Screen Concepts
Due to the complex function of the app, I don’t want to over-complicate the visual design. The visual design should aid the user in their understanding of the app, as opposed to being a completely new system that they must understand in order to understand the function. In saying this, the design still needs to be fun and friendly to use - it shouldn’t be dreary or boring.
Unfortunately concept 1 is pretty boring. I was focussing on making the differences between UI elements clear (selected/unselected icons and buttons) but there’s too much contrast to make an appealing design. There’s also no variation within the typography, which creates confusion when seen in the labels of all the icons.
Concept 2 was a direct challenge to concept 1. The blue background definitely makes the screen more striking and interesting, but it meant that the other blue colours were less contrasting against it, so I tried using only white. However, this was also a challenge in contrast, as there was a limited amount of white tints I could use which meant that the difference between selected and unselected icons was fairly unnoticeable.
Concept 3 was an attempt to make the app more interesting, to give it a personality. Using Alfie in the set up screens makes them a bit more interesting, and is also a way to add a bit more explanation about what’s happening in a way that isn’t boring to read. I’m also trying to make sure that the people/rooms navbar stands out so that people are aware of where the navigation is for those pages, but in this concept it’s not really managing it. The dark selected colours are almost making it stand out but the uniform background colour isn’t so there’s a bit of discord in there.
I tested these concepts on a couple of people and they agreed that concept 1 was boring, so my developments from here on will be experimenting with the best parts of concepts 2 and 3.