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“Interaction designers are very concerned with behavior: the way that products behave in response to the way that people behave.”

Mood board for Johnny Smith

As a class task I created a mood board for the following user persona.

Johnny Smith

John is a 75-year-old retired carpenter who still enjoys hikes in national parks and ridding his Harley-Davidson. He looks forward to the local club raffle and a catch up with the boys on a Thursday evening. He also enjoys playing bingo, listening to local radio and watching old western movies with his wife Jill. As he gets older and has to visit the hospital more often, he prefers quick and efficient healthcare with simple, bold instructions and hospital signs. He aims to enjoy the rest of his life traveling a little and spending time with family, especially his grandchildren.

• · Location: Hobart
• · Toaster Usage: Unfortunately Johnny has never used a fancy new electric toaster
• · Computer/Internet Usage: PC, Occasionally browses the Internet with the help of his grandchildren.
• · Computer Skill: Novice user. Finds things too complicated on the computer to use. Has an email but doesn’t know how to use it properly.

Storyboard for making toast

We were asked to create 2 or 3 frames highlighting inactive interaction slides that would make up a how to make toast website. I have included 3 shots below of my storyboard.

Information/Instructional Design

What is Information/Instructional Design?

I believe Information/Instructional Design is the analysis of information intended to teach or communicate a message represented through a clear, simple and instructional design which allows for a more effective learning experience. Instructional designers often use technology and multimedia as tools to enhance instruction.

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“Many instructional designers, in an attempt to make content simple, take out information. Unfortunately, this leaves learners wondering, “Why the heck am I learning this?” The solution isn’t to take away content, but to present it an a simpler way. This is the art of good instructional design. When deciding what to leave out, it is essential to consider what content, when removed, will not harm the backbone of the learning.”

-  Richard Culatta  (www.Instructionaldesign.org)

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Here are some clear examples of Information/Instructional Design:

Above shows a clearly organised diagram detailing the information into parts that will be simple for the person to understand.  Some use of colours to separate the three columns and pictures to make the instructions more straight forward.

The above video is amazing. It provides the viewer with all these interesting facts and information but does so in a very organised way. Through graphs and pictures symbolising the quantity of people. Although there are many facts within the video, the designer has made sure that they didn’t overload the viewer with too much information thus making the video an effective example of information design.

The above graph has been creatively designed to reflect the topic which the research was conducted on through the way in which the results were illustrated. It is clear and soft on the eye, visually accepting and avoids any complicated or confusing graphs. The use of colour is very effective in this illustration and demonstrates how information collected from research can be easily communicated to the public through the use of simple graphics and clear statistics.

Interactive Design

What is Interactive Design? and what are some examples of great web designs!

Interactive Design also known as Interaction Design can be understood as a way of communicating through devices such as websites, computers and mobile phones etc whereby the user can physically interact with the source and engage with the content making the experience much more enjoyable. It focuses on enhancing the relationship between humans and technology.

Below are some examples of interactive web designs! Have a look, click on the picture to go to the site, some are very inspiring.



Canv-as.com is an innovative poster shopping site, where you can interactively create your own unique customised posters that express your expectations, decor and lifestyle. The user is able to visualise how the poster will look in a certain place of the home by literally placing the poster in certain rooms and interacting with site to customise the look of the poster as well as grab a feel of the setting it will be placed within.

laudividni.com is a fashion website which allows the customer to design their own bag by choosing from a large selection of styles, colours and textures. They are then given the option to purchase it once created. This is an effective interactive site as the consumer customises their purchase whilst enjoying the life of a designer for a few minutes.

This monoface website was created for fun but is simple, easy and VERY effective! I found it funny using different facial features to form weird and strange looking people. As a user you have the option of clicking the eyes, nose, mouth, head and hair to create one of 759,375 possible so called monofaces.

The video below is another example of interactive design. Who wants to be a millionaire on youtube! allows you to click on the correct answer and interact with the video.

Web 2.0

What exactly does the term Web 2.0 mean?

To be able to understand how Web 2.0 came about we should note the existance of  ‘Web 1.0′ before Web 2.0 was introduced in 1999. Prior to Web 2.0, the internet was made up of information based sites that simply allowed internet users to only retrieve information. The World Wide Web was an information source only which meant users couldn’t interact with others the way we do now. This is a huge technological web advancement which has changed society in many ways! Web 2.0 simply refers to any type of website that allows its users to interact with others through its content. The privilege we now have of owning data on sites and controlling it in any way we like is one of the many features of a Web 2.0 site. Such sites include social networking websites which we use daily and sites like e-Bay which some of us rely on for an income.

Below are examples of Web 2.0 in action.

FACEBOOK

A lot of us web users would be familiar with this social networking website and use it constantly. What a lot of Facebook users don’t realise is that “Facebook is educating the masses about web 2.0 without them even knowing.  In other words, Facebook IS bringing web 2.0 mainstream.” Check out Aidan Henry’s article on how Facebook is a leading Web 2.0 site- it’s quite interesting.  http://www.mappingtheweb.com/2007/07/19/facebook-web-20-mainstream/

YOUTUBE

Youtube is another well known and overly used interactive site! Users can interact via uploading videos, commenting, favouriting and rating etc.

EBAY

eBay as we now know it is the world’s largest online auction website and is a perfect example of Web 2.0. Its features such as buying and selling through bidding and listing ads with tonnes of options for selling makes it a site that heavily relies on its users to successfully operate thus this makes evident the need for interaction to keep the site on going.Many people use eBay as their form of income and a way to start online businesses, Web 2.0 has enabled this to happen as prior to this there was no such thing as interactive websites.

Check out the youtube video below, it shows Web 2.0 in all forms and does it so creatively! A lot of examples of Web 2.0 are included in this video.

How to drive a car

This is a class task demonstrating a simple example of the initial stages of an interactive design by first constructing a flowchart with step by step instructions clearly numbered in order. Following this a storyboard is then created to help visualise what the end product would look like.