reflection diary: maia

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

15.10.2015

today we didn’t go to class in the morning because we all had a 1 oclock submission for our information visualisation paper which we had ato create and print a book. but this was fine with all of us, as we thought it was important to focus on our first hand in, so that we can once handed n go back and finish off all the loose ends for tomorrow presentation.

because i finished with the 4 feature videos and editing the voice over i started making the dossier for us as dayna was still working on the landing page video of the website and hollie was still working on the video promo.. once the other two girls finished we all put our heads together to finish off the dossier and write what needed to go on there, and then started designing it. once we all finished this we went home to have some very wel deserved zzzZZZZZZzz and get ready for tomorrow spresentation which we are hoping to present the 4 feautre video, the landing page website video, andna bit of the ad promo video.

#finished

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

13.10.2015

okay so we met up again tonight to really try finish everything off before friday. and we are planning to meet up again on thursday night after our ISTD hand ins to carry on with the dossier and finish it off. i recorded my own voice for the voice over on all the 4 feauture videos, and now its just a matter of matching up my voice to the interactions i made on the video, s that they fit together nicely. we only have 5 minutes to present, so i made the video not exceed 3 minutes ideally along with my voice. so osme bits may sound a bit hurried but its better to have a bit of a fast talk pace rather than a broring and long drowning out voice. i had to go and lock myself in one of the rpesentation rooms so that i can make my voice the only thing that is being recorded and to make sure its nice clean and crisp.

it was a bit hard to try and get the same kind of voice throughout the videos and making my voice sound the same. it also makes me more comfortable that i created the script as well to go with all the 4 feature videos as that it sounds all like something i would say so it makes it easier to keep going with recording my own voice.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

10.10.2015

today is saturday so we met up again this time from 12-6. we decided that we want to video one of the promo videos to show how the app is actually used within a sibling relationship. the idea behind this is that there will be a series of videos that will all show case different relationships  and how each sibling relationship uses the app differently. this is to make sure that we target our audience in the right way, by showcasing that are app is adaptable to whatever your sibling situation is. After we recorded tom and justin having a conversation on our app it was my task to keep going with the 4 feature videos. i really want to finish this tonight so that we can move on,  and that i can record my voice over tomorrow .

there is still a lot of work to do, but im sure we will get it done, we are all working really hard but are all really stressed out with our ISTD project to as we all hope we can submit and be selected to send our projects through to the ISTD submission process. so we have a lot going on in our heads, but it will all be worth it once its done!  #hustle

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

9.10.2015

today we just sat down and got to do a a to do list all together because we only have one more week left. and we have so far created a lot of things, so now its just a matter of starting to put them together and synthesises them across and make sure everyone is happy with what everyone created!

as you can see from the list above, my first task was to finish off the presentation video of the 4 features which basically shows the entire app and how it fits with our 4 features. this has been a very BIG part of the project for me as it has taken me 14 hours to just create two of the 4 videos. but i think im slowly getting better at it so im hoping i can get the rest done today, so that tomorrow when we meet up i can record the voice over and then put it in the videos, and move everything around all the animation so that they fit my voice.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

8.10.2015

Today we just carried on with everything during class time, and then we met again after class today as we are meeting thursdays now too to keep up with the workload.

i spent my time working on this gifting animation of the gift opening, and this was for the videos but also for the app for when the gift is sent. this is after we decided that we need an icon for each of the statements and features we have for our app. - share the love - spin a yarn - have a laugh - stay in the loop so i started making some sketches of what i could make into an icon, and this brainstorm just helped me to understand what an icon represents, and what is a good icon that comes across at the same thing for all of these. So i spent the rest of the night coming up with these icons so that we can use them throughout the posters, stickers, and everything else.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

3.10.2015

we all met up again today from 1-6. we got SO MUCH WORK DONE! woop woop, was really happy with how everyone worked and collaborated with each other and we just umped through work. i think we are working really well as a team and we just need to keep going.  i started actually making the videos today with some quotes that we got off the survey, the reason i wanted to do this is to make these videos really personal and believable, and there is nothing better than to relate to someone on a quote that was actually said by someone experiencing the same thing as they are...

at the end of the day we all printed or showed what we have come up with to each other to get final feedback and carry on! :D

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

2.10.2015

last night we met up and carried out going through our experience maps and user interactions, this helped us today with what we were focusing on which was for me creating video ad concepts and the promotional ideas behind it. hollie carried on with designing the app and dayna started off with the stickers and posters. i think we’re working really well as a team and we’re all coming up with things which are very cohesive and im happy about that because that was one of my biggest worries is that we will come up with things that don’t quite match. but because we did the branding together i think this really helped all of us get into the set of mind to create different things but with the same visual system.

we started off class with going over the dossier again which was i think a bit of a waste of time since this is probably the 4th time we have been over this, and we always get shown the same ones over and over again. i think we are all big enough kids to understand what a dossier is, and if we have any questions we can always look on stream or ask our lecturers...

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

1.10.2015

INTERIM PRESENTATION! I set up my laptop today to show the flow of the invison mocks ups we have been working on from our wireframing, i also made a quick a3 page of what our app was about to bullet point some features out and layed out a piece of a3 page to try and get some feedback form the rest of the class! People liked the idea of having just one social app where it allowed you to communicate with your siblings on a private level. and i am happy that people saw the potential in this so that we can keep going with it.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

26.9.2015

its saturday again, so we met up again from 1-6 and we are just really pushing to get all these wireframing done so that we can put them on invision and actually do walkthroughs and interactions in between them to see how it works all together. all of us had specific features that we wanted to work on and push to finish by the end of today in terms of wireframing. i think its been working really well between all of us because we are all wireframing its helpful to bounce ideas off one another and just keep doing our thing.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

25.9.2015

Today we started off with a lecture that talked about the situation of poor families and the cycle that they live with every day and every week. this was really heartbreaking to see the constant cycle that these families have to go through. When we got back into the studio class we were made to do a quick 30 min exercise to come up with a solution to the problem. because dayna and hollie didn’t come to the lecture i had to fill them in on what they talked about throughout the what this cycle map that they gave us actually meant and what we were supposed to do for the next 30 min.

We came up with a couple of different ideas, but what we presented to class at the end was the idea that:

creating a programme in which the students purchase items from the school lunch menu, and the school matches the item, then giving them to a child in need.

I thought it was good to start off the class as it made us do a quick respond to a brief situation of the issue and solution.

i carried on prorotyping the gifting feature from yesterday and really pushed to have a finished design by the end of class so that we can keep testing these out as we go. i think at this stage we are all carrying out with wireframing different features each so that we can get most of the app done all together.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

24.9.2015

Today we met up after class to really suss out what we are wanting to achieve out of this project in terms of final outcomes. as today in class hollie and i talked to tristian and donald about what we were wanting to try and do, and they both thought that the book idea might not be targeted at the right audience because its more of a physical item which 18-25 users might not be interested to go out and buy some. so we potentially have the option of targeting the book to another age group or to get rid of the book completely and keep doing an app. so when we met up tonight we just talked through the options and realised that the book is probbaly not the best suited for our target audience. this sucks because i’ve already invested so much time in this! and there is no way that we can pull the content and actually use it anywhere else because it doesn’t apply anywhere else. but now we can focus on the app and what we really want to do with it. SO IT’S ALL ABOUT THE APP NOW! :D the first thing we did was brainstorm features of what we wanted the app to do. i came up with this gifting idea which would essentially allow you to gift a gift in real time to your sibling to remind them that you love them. these were the rest of the features we want our app to include:

now we are all just on wireframing, and i think we are going in the right direction! so im happy with how we are going.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

21.9.2015

Today we decided to meet up again to get through some more work done before class on thursday. we also wanted to really finish of the branding today as a team and carry on with our individual tasks too. So we started off with the branding first to get it out of the way, and this is something we all want to have a say in as it will apply to everything else that we do. Hollie found this typeface called UGO which has been really fab and fun, and we finally decided to go with these colours:

i think this is a great balance between the too girly and too boish- but still have a balance in between them. we also decided that to shorten our name from side by side we can just be “x” and the cross will represent the coming together of the two siblings in one place. we also applied this colourwave to the x and came up with these 4 to distinguish the different types of relationships taht our branding will suit:

i also kept writing the book content and i got a fair amount done, i got the first chapter/section done which explains the types of relationship you can have with your sibling and how it can be up and down but thats completely normal and how we should really appreciate our sibling. I also finished with two problems and the descriptions of them and how to solve them with some quick easy tips and tricks.

i’m really happy with where we are at this point as we are getting a lot done, and now that we have the branding out of the way i think we all have an understanding of what our branding is and who we are as “sidexside”

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

19.9.2015

today we met up as organised before from 1-6.

it was my task today to carry on with the book content as agreed previously. like i said before this has been taking me quite some time, just because i want the content to come across as funny and creative. the content needs to be educational though which is that hard balance again. i started off with renaming the chapters to be something funny throughout and to make it really consistent overall. simple things like this:

A chapter introducing them to sibling communication - The real reason siblings are made - Why do we have siblings?- Siblings: Combination of a  best friend and a punching bag - Apart from covering your ass, why you need to appreciate your sibling - Siblings… the only people who will pick on you for their own entertainment and beat up anyone else who tries.- The enemy you can’t live without- Cuz siblings are for life- You can't choose em, so learn to use emand then i started writing the content once i got all these “renamed” chapter ideas coming through. i think i’m doing a pretty good job, i sent some body copy over to my little sister and a couple of other people 18-25 to read over and see if they actually were engaged by the content and i got all positive feedback.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

18.9.2015

Today in class it was just hollie and me as dayna is still really sick. We sat down and kind of debrief to tristian that we decided to choose to make a book and an app. and he suggested that the app should really concentrate on the communication between two people rather than doing the whole oversharing on social media and trying to get everyone else opinion, to just really focus on the communication and the privacy of it.

I mocked up a feature within the app as i wireframed it last night and then did a mock up on sketch and chucked it on invision to test it out, and i got hollie to test it out and see if the visual flow was okay as well as the navigation through the app.

we also came up with a kick ass name today with dayna on the phone and we are called “side x side” which is said side by side, as we want our products to create a feeling of being side by side with your sibling even though you may not be there. we decided to do the branding all together and then seperate into different tasks so that we can move further quicker.

We all did some sketches for logo ideas and chose some colours for our branding. It’s hard to find the right balance between being too girly, boy-ish and then to not be fun at all. so we will probably keep refining these colours further as we go along. these are the initial colours we came up with:

i’m pretty happy with this but unsure about the yellow still. we just need to see now how we can adapt these colours to the rest of our branding and actual products to see if they work or not. really happy with how everything is going, we just really need to start to produce some work since other teams have already started and i feel like we’re falling a bit behind. but i think meeting up tomorrow will help loads as well.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

17.9.2015

Now dayna is sick.. so she couldn’t make it to class. something is definitely going around in the group haha i just hope to not get sick again myself. So it was just me and hollie today in class and we started off with a brainstorm of al the features we could have in our app, and the chapters we wanted to be within the book and the style of the content we wanted to write it in as we are targeting 18-25 so we want to make it a fun read.

I have started to write the book chapters now and the other two are wireframing the app!

Writing the book is a bit difficult since i want to make it really fun for whoever is reading it but still actually help with any sibling issues that may arise, but i think so far so good with what i’ve written and the girls like it!

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

15.9.2015

We got so much done tonight! so happy with how far we have gotten in one day and just a  few hours of meeting up outside of class.

We did that brainstorm of where our project and idea fits into the five well being categories and seeing if there was an aspect we could cover for each, and if there wasn’t that’s okay but we needed to focus on trying to cover more than one. we realised that our project does fit into all 5 in some way or another.

We then started to tarted break down who our target audience is into 3 age brackets: 8-14, 14-18, and 18,-25. we decided that the best age group to look into further would be the 18-25 and that’s because these people are at the stage of their lives where they might not be living with their siblings and then facilitating communication in that age gap is something that needs to be looked into further as there is nothing out there currently that exists. we also think that for the brief we have created we could get maximum impact in this age group.

We also tabled up their demographic, psychographics, attitudes etc to try and get an even deeper understanding on who our user is and what they do. this has helped us to understand a bit more about their day to day life situation and what would best be suited for them.  because of this brainstorm and talk through with our group we decided that it would be best to design an app that would help facilitate conversation in between siblings. ewe will also design an education book that would help the reader and user solve common issues amongt siblings and how to resolve them in a manner that may not be too serious. we want to make all our design colateral really fun and exciting. the app and book will hopefully interlink with each other and parts of the book will unlock parts of the app. therefore the user is encouraged to get both.

we also decided on these 4 key words that wil inform the rest of our visual aesthetic.

[reflectiondiary-maia-blog]

13.9.2015

SUNDAY FUNDAY. so today we decided to meet up with the entire team to get some work done before class this week. We also decided to schedule/pencil in a time every week to start meeting up, this was going to make things easier to organise our lives around since we all have other bits and pieces outside of uni and commitments we need to meet. So we decided to meet up on Tuesday nights every week as well Saturdays from 1-6. Now that we sorted that out and which times we are going to meet to keep getting as much work done. I filled the team on the whole kit situation and how it didn’t work. they had suspicions about it not working either for those situations when siblings aren’t together.  So we went back to the drawing board and decided that an app would be an appropriate platform to explore further especially with those sibling relationships that the reason there is a lack of communication is because of that distance factor. We are also meeting again this tuesday at the library to keep pumping through some work and i feel good about this because it means that we have to get things done before thursday!