Week 3: About Face

About Face Chp. 4 & Chp. 20

Chp. 4

Creating a story or narrative, will help create a superior design that works the most effectively, and looks the best. With all the research that you’ve gathered previously, the designer can create multiple personas, and what journey they may take on the platform. Also there are different ways in which the narrative can be used. One way is the journey a person would take going through the website or platform. Practically how the flow through different pages and tasks work for the individual. And with that idea, one can fully cater their designs to create an effective and clean journey. Another way in which a narrative can be used is to show a one pop up effect, like if someone needs to add in specific information that does not involve going through the flow of the entire website. The designer would need to think, what is the easiest way to have this pop up that would be the most effective for the individual that makes sense. So to effectively do these narratives, one needs to create scenarios of the user, using the personas they previously created based off of their research on users and consumers. The personas are the necessary tool to creating effective scenarios that properly show how the targeted user would go about using the platform. Also things designers need to think about are what the users need to know about, in order to get their goals done. What sort of knowledge base does the user need, do we want it to be easy enough where the user does not feel dumb, but give them the info necessary in order to make the process simple.

The requirements definition process:

1. Create problem and vision statements

2. Explore/brainstorm

3. Identify persona expectations

4. Construct context scenarios

5. Identify design requirements

Chp. 20

The internet/web has grown into a huge and complex place for designers to build on, and it has become much more challenging. Primary Navigation is the top necessary tool that leads the user to all the main sections on the website. Most navigation bars are horizontal, and have sweet and simple titles, so that it is not congested. In order to have longer or more specific titles or pages, either a pop down menu shows up, or a left side menu is available. With these other menus, the designers can create lengthier titles and have more sections and noise. Additionally the designer can play with how those menus pop up, be it based on where the arrow/mouse hovers, or if by clicking on something. Quality Navigation is vital to a user having an easy and effective route through the website. If the website is not designed properly, the user can become frustrated with getting around and finding certain items. Though the search bar is there to help people specify what they want. Some users enjoy easily roaming through the site to view different options or items they might not have previously thought of. Overall designers need to think about the best way to organize main categories, the sections within those categories, any subcategories, and any filters; So that the page is not overwhelmed, difficult, or tiring for the user to go through. The designer should think of varying locations for menus to open, and what actions are appropriate and least annoying for the user to open those navs.