Week 5 Day 2: Editing

Today in class my group worked on refining our flowchart & overall poster.  I in particular worked on editing spelling, grammar, spacing, & any other visual flaws.  I then passed these notes on to my group members to correct on our file.

Meanwhile, the group also worked on plugging in my icons where they belonged.

Week 5.0 Outside of Class: More Icons

I had to miss class Monday due to a stomach bug, but my fellow group members filled me in on our critique.  One thing that was mentioned was the need for more icons to be used throughout the entire flowchart, so I worked on making a few more.

Week 4.5 Outside of Class: Further Revising & Expanding Icons

Week 4 Day 2: Exploring Typefaces

During class, I worked on exploring different typefaces to use in our flowchart--both for the title & for the body copy.  The group settled on Bevan for the title & Oswald Light for the body copy.

Week 4.0 Outside of Class: Further Tweaking

After some people called out the whistle during the group critique, I decided I could find a way to still use a hint of imagery while being user-friendly, describing actions through words.  Also, line colors were switched around, using the more bright & active orange for the path taken, & the deeper purple for [one of] the path[s] not taken.

Close-up of action box with small icon

Week 4 Day 1: Flowchart Critiques & Further Progress

Monday, the group brought all our sample flowcharts & illustrations together to solidify what our composite flowchart would look like.  For the scheme, we chose mine, though adding a few additional colors for when the flowchart gets complicated with alternate paths.  For illustrations, we chose Alannah's & will be changing the colors to fit the scheme.

Color scheme & numbers for our flowchart

Afterwards we performed group usability tests/critiques to get a good idea how understandable the flowchart is & if there are things in the design people are responding well or not so well to. 

Notes from our group critiques

Week 3.5 Outside of Class: Flowchart & Illustration Samples

After Wednesday's joint brainstorm, the group decided to to separate & each person create their own iterations of a sample flowchart based on our specific scenario & an illustration, complete with color scheme & line/arrow stylings.

Flowchart sample for the coin toss

Sample illustration of a quarterback (sans-head)

I decided on a orange & steel gray color scheme.  I felt it still could convey the energy of football without getting caught up in too dark or stereotypical colors.  The deeper violet came in as a nice complementary & not at all due to my allegiance to the Baltimore Ravens (insert sarcasm). 

I also attempted to incorporate some iconography into the flowchart to break up the monotonous text-flow-text pattern & introduce another sort of visual language with which to communicate these steps.

Week 3 Day 2: Finalizing Flowchart & Brainstorming Imagery

Wednesday we finalized (for the most part) the frame of our final project: how we want it layed out, what we want to include & leave out, & what we want visually represented. 

The general layout for our project

Brainstorming of what to include & what to be illustrated

We then broke up our next tasks among each other, deciding everyone would do one stylized flowchart example & one illustrated football player.  While doing research during class, I stumbled upon these flowcharts that I find to be effective & visually pleasing.  They all have a strong command of line variation, color scheme, illustrations, & visual/text balance.

Week 3.0 Outside of Class: Scenario & Layout Sketches

Individually, all of us in the group did a more finalized sketch for our scenario flowcharts, as well as a sketch for a possible layout for the entire game poster.

Up top is my sketch for the coin toss section of the flowchart, beginning with what else than a coin & branching out from the 50 yard mark in both the offensive & defensive directions.

Below that is my sketch for a possible template for the entire game poster.  The field is on the right side with a flow chart of the general gameplay within.   Also within are little info blurbs, I was thinking to give small details about players, etc.  To the left (well actually all across) are swim lanes I was thinking would be used to define flows for more specific plays.  The left side is also marked by a recurring clock/scoreboard.  Lastly, at the very bottom, beside the title, is the one-sentence description of the game.  It says...

Football is an American sport in which two opposing teams of 11 players each attempt to score touchdowns at the end of the 120 [100] yard field, either by running or passing the ball.

Week 3 Day 1: Connecting Flowcharts

Monday our group brought all our flowcharts together & brainstormed ways to connect them.  We settled on the sort of diagonal format that can be seen in the bottom photo.

Weekend of Design

This past weekend I attended 3 local design events--two here at the MU Design lab & one at Penn State Harrisburg.

Thursday I went to Stefan Sagmeister's lecture at Penn State Harrisburg.  He talked a lot less about his designs then I had expected, discussing mostly the psychology of happiness, leading up to a little plug about his film The Happy Film, which was largely filmed during his one year hiatus from his firm's work.  (His firm famously takes a yearlong hiatus once every seven years to avoid exhaustion.)  The film itself did include some nifty experimental typography for the titles.  You can check them out here.

Sagmeister did talk later a little into his designs, mostly his exhibit The Happy Show, which was exhibited in the area last year at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

But the main takeaway for me was his advice on remaining happy & unbored in design.  His eight key points included...

Thinking about ideas & content freely--with deadlines far away

Traveling to new places

Using a wide variety of tools & techniques

Working on projects that matter to you

Having things come back from the printer well done

Getting feedback from people who have seen your work

Designing a project that feels partly brand new & partly familiar

Working without interruption on a single project--losing yourself in it 

Friday our local Central PA AIGA president Joshua Buckwalter stopped by the MU design lab to give a talk on user experience design.  Buckwalter previously worked for Harrisburg design firm andCulture & now works as creative director for Elizabethtown's Inovāt.  I found his case studies to be very informative & telling of how much research goes into a good user experience.  I was surprised how much research & interviewing was actually done within the company--from description cards to a scale of formality--to ensure they got a website that accurately portrayed the company, followed by the usual wireframes, moodboards, & mock-ups.  Overall, Buckwalter's presentation was an interesting & practical extension of what was discussed in the precursor of this course, Intro to Experience & Interactive Design.


Saturday some of MU Design's recent alumni returned to the lab to talk about their post grad experiences & to give some advice to us still in school.  The alumni had lots of helpful tips on interviews, internships, networking, & finding the company that fits you.

Week 2 Outside of Class: Revised Scenario Flowchart

My flowchart was focused on the beginning of the game.  It takes the perspective of the visiting team (& therefore the deciders of the coin toss) & shows both paths of play--offense & defense.

Week 2 Day 2: Narrowing Terms & Scenario Flowchart

Today our group looked at our groupings of terms as a whole & further eliminated those we felt would be less important or too detailed for the project.  Those denoted with a question mark are ones we will decide on when we have further details on the project.

We then reviewed flowcharts as a way to represent process & then each made a flowchart for a specific scenario/process in football.  I was assigned the beginning of the game, the coin toss & the kick off.  

A large portion of my draft for "Starting the Game"

Week 2 Day 1: Experience Mapping Notes & Data Structuring

On Monday, we learned about the various ways to map information & processes for experience & web design.

Flowcharts represent a sequence of steps utilizing geometric shapes, arrows, & a reference key.

Task models describe the activities a user performs to reach their goal by showing both the steps needed & behavior adopted.

User journeys (or usability diagrams) also detail steps a user must go through to complete a task, but differ from task models by showing required interactions & paths and differ from sitemaps by showing specific routes through the site.

Site maps combine all the project documents & show the intended structure in either list or visual form.

Funnel diagrams show how many users  pass through a certain route on the site.

Afterwards, we got into our groups to continue our football project.  We went back to our initial word list & divided like words among each other, narrowing down to the most important terms.  I was responsible for the dimensions (time, space, etc.) of football.  The list follows...

100 x 53 yard field

Endzones

Four 15 minute quarters

12 minute halftime

15 minute overtime

40 second play clock

Week 1.5 Outside of Class: Further Research

I've been in contact with the MU football coach & will be meeting with him this week if more research is needed.  I was also able to see part of the Superbowl Sunday night, though am still at a loss when it comes to presenting the process in this project.  What probably helped me the most is the NFL's Beginner's Guide to Football Rule Book.

Week 1 Day 2: Groups & Research

Wednesday we were divided into groups to research our sport.  Alyssa, Alannah, LeAnne, Brittany, & I are doing our project on football.  Our group blog can be found here.  We started with a brainstorming list of words related to football, then played a computer game (Axis Football League) to research the process of football.  The game however probably confused me more than helped me learn.

Week 1.0 Outside of Class: Usability vs. UX

Between classes I read the article titled The Difference (& Relationship) between Usability & User Experience.  You can read it here too!

In short, the article explained that usability & user experience are often confused with each other.  To differentiate them, the author provided many several ways of defining the two terms, from technical definitions to metaphors.  The technical ISO definitions are as follows:

Usability:

Usability is concerned with the “effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments”

User Experience:

User experience is concerned with “all aspects of the user’s experience when interacting with the product, service, environment or facility”

But my favorite were the questions.  For usability, "Can the user accomplish their goal?" & for user experience, "Did the user have as delightful an experience as possible?"

Week 1 Day 1: Introduction to User Experience & Usability

After going over the syllabus & class info Monday, we watched a few video regarding user experience & usability.  The first was of Mark Hassenzahl.  He said that UX design products transcend their encasing & bring you more than the product.  He also suggested that the experience part is like storytelling.

The next video featured Jesse James Garrett, who spoke on the abstract nature of experience design; it is subjective, intangible, without medium.  It is meant to create engagement; human experience is the explicit outcome, but human engagement is the explicit goal.

Following these videos was a short powerpoint on usability, what it involves, & how it's measured.