resit

To start re-designing my app, I focused on experimenting with various color palettes first because that is really what sets off the tone and idea of my app. I went with colors related to nature but also with playful tones to attract my target user group, parents and children. It was important to keep in my mind how was I going to visually communicate to both sets of generations. But in order to experiment with colors, I wanted to touch up a bit on the format of the layout of the wireframes. I chose the "main menu" wireframe to give me a good start on the layout of the different features, after experimenting with that, I moved on the colors.

This is a color palette that I found which was very useful for me to keep in the back of my head when designing. It turns out that I was using more or less the right colors while experimenting and it also gave me new ideas for using different shades and changing their opacity.

After experimenting with the colors, I decided that the different shades of green were the best pick to work with iconography, this is because I don't want to overwhelm the user with too many colors, as there might be more colors that will show up in new icons that I will replace the old ones with. It is quite neutral as the other colors gave off a bit too childish therefore green was what I choose for now. It was also the color that represents both nature and harmony, something that should be affecting both the parents and the children. Maybe in the later stages of my design, I will add another color to accent it but for right now I really like the green collection. Next was experimenting with the icons. In the past, I used black icons so now I wanted to use more playful ones, those with colors, and see how it would look like in the tones of green. I really like how the colors in the icons blended well with the different greens, especially that I searched icons in the same "set" on the website.

Now it was time to work with typography! I recently just finished with my elective "Modular Typography" and I was very content with my final results and the theoretical and practical knowledge I got from it. It was very interesting to learn from this week as not only did I create my own typeface, but I got to see other's results as well. I learned how to experiment with geometric shapes and applying them to my typeface. I also learned how to step out of my comfort zone by doing my typeface all by hand and not using digital art, which is usually my go-to for experimenting. For my typography, I wanted to experiment with both serif and sans-serif but I ended seeing that sans-serif typefaces have a better effect on the app, it is easier to read and it doesn't seem to "fancy" just bold enough to be able to read small prints too. I really liked how Fira sans looked like with my therefore I downloaded it with its different font weights. They seemed to pair well in terms of both age groups being able to read it easily.

Now it was time to start putting everything together with what I experimented with so far. This meant to apply, more or less, the final choice of how the design will look like with the different wireframes. I needed to make it look cohesive and almost like a typeface, each wireframe must look like they are from the same "alphabet" so I experienced that by applying it to different main wireframes from the old design. I changed the green background to a light color as I thought the one from before was a bit dull.

I continued experimenting with my latest design and I wanted to add and take away some things. The more I played around with the different features of the app the more it allowed me to see what was working and what was not. Some layouts had to be changed, or so images had to be taken out. I kept thinking in my head, how can it visually communicate more as a family app? I added family-friendly text and images in order to make the experience more inclusive.

Feedbacks session:

-children like to have a sound pop up when they do an action, maybe include that into your app

-make it more connected between parent and child

-when do they know it is their time to use the app? ex. with the Picolo game app, you have to write down the name of the users in the beginning (no sign up)
therefore the app knows to mix the names around and assign them tasks

-"Have Max take a picture of a wildlife element, document it, and receive a badge!

-"300m fun fact time! have Sophie read out the fact out loud to the family!"

-Layout is quite blocky + listy, include some fun shapes (like the circle) to make it look more fun and creative

Feedback from past participants:

- the 2nd frame should be more integrated into the collection, it looks a little odd from looking at it as a whole

-you should add the option to look back at the badges and fun facts

-add "name" cursor in the beginning frame (where they ask for names)

-give the option to have a new task if you can't do the previous one at the moment