Charlotte Brown

[csa-brown]

Promotional website

The final step for my digital product was to create a promotional website to promote the app to users.

On my site I ensured to show of the apps main features which would draw users in and really sell my app to them , I also have included pricing options on my site. 

The site enables users to download the app from the apple app store and android app store , it also enables users to contact the company.

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Link to view Equiiplanner prototype

https://www.figma.com/proto/3sOMeCIS7xInoRyPHXrphS/Equiiplanner?node-id=34%3A16&scaling=min-zoom&page-id=0%3A1&starting-point-node-id=32%3A2

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What is Equiiplanner + Pricing.

As previously explained , Equiiplanner is an app for registered competitors to enter competitions in their local region online. It removes the need for submitting their ticket on the morning of a competition and makes life easier for the competitor and those running the show office. 

Users use their registered number that they are registered with DI/EI/SJI to sign in and their password that they use with these organisations. As the aim with this digital product is to make revenue from it I have created a monthly and annual subscription price. Users can choose to pay £2.99 a month or , £30.00 a year for use of the app. 

The idea is to entice users to pay annually as ultimately in the long run it will save them money. 

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A change of direction

After much deliberation . I decided to move in a different direction with my digital product ideas.

I have decided to move forward with creating an app which users can use to find local registered shows in their region. They will use their registration number and password to log into the app , they will then be able to select a local show and place their entry online.

I believe this app is a great concept as it eliminates the needs for putting your ticket in. At registered horse shows , competitors must submit their ticket which included their horses name and passport details and their current number of points , half an hour before the start of their class. For riders who only have one ride this isn’t really an issue , but for riders with multiple rides across different arenas and classes this can be a huge issue and cause real amounts of pressure.

An online entry service would enable uses to enter online and electronically submit their “ticket” the night before the show. This would make show days much less stressful for amateurs and professionals alike. 

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Developing my brand - Colour scheme

Next on my list was to choose a suitable colour scheme for my app , I wanted to choose something neutral that worked for everyone. I decided to take a look at the adobe colour wheel and pick out a few different colours that caught my eye. 

I sorted through the different colours to see which colours worked best together and these are the different colours that I decided on. I will also use basic white and black throughout my app for fonts and stroke colours. Instead of using a lot of different colours I’m keeping with these two and will be playing around with opacity. This keeps everything neat and together and avoids any harsh colour clashing. 

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Developing my Brand - Logo

The next step before beginning to create my app is to develop my brand ideas. I started out with some name ideas for my app. Initially I was going to go with EquiiBook , but I decided Equiiplanner was a more suitable name for my app. 

I toyed with a few different ideas for what way I could make this into a logo , but I knew I wanted to keep things simple. I started on paper and drew up a few different Ideas but finally I landed on this as my logo. I chose Hiragino Maru Gothic ProN as my font , I honestly fell in love with this font as I really find rounded fonts very easy on the eye. 

[csa-brown]

A Change of direction

After much deliberation . I decided to move in a different direction with my digital product ideas. 

I have decided to move forward with creating an app which users can use to find local registered shows in their region. They will use their registration number and password to log into the app , they will then be able to select a local show and place their entry online.

I believe this app is a great concept as it eliminates the needs for putting your ticket in. At registered horse shows , competitors must submit their ticket which included their horses name and passport details and their current number of points , half an hour before the start of their class. For riders who only have one ride this isn’t really an issue , but for riders with multiple rides across different arenas and classes this can be a huge issue and cause real amounts of pressure.

An online entry service would enable uses to enter online and electronically submit their “ticket” the night before the show. 

[csa-brown]

Immersive Experiences

Narrative is one of the most important parts of designing an immersive experience. It draws the user into a brand-new world and takes them on a journey through a complete rich experience related to the content of the story. This is not easy to do, however, it’s good to look at different people that have carried this out and made full use of an immersive experience to their advantage. 

Take a look at Josh Worth’s horizontal scroller ‘If the moon were only 1 pixel’ which takes the concept of having the moon be a single pixel in size and accurately calculate the correct size and distance between planets in our solar system with this frame of measurement in mind. I personally think it’s a great site as it drew my attention in instantly and made me want to keep scrolling through. This is because Josh has kept the art direction of his site subtle to not let anything overpower the concept and content. It immerses the user instantly as the complete black colour of the site makes you think of the black openness of space and how vast and empty it really is. The entire site stays consistent from what it offers, simple but super effective.

Another example to look at is the Big Apple Hotdogs website. The website focuses on advertising their brand of hotdogs, but they carry it out in such a cute and interesting way. They have a very unique scrolling technique which instantly immerses you as each hot dog character connects with one another each time you scroll into a new section. It keeps the user interested and fully engaged which ultimately gets them interested in the product. If each section didn’t carry this out, then I don’t think it would be as fully immersive to keep the user fully captivated. Another good thing they do to immerse you in is create these cute little characters in the forms of hotdogs with each one having their own style and personality that fits each different type of hotdog they are selling. This not only ties with the brand but keeps the user interested as each part of info about each hotdog is accompanied with its own style of character.

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Inspiration

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Narrative Website part 1 

For my Heroes and Villans website I decided to go with a simplistic black and white theme as I feel it was best suited to the mysterious atmosphere I wanted to create for my audience. 

I chose to draw my characters in a simplistic line drawing style as so they would appear as Sillhouettes. Usually for my designs I would use Adobe Illustrator but I decided to switch back to an old friend of mine Affinity photo , overall I found Affinity much easier to use than adobe , but i did miss a lot of the features that adobe has to offer.

I built my narrative website using webflow , and if you remember previously I used webflow to create my portfolio site. This time round I found Webflow much easier to use. 

The fonts I used were Oswald for my Nav bar , newsreader for my main headings and Lato for my main bulk of text. I didn’t feel the need to use more fonts as I feel that too many different fonts can begin to look messy. 

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Individual vectors I created for my Heroes and Villians website.

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Some of the vectors I created for my Heroes and Villians webiste.

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The double Diamond ( Design Council)

What is the Double Diamond?

The Double Diamond is a visual representation of the design and innovation process. It is a simple way to describe the steps taken in any design and innovation project , irrespective of methods and tools used.

Part of Design Councils reason for creating the double diamond was because models of design process were not widely shared so they created it to address the lack of visibility.

The double diamond is today used and referenced world wide.

Richard Eisermann inherited a multi-disciplinary design and innovation team from his predecessor Clive Grinyer. The team included Anna White, Chris Vanstone, Gill Wildman, Jennie Winhall and Jonathan Ball.

Jonathon Ball who is an independent strategist on the Design and innovation team recalls how everything got started. He stated “ As Richard got his feet under the table, he was excited to see the new work at Design Council and the breadth of challenges that were being addressed. He realised that Design Council talked about process –  the design process – but wasn't explicit about how this process was defined.”

Richard Believed that design council needed a way that was consistent in telling a process story. At a team meeting Richard expressed his curiosity as to how the design council might define design process and the methods that it could use at different stages of the process. Richard then challenged the rest of the team to answer that question.

The ambitious of the team was to create something that could be applied in any field , to create a model that design council could use with any one of their clients.

Richard recalled “Dave Duncanson, an engineer at IDEO, talked to me about the product development process as being like the classic diamond-shaped kite, with a tail composed of progressively smaller diamonds.  So the double diamond shape was definitely already present at IDEO in the late 90s, although it may not have been called such.”

Richard’s next encounter with this diamond shape was at Whirlpool. “We did an extensive innovation programme with business guru Gary Hamel. Gary used the diamond as a way of framing innovation. He even called it the Double Diamond. But the names of the four steps were different.”

“The team put in the work trying to define design, process, methods, etc. What we did with the Double Diamond was codify it, rename the steps and popularise it. It was important work, but we were certainly standing on the shoulders of giants”

The team came up with a simplified way to describe any design and innovation process. It is based on four distinct phases that the team names discover , define , develop and deliver.

Discover - The process starts by questioning the challenge and quickly leads to research to identify user needs.

Define - The second phase is to make sense of the findings, understanding how user needs and the problem align. The result is to create a design brief which clearly defines the challenge based on these insights.

Develop - The third phase concentrates on developing, testing and refining multiple potential solutions.

Deliver - The final phase involves selecting a single solution that works and preparing it for launch.

“As a model for the design process, I thought it was a neat representation, but I have to say that at the time, apart from presenting it in an almost academic way, I couldn't get my head around using it in practice. I found I had to rehearse the way I told the Double Diamond story. Once I was comfortable with it, it became the starting point for any design-orientated conversation, for positioning design in a broader context, discussing a specific design project, or as the process itself.”

Jonathan Bell

The Double Diamond Today.

The double diamond still remains at he heart of design councils work.

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IXD303 Week 1 Lecture notes

Week 1 Notes:

What is user experience ?

Wikipedia defines user experience as….

“User experience includes all the users emotions , beliefs , preferences , perceptions , physical and psychological responses , behaviours and accomplishments that occur before during and after the use of a product system or service. “

In my own words I would describe user experience as how the user feels about using a digital product or service. For example , is it easy or difficult for them to use ?

Users who may be using my product spend a lot of there time using other products therefore they would rather my product works in a similar way to others they have used.

All users expectations have been built around one familiar product that they continuously use therefore they will uphold these expectations with any other similar products that they use.

By researching other existing products I can create superior user experiences where the users can actually focus on the purpose of the product rather than having to learn how to use it.

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Links to projects

Elements: https://www.figma.com/file/rXhJw60Pv9FDMehyGtfSdU/Elemental?node-id=0%3A1

Portfolio: https://charlotte-browns-stupendous-project.webflow.io/

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Elemental Sketches

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Final Website

https://charlotte-browns-stupendous-project.webflow.io/