how to denote subsequent pages.

Today I finally completed the revise for my persona.  Major changes include the more detailed graph of how Gina finds her perfect hotel, as well as her offline & online activities.  Other than that, some aspects were slightly resized or moved to accomodate the additions.

I also began to set up more pages within the case study.  Needless to say, I have a lot of work ahead of me for Wednesday.

Title page for my case study document

Week 12 Day 2: Progress Critique and Further Exploration

Today in class I met with my professor to go over the progress of the case study elements so far.  I received plenty of useful input and even noticed some things I had previously overlooked.  To summarize...

• Even wireframes should be designed to match the personality of the site, through type, etc.
• Personal quote on the persona doesn't need to be so overtly connected to the business, rather a motto
• "Sample" search bars or drop downs for use in wireframes, instead of just boxes
• Be more specific on wireframes what the "featured content" or a specific image will be; a designer's got to know!
• Bottom navs have much of the same content as top navs, with maybe a few added elements; as compared to fat footers, which have columns of links
• Watch wording: "Guest Rooms" may be better understood as "Room Info," consult related sites
• Use content of landing pages to lead people to subsequent pages
• Don't forget page numbers, section names, & even publication title at the bottom/top of page
• Vary typography for title, headers, body, captions, etc.
• Charts can be made in Illustrator & that doc can be placed into InDesign

I've also been experimenting with more color schemes & researching more layouts for the full publication.

Week 12.0 Outside of Class: Beginning Case Study Layout

For the case study document I chose to keep it consistent with the color scheme I've maintained throughout most of the project.  I departed from the browns of the website as I felt it just didn't fit the feel of the Tampa Bay area.

The title page uses the light teal as the background and deep teal for text.  Pages with several images has a blurb on the side with the medium teal and caption for each picture.  "Full page" pictures have a primary caption underneath but also several call outs.