UXD Abroad | Blog @elkeuxd-blog - Tumblr Blog

Visual Representation

Unique Selling Points - outside the box, mixed medias, natural influences, cross cultural, motivated, sustainable thinking, big ideas.

Values/Strengths/Weaknesses

Coming from a more visually creative course in Australia to a more user-centered approach in design has allowed me to broaden my concepts and skills. I have strong values in sustainability and ethics and will usually incorporate these values into my designs. I hope in future work I will be able to continue this and even educate clients on how to be more sustainable in their processes.

I believe one of my strengths involves thinking outside of the box but at the same time this could be a weakness. In the image above I have deliberately placed my body outside of the circle to enforce this concept. Since coming to Amsterdam, I have realised that maybe it isn’t always the best thing to think outside of the box as many clients will want something that looks the same as everything else - to make the user experience simple and easy. This became apparent when creating the assessment for HCI & Seduction, as I truly took my design to a different level. I enjoyed this process, but also, reflecting on it, I believe I should have stuck to a more simple approach.

As I come from Australia, my designs have always been heavily influenced on my surroundings. Growing up in nature has created a unique appreciation for the outdoors. This influence has made me develop a particular style throughout all of my designs. Since coming to Amsterdam, I have tried to do new things and get out of that box.

I believe studying in two different countries is a strength of mine. It has allowed me to see different elements of design and has opened my eyes to a new world.

Another strength is my use of mixed media. During my studies back home, I have learnt typography, photography, illustration etc and outside of my studies I have begun my own lasercut jewellery label and worked with my hands to create ceramics and other creative projects. This has all come together now to create my unique style when designing digital media.

I am highly motivated to learn, and am always excited to start a new project. I love designing and believe this is definitely a strength. I usually begin with a big idea, and am now learning how to condense my big ideas to simplify the project.

HCI

This assessment was fun and super challenging. Learning new applications such as after effects was exciting. I am glad that I now know the super basics of using the application and am eager to learn more.

If I were to continue working on this I would teach myself more on timing interactions to create the flow perfect, as well as making the flow more eased and less linear.

I believe I have a good understanding of the seduction principles after this subject and think that with a little more time on this project, I could create a very seductive application.

As it was one of my personal goals to do more illustration this semester I used illustration in the application. Obviously, if this was real app, the design would not work at targetting lots of users. I did this to practise my skills in illustrator.

Seduction Design

I believe I have a good understanding of the seduction principles after this subject and think that with a little more time on this project, I could create a very seductive application.

For this assessment I decided to go crazy. I wanted to gamify my application completely and create a fun, childish vibe. I thought that because this was a seduction assessment, it was the perfect chance to do something like this.

I used seductive principles such as the humour effect and story to completely gamify my application.

I had fun creating these elements and illustrations however by the end I began to feel like I did something too out of the box and that the teachers probably didn’t quite understand what I was trying to achieve.

#seduction #uxd #illustration #aliens #space #spaceapp

BIG IA

I found this subject somewhat confusing as to how it really relates to everything that we have been learning within the minor, however I found it fun to do something a little bit different (not creating apps).

I think it would be nice to actually delve into this a little more, it seemed that the module was kind of short and our concepts weren’t at a point that could be properly developed.

#bigia #uxd

Cognitive Psychology

For cognitive psychology, I research Cialdini’s Principles of influence. This was the first time I had properly heard of these principles and found the research very interesting. Whilst studying the principles I found myself seeing them in action within every day life which was incredibly eye opening. It also has made me re-consider alot of my purchasing actions as I realise I may be doing it just because of these principles.

By researching cognitive psychology it is evident that social influence is employed in numerous ways throughout our daily lives. The various forms of influence can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing. By looking in depth at the varieties of influence: conformity, identification & idealisation it becomes clear that studying social influence is crucial for designing user experiences. Out of these three ideas, social compliance is the most effective influencer, as following the crowd and conforming to the ‘social norm’ rules all of our actions.

These ideas link directly to Cialdini’s ‘weapons of influence’ - Reciprocation, Authority, Commitment/Consistency, Liking & Social Proof. These weapons of influence should be studied and employed in marketing and when designing user experiences. Each of these weapons have rules and techniques that marketers and designers should abide to be successful in their influencing strategies and reach desired actions. It is important that these rules are used in ethical ways as many studies shown in this blog have brought light on the negative aspects that social influence has on users and society.

#cognitivepsychology cialdini weaponsofinfluence

User Experience

I found the course for user experience very useful in learning new ways of researching users.

Creating a cultural probe kit was a fun experience that I will definitely choose to implement into further research projects.

It was interesting for me to research users in Amsterdam, after having just moved to the city from Australia. I found that people have a much different view of sustainability here and was quite shocked to find that people actually don’t really care about their impact, or they think they do but won’t go out of their way to change their lifestyle in an environmental way.

some other things we found through the probe kit, generative session and additional research were:

For a greater postal system that considers user experience some important elements should be implemented:

- fast and efﬁcient services that are still environmentally friendly without extra costs.

- A gps tracker (that can be turned on and off) that tracks the user’s location when a parcel is due to be delivered.

- A friendly and personalised service/tone of voice to create an engaging experience with the user

- An option also for home delivery rather than just inner city delivery for when the user cannot carry the package with them.

- A concept similar to the automotive delivery could be put in place for users who frequently drive.

These things should be considered in the final assessment when developing the device for the customer and delivery driver.

#uxd research

I found aspects of this assessment difficult as I come from a Visual Design degree rather than ‘User Experience’. In the design process I found it difficult to stop myself from only considering the visual design and not focusing on the overall experience. I really tried to create something a little different from what you would usually see in an app, visually. I also tried to incorporate illustration as this is one of my X2 goals.

I have never prototyped an app before and found the process exciting. Because this was my first app prototype I found the workload for such a short amount of time somewhat overwhelming. However, I enjoyed the process and am looking forward to delving deeper into designing more applications with the knowledge of how to incorporate user experience.

Here you can see the dashboard which has everything you need at first use. My concept was that you move the bar around to view a brief outline of all your notifications.

#mdd uxd parcelapp

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ING SCANNER - Recently, I finally set up my ING card and app. Still, I am so happy with how easy it is to request money or pay for things with ideal. The scanner makes the entire system so much quicker. Australian banks have not yet adopted this and you are forced to manually type out all of your bank details every time, which is time consuming and also very easy to make mistakes.

Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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Pinterest - as a designer, I think pinterest is a wonderful tool to find inspiration. I love that it finds colours and shapes that are similar and groups them together. The site is so intelligent in knowing what images you like and what images are similar to the one you are looking at.

I love that you can quickly get lost and always continue scrolling by clicking one image, then scrolling from there, clicking one image, then keep scrolling. This is the only time I enjoy being lost in a site - I think it is a feature that is great for pinterest, because it is the kind of activity one wants to do when they really want to get inspired. This would not work in many other websites.

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the usability within the metro for taking bikes on. when there is a crowd it is almost impossible to take your bike onto the metro. the lifts are incredibly slow - using a ramped escalator instead of the stairs could make it easier to actually access the metro in the first place.

You cannot turn your bike around once you are in the metro and you quickly get stuck, especially when it is crowded.

there are carriages that only allow for one bike, but it is impossible to know before you board the metro if there is another bike already in that carriage.

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Google maps - google maps has quite a few features that I find great. It basically puts everything you need into a few small steps.

features I like

- that you can save locations so when you are in a rush it is really easy to find them aka just type in home

- that you can add stops onto your trip and add in things like ‘albert heijn’ and the application will find the most convenient one to go to on the way to your desired location.

- that the location thing shines a light in the direction your phone is pointing so you can quickly work out which direction you need to head in

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Splitwise - splitwise is an application for sharing expenses, a really good concept for sharehouses and group trips. The application itself seems quite childish and not planned out very well.

There is a confusing structure of things to fill in - so much space on the screen wasted. The calendar and group section looks like it is part of the keyboard so I do not even notice it.

The application’s dashboard feed seems very unnecessary. I feel that this application could be simplified and the elements within the application more clear.

Another piece of beautiful Swifty app. I'm so lucky to have a great client with awesome ideas! We made this fun animation to delight our users. Hope you'll like it too! (literally like it, y'kno...

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I love how this application creates a ‘fun’ vibe by adding animation to the scroll. This is a nice, enjoyable delighter.

LEARNING GOALS - PROGRESS

In the past weeks I have played with some very simple illustrations. I have just been sketching and not creating properly finished works as you can see in the posts below - the illustrations are quite messy and unfinished.

In my MDD assessment I addressed my second learning goal of learning a new prototyping software - this was Adobe Experience Design. I found the program very easy to use however also very simple. Basically all you can achieve is going from one screen to the next. There is no way to add in animations or make the application really look like it ‘comes to life’.

My third goal was to implement study plans, focus and delve into research. As hard as I tried to focus on my readings and study, I still found the exam for User Experience very difficult. For the coming modules I will set more time aside for study and take many more notes.

LEARNING GOALS - ILLUSTRATION

Here are some examples of illustrations I have created for my first learning goal. I decided to document Australian Native flowers as I was missing home. I then chose one of the sketches to make a pattern that I may use in a future project.

#australianflowers

LEARNING GOALS - ILLUSTRATION

In my application for the MDD assessment I decided to incorporate illustration into the design. Although this was not necessary because we were being assessed on the user flow, I thought I would have a play with illustration as it is one of my learning goals.

Here is one of the illustrations I created in the app as a background to the ‘Household Members Page’.

#illustration amsterdam

LEARNING GOALS - PROGRESS

As part of my first learning goal, I stated that I wish to work on my illustration skills. I chose to use illustration to show my concept within the MDD assessment. Here I played with creating 3D objects and textures in illustrator to show my future device concept - a hologram and voice interactive device.

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