OUGD504 - Studio Brief 02 - Feedback Developments

Based on peer feedback from the final crit session, it was decided to develop my final interface design to see how these potential improvements would work for the interface. One piece of feedback suggested the the initial use of rounded border for text made the overall design of the interface look 'childish'. For this reason, developments made use of more squared borders in order to convey a more mature and professional design which would better target an older generation who would be more inclined to use this service.

In addition, it was suggested that the colour scheme also conveyed such a childish theme. Therefore to improve on this, more neutral colours were experimented with, such as grey and black, which made specific elements feel more professional, such as the keyboard. This development also reflected the style of keyboards typically found on android mobile and tablet devices, which gives the interface a sense of familiarity which could potentially help with it's ease of use. Additionally, this helps provide consistency with the integration of Google maps for the interactive map feature as part of the final interface design.

Continuing along the lines of consistency, one piece of feedback suggested that the typeface used for the time screen and that used for the rest of the information were too contrasting. Although one used initially to reflect the aesthetics of existing flight and train departure boards and the other to ensure accurate communication of information regarding journey bookings, these were experimented with in order to help provide consistency amongst them. For the first, I looked at integrating Helvetica Light into the time board. Due to the practical nature of this typeface this continued to work just as well for the time element of the interface in terms of clarity and communication of information, as well as ensuring more consistency throughout the final interface design. On the other hand, the more digitalised typeface known as 'fake receipt' was also experimented with as the predominant typeface for all other information, including the time screen. However, this did not work as well since it made the interface seem more 'robotic' and could potentially intimidate the older generation of users.

The main colour of the typeface, used in the start and end screens, and those which appear when not viewing the interactive map, was also toned down. Peer feedback suggested that the initial blue colour used for the final interface was perhaps slightly too bright and again, led back to the potentially childish theme. Toning down the colour meant showed more consistency with the more neutral colour scheme, and would potentially better enhance the effective communication of information on screen since this information does not get distracted by the bright colour.

Since this interface is neither an app or a website, in the real design world clients would expect to see a responsive version of this interface, for instance if it were eventually converted to mobile. Based on this, experimentation was done into how the interface would work in a portrait format. Through these developments, it was found that placing the time screen down the side of the interface would mean that a continuously column of information could be formed, allowing for better and more accurate communication, whereas when this was placed at the top of the screen, the information appeared more crowded and illegible. It was also found through these developments, that a responsive format would potentially better reflect the natural movements of the users, such as when scrolling through information feeds. This would therefore provide a more natural navigation process through the interface, which overall would enhance it's ease of use.