During the final crit session, a number of strengths and weaknesses were discussed regarding the final produced interface design. It was widely suggested that the purpose of the interface was strong and could be seen as fully functioning system within the real world which effectively solves the initial problem. Despite this, however, the overall design of the interface was deemed 'childish' which may not attract the desired target audience and therefore would affect the usage of the interface if this were placed in the real world. One of these elements was the rounded corners of each border. Although initially designed to reflect a friendlier nature which could put users at ease if they found themselves with no easy way to get to their desired destination, these were seen as 'too round' and did not necessarily work as a consistent element throughout the interface design. As an improvement it was suggested to square these border off more in order to convey a less childish, and more mature and professional quality. As a result, this would work best to target the desired audience being of an older generation, such as the elderly who may not have a smartphone to use apps such as Uber, but also who may rely predominantly on public transport for travelling. Similarly, the colour blue was initially chosen as the dominant colour throughout the interface due to it's calming qualities, but this too was seen as quite childish and perhaps should be improved on by making the colour scheme more minimalistic and neutral.
Despite this, it was considered that the rounded corners work well in terms of the taxi company options since this reflected the already familiar style of phones apps and would not have as much of a dramatic effect on the consistency of the interface if these were not developed on.
Although not the main element to focus on within this brief, the branding of the app was also discussed, which made use of a taxi illustration as a logo, Helvetica as the main typeface and a 'Fake Receipt' typeface which was used to reflect the digital aesthetics of train and flight departure boards. It was suggested that the global scale of this interface needed to be more carefully considered within this, for instance, would it be used within only the United Kingdom? If so the use of a yellow taxi as the logo conveyed an inaccurate message which linked more to American style taxis. This could be developed and improved on through the production of a pictogram image, which would also decrease the 'childish' nature of the interface suggested earlier.
Consistency was considered generally good, however there were some disagreements in terms of typeface choices, since the main body text was different from that used on the time feed board. These were initially going to be produced as separate boards and the difference in type was used to convey this separation, as well as adhering to the researched aesthetics of train and flight departure boards, and the practical communicative characteristics of Helvetica in use for the text found in the main section of the interface. Similarly, consistency between the logo and other features needed to be more carefully considered, for example in terms of the logo's circular border and the other square border used throughout the interface.
Since the interface is neither an app nor website in itself, the nature of this also meant that in the real design world this interface would also need to be produced in a responsive format, for instance conversion to a mobile device if it were an app. Developments in terms of layout, however, were experimented with through the initial design development stage of this brief and such responsive or portrait layouts were discarded due for reasons of functionality.
No comments:
Post a Comment