OUGD504 - Studio Brief 02 - Evaluation

User interface design was a new area for me and so I approached this brief hoping to establish design skills and key assets in this discipline. This brief was an opportunity for me to strengthen my digital design skills and become more acquainted to digital design processes such as animation and interface design, and push my skills to the point of professionalism. As I am fairly new to this area it was important to polish my skills so that the final outcome would be professional enough to present.

I attended every session and my punctuality was more consistent, particularly at the start of the second semester. I found it difficult to manage my time over the Christmas break and so left some of the work a little last minute. The final part of the brief feels rushed and I feel that I could have done a better job had I planned my time more efficiently. However, I am pleased with the end result, particularly the application design which was created in Adobe XD which is a professional interface prototype designing application.

I have very limited skill in digital design, however, I related the problem to the brief to a personal problem and used my own experience to inform an innovative design. The finished application is as innovative as I could achieve using the software I was new to. The possibilities can be endless in application design, but it is important to keep with application trends, many of which involve animation.

In order to create a user experience that is going to be convenient and stress free, I put myself through the experience of existing ticket selling interfaces to understand what would make the experience stressful, frustrating or confusing for a user, but also to understand beneficial features. This informed the wireframing process which went through three stages of planning sketching and a final wireframe design before being placed into the final production. The aesthetic design was informed by a number of aspects related to the concept of tickets. For example, the colour scheme was derived from a selection of old fashioned colourful tickets. Other aspects of the design including typefaces choices were considered for their relation to tickets.

The final outcome is a ticket selling app that is catered to the user. It will make buying tickets to events quick, easy and stress free as well as providing such a broad range of tickets, it would be unnecessary to create an account with any other ticket selling service. The application also notifies the user on tickets that are being released which serves as an advertising platform for events. This will especially benefit more local smaller events that struggle to make enough ticket sales. User feedback was positive and it informed the design and helped the interface to successfully achieve this goal.

The design went through a positive development stage. A selection of colours were chosen from a variety, all of which were successful, but the colours that made the application stand out most were chosen. The font choice went through a long and informed process considering ticket fonts before choosing a more open font that formed the brand identity, the practically of the application developed with user feedback adding more features that would benefit the experience.

The design of the interface was informed by trends in current applications and created a stripped back interface with animations that made the overall design more polished and created an immersive experience. The design software used would be used by app developers and when in the design process, different screen sizes and different models of phones were considered. Attention into funding methods for the application took place as well as including already existing products that the user can sync with, such as Facebook, Spotify and Instagram.

The application design uses a grid layout, taken from the advice from ONLY, a professional interface and branding studio. Their advice was taken seriously and considered throughout the design process and enforced a professional design in the interface. The application symbols will be widely recognised which is a good design skill to have and will ensure the application’s success. It was my first time using these software’s, especially After Effects which I had no experience in, and my skills can be improved in this area.

The user feedback was positive, and similarly to the design for print, the design was informed by its content. It creates an immersive user experience that many feel is more successful than current ticket selling interfaces. The design is clear and easy to understand and follows a simple sign up process which is successful in ensuring the user has a tailored experience.

The presentation of the final application was tricky because the application could not be handed in as a physical download and functioning application. The brief instead asked for promotional content which was produced using Photoshop. A series of posters were created with a professional finish. A promotional video would have been more professional however, because of time management and my digital skills aren’t as strong as manual skills, I chose to produce promotional stills. These are finished to a professional standard but not as strong as the design for print as that is where most of my skills lie. Digital skills will definitely need to be pushed in the next following projects.

I fully enjoyed producing an application and user interface and hadn’t considered this as an area to pursue, however it can more than easily be involved in the area I am working towards in film and prop design. I enjoyed designing a functional application and creating an experience that was convenient for the user as I personally am a fan of simple living. Using Adobe XD was the most successful part of this process and my skills in this particular software excelled over the course of the brief. I enjoyed creating a user friendly experience and am always keen on finding solutions to difficult user experiences.

Although digital design is not my strongest area of practice, I am still massively impressed with the work I have produced and feel my skills developed dramatically over this process. I am looking forward to driving my skills further and polishing them with professionalism.