Week 13: Final

Exploring Culture is a community of people interested in learning and sharing their own cultures with others. Set up to be all user input, this site allow users to connect one-on-one or simply to explore and view what others have shared. This isn't quite the final since there are some changes I would like to make, as well as documenting it correctly, but this was what was shown for the presentation final.

Internet is really slow so I'll upload my scribd and more images when I get home.

Week 12: Almost There

This past week was finalizing for the presentation for next week. Our draft presentation was due last Monday and I had the general gist of that done. Below are all the scenarios that I designed for. Most of which will change drastically for next Monday. The profile setup stayed the same somewhat. The second scenario also did. I also did another one that connects the users and start a live chat.

Of course there is still work and by Monday, these will be drastically different. The background and font color with change. I need to work on changing the title and not have it so repetitive. Some stuff about each step will also change to make sense. For now, this is on the right track, hopefully.

Week 11: More Scenarios

This past week, I've been really focusing on finishing up the scenarios. I've been having trouble keeping up with school work as well as other responsibilities so I'm a bit behind. I'm done with two scenarios and over the weekend and for Monday, I hope to get scenario three done. The first scenario with the profile setup was shown last week. Not much has changed about it so I'll just post the second scenario this time.

So this is after the user signs up and customizes their look (hence the very drastic change from the profile setup). This scenario follows the user to look at music, sort by countries, listen to a playlist and leave a comment.

Hover state:

Into music. The playlist on the side stays constant, so only the right hand side changes accordingly.

Starting to play the songs on the side:

Viewing just the playlist section:

Narrowing down playlist by countries or date.

Different viewing methods:

Hovering and selecting one to play:

Reading/leaving comments:

Week 10: Continuing On

For the past week, I've just been working on designing, not much else. I finished the first scenario of profile set up.

I changed the title to Expanding Culture. I like it more than last time but I'm not sure if I'm sold on it yet. I'm still working on the second scenario. The look and feel of that is drastically different since the user gets to customize the website. With that said, I haven't quite committed to something yet so that will have to happen soon. For now, I feel as if I will only have three scenarios but I really hope I will get four. One more week to go!

Week 9: Restarting

So this past weekend and week was slightly brutal due to how much time left is in this project and how far I am along with it. After I blogged last week, I finally presented my midterm presentation. A lot of it wasn't working so I scrapped it and basically started over, even rethinking how the system works. Therefore, it went from and iPad penpal set up to a hub community. Below is how the system would work:

• Create profile/information
• Input own posts under the five categories and tagging them
• Connect with others around the world through a match system (optional, don't need if don't want)
• Share imagery, context, and personal testimonies

That's just a little rundown, it would make more sense once you read the scenarios. So they are:

Scenario 1 – profile setup

1. Welcome screen allowing user to choose own language/flag
2. Prompted to sign up through a form or sign in (if on another’s computer) on top corner
3. Input all basic profile specs (like age, sex, name, email, username, password, etc.)
4. Next screen inputs customization like interested topics, countries, profile settings, and custom colors/background
5. Save

Scenario 2 – exploring music through categories (in particular, Korean music)

1. On site – click onto categories where it shows the five (food, music, traditions, social norms, and landmarks)
2. Clicks onto music – shows new playlists and popular playlists
3. Can sort by countries, popularity, newest, etc.
4. Clicks on sort by countries – selects S. Korea
5. Page shows ONE playlists that pulled music from all users
6. For each song – shows title, artist, user who shared it, and a link to go to the original playlist it was part of
7. User listens to several songs and really likes one, clicks onto that song to view more information (that the other user could’ve possibly input or not; could say things like song’s achievements in the country or background information about the artist (could be pulled from the internet instead of user input))
8. Post a comment saying “great choice! Here’s something you might like then”
9. Post and end

Scenario 3 – connects with one user from China to ask landmarks to visit and does further research on the site

1. On site – clicks onto “connect” link to be assigned to someone
2. Chooses options like countries, age range, and sex, and chooses option to view only online people or everyone including offline people
3. Connects with a Chinese girl with similar age range that is online (clicks connect) – assigned by the website based on users interest and ratings given by others that has connected with her)
4. Sees her posts and starts a chat by clicking an icon button near her profile image/name
5. Ask/talk about landmarks and where to go (girl suggests one near her town/ones she’s been to)
6. Finishes conversation and ends it – decides on researching more about the place
7. Goes to search bar and types in location
8. Search shows other’s posts with the name tagged
9. Users saves several post to her own collection under her categories

Scenario 4 - TBD

I want the fourth one to deal with food somehow, but now I don't know if I will have three or four scenarios (this is based on if I have time or not). I would like to have four but we shall see. After rethinking, I went ahead and started designing for the web. It's not much different from the iPad but it's totally different. I had the below design as a first draft. Obviously it isn't designed because I was more thinking about how it could function. The first screen users would see is this homepage. They can choose their language and where they are living. It also have the sign in option on top in case the users has already filled this out.

The next image is just to show hover and click stage. Hovering on the language highlights them and selecting it would make it bold. On the flags, hovering would result in an overlay with the name on top. When the user clicks on it, the site goes straight into the registration page.

Which is the image below. They would be prompted the fill out the following and that would take them to a page to fill out interests and so forth. The language and the flag is available on top, in case they ever want to change it again.

So my next step was to make things sexy. Below are the same screens but more designed.

The options are now drop down menus, which the image below shows. It also shows hover state of links like the sign in and the go. 

Once users select language and country, registration screen. The line of links at the bottom near the title changes accordingly. Like above it has the sign in link but below, it acts as an indicator on where the user is in signing up for this.

It might be small but I also changed the language to be more carefree and like the website is talking to the users, so things like "ok, cool. let's get you registered then..." The only thing I'm currently worried about is how links work, like hover states and static state. I also realized I forgot about having the language and country always present for them to change if wanted, but maybe that comes in when they are in the actual site.

So that's where I'm at in this week. I need to really start cracking now that I only have a week left and I feel like I have a form that I like and love and can work around. The title still might change because I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

Week 8: Designing Scenarios

Spring break was a good week away from designing. Since midterm, I've continued on with my design of my scenarios. I designed a second scenario (or rather half) before I decided that I wasn't feeling the design so much. Therefore, I changed it.

Below is the second scenario before I stopped to redesign the first one (which I will show below). It is suppose to be connecting with a penpal and viewing their music. So it starts off with the user on the penpal "tab" and having the option to explore first or commit to another user.

This particular user, Claire, wants to commit so she taps on "let's do it" and selects a country.

Under the countries are names that are matched with her. I added the sex in so that she knows first off but I've been thinking bout adding the age as well. I don't know how important it is.

This was when I stopped with this scenario and just looked at the design in general. I wasn't loving it since it seems really old and dark and boring. So I just scrapped the colors and restarted my first scenario of setting up the profile.

I like it a lot more since it looks "lighter" and not so dark. I'm not quite sold on the map yet but that could be worked on later. The colors I am liking a lot better but the blue seems off. I want a "pop" color, just not sure what it is yet.

As I keep designing, I keep encountering problems that still need to be solved, like how does the user customize what other see (i.e. music playlists, favorite foods, customs and traditions, etc.). I decided that it would be through "categories" but there should also be a button in the profile to set that up as well (which I will add later). Just these little things keep popping up so I will keep on adding them as I go along.

I wasn't in class for midterm presentation so I'm unsure what people think of my design right now so hopefully when I present, I will get good criticism back and be able to go full steam forward with my design. I've just been in this state where I don't want to continue on if it's just going to get changed. So I don't know, it's just been a bleh state to be in. There's only two more weeks of designing before animating/presentation making goes into production and I have four scenarios total, so a lot of designing and focusing will be happening.

Week 7: Midterm

It's already midterm! Below is my presentation for reviewing progress and where I am at.
DGP Midterm Presentation

Since last time, I've totally revised my formal aesthetics. I needed the imagery to reflect the concept, which my previous design did not show. I'm still trying to not brand it but it's getting a bit harder now since I'm further into the process. I finished creating the profile setup so my next step is to design the other three scenarios. They are a bit more extensive so I would like to get as much formally decided now than later, when it would be more back tracking to go back and change, but we shall see.

The presentation has a better general/in depth view of where I'm at and where I am going.

Week 6: Begin Designing

Weeks have been going by really quick. This week, I focused on designing my wireframes from last week.

At first, they were vertical but having the app be horizontal makes more sense, especially because it gives people more screen space and it feel more natural. It especially helps if they have a cover and they can stand the iPad up that way.

Design wise, I want to keep it quite simple so that the content users generate will not be overshadowed by the app itself. I'm trying not to brand it before designing it (which is hard especially if you want a color scheme or typefaces) but I'm trying anyways. I need to rethink the background so that it is more applicable to my content. I also should rethink the side navigation. It's not impossible but I need to think about people accidentally tapping it since it is closer to the hand than if it was on the bottom.

Next week is midterm presentation. I would love to have at least the "profile set up" scenario done as well as another scenario as to how the app functions. The rest will just be wireframes or verbally expressed.

Week 5: Scenarios

Oh my oh my oh my. Where to even start?! The question didn't change this week (thankfully) but I've been starting to conceptually think about how this app works and began wireframing.

But let's recap first,  I've defined many things, most of which are just lists:

Question: How can Graphic Design enhance cultural discovery through interactions between users from around the world?

How matches are made: profile similarities; being able to talk via chat or emails

Define culture: architecture, art, traditions, history, food, music, social norms, location, etc.

Focus: one country to USA through food, music, social norms, location, traditions

Focused country possibility: USA, Korea, Vietnam, China, Poland, France, and Brazil

Focused county: S. Korea

Wants: learn about new culture

Needs: personal connection; first hand stories of experience

Goals: feel comfortable and knowledgeable bout said country; be able to travel without feeling out of place; know where to go and what to do

Scenarios (assuming user is from US):

·      Wanting to learn about what’s hot in music

·      Wants to share stories regarding a certain/specific experience

·      Discover traditional/authentic foods

·      About to visit this country, where should I go/visit

·      Share/read authentic stories about towns/cities

·      How should I act when visiting

Setup:

1.     Users create profile; customize accordingly

2.     Input which countries interested in and will get a list back of people interested in personal country

3.     Connect and share

4.     Categories:

·      Food

·      Music

·      Social norms

·      Location (special landmarks, architecture, etc.)

·      Tradition (holidays and how they are celebrated)

5.     Share/connect/answer prompted questions based on partner’s interest

For the scenarios, I've limited it down to just 3, trying to encompass the app as a whole as much as possible. I want to keep them as personal as possible, like the one on one interaction between users. So the set up is basically between 2 people, one from USA and one from South Korea. Below are the 3 scenarios sketched out, just basic form, kind of messy. I've realized that if I get really into it, my design for it will probably just fill in the blocks, so I kept it pretty loose so that I don't get stuck in one shape.

The first scenario is basically the user from USA signing up, setting their profile (the app will remember them next time they use it so they wouldn't have to sign in every single time), searching for a pen pal to connect with. The app would match people up according to interests and their list of interested countries. They can do multiple things once they are partnered up such as live chat, starting a conversation, and see each other's profile. The first scenario is tied into listening to music as well, but I am going to separate that into another scenario. The user basically can view the other's playlist, see why that was chosen, but they could also suggest music. The second scenario is basically live chatting and sharing food and that would lead to a recipe. Last scenario is exploring other countries but viewing just an overview of the country, not getting in depth with another user or anything.

Like I said, I have the basic ideas down but nothing like super wireframed simply because I will feel constraint. My schedule for next week says digital wireframes but I think I'm just going to start designing and going from there, again, constraint ideas.

Things to think about for next week: language barriers (how will things be translated) and is an app form appropriate for the content/users?