LiamReflective report
Through the four-month course study, I have experienced four complete project designs. In the process of theme selection, theme analysis, research, secondary research, production and so on, I have been thinking about the meaning of each project and how I need to complete the project. It is important to understand the task of the communication design course, so that we can better understand how to apply communication design thinking to each project.
Describe Interpret Evaluate
Project 1 – Personal map
Looking back on Project 1, my understanding of this topic is to make a map to introduce myself. Since I have been to many places in China, my initial idea is to draw a map of all the cities I have been to. However, the first idea to contact the project is usually relatively simple. Although this idea does not deviate from the project theme, the whole production process and visual presentation are too simple, and there is no more design concept and creative thinking. It has been proved that a theme without aesthetic appeal or artistic effect may not be able to convey a complex message (Robert, 1974). Therefore, after diverging and collecting my thinking, I changed the theme with the help of my tutor, using tree rings as the carrier to express the changes of my interests and hobbies in the past timeline, which can also be understood as an image of my own growth. This combination is more logical and interesting, and you can understand your growth experience step by step through interpretation, which is a kind of review. Since the tree rings represent the age of the tree, they can also be interpreted as representing my age. There will be many stories in each person’s age. Then, I counted the number of my interests and the duration of my interests, which formed a scattering structure with the tree rings, making the whole picture seem abstract. In this project, I learned the importance of visual expression. Logical and interesting visual expression can make our works more attractive. Image communication is a complex behavior, no matter what its intended function is, but the purpose of creation is to be seen or appreciated. Therefore, it is necessary for an image to be understood by its audience. Creating an understandable image requires an understanding of the nature of the various elements in the image to give the image a distinct importance in transmission (Robert, 1974). At the same time, creative thinking allows me to think outside the limitations. However, the choice of interest and hobby in the final evaluation is still relatively dull, without more in-depth and interesting information, and more improvement is needed in this aspect.
Project 2 – Understanding the user
To review the second project, user research is the basic link and the most important basis of our project. The purpose of user research is to find out the pain points of users, find out the fundamental problems, and grasp the key users. Therefore, key users provide designers with an opportunity to diverge their thinking and get to know a wider range of users through direct interaction with them, thus helping designers to establish resonance with all potential users (Hua Dong & Clarkson, 2005). In the course of this project, we have the freedom to study a user group, user characteristics, user problems. So I’m home tourism scenic spots has carried on the research of tourist satisfaction, a potential problem is not enough intelligent scenic spot service for tourists has brought a lot of inconvenience in the process of questionnaire survey has been clear about the direction, I also exposed the fundamental problems of tourists and pain points, thus we can locate the user groups and market direction, in the process I tried empathy figure, User portrait and user journey these three kinds of user research methods, analysis of the various needs of users. However, my understanding of pain points was still biased in the whole process, because I described too many pain points and did not form a summative pain point. In addition, the study on users is not comprehensive enough. It limited the people who have only been to the scenic spots, but did not consider the people who have not been to the scenic spots, which may affect the data deviation. As for the results of this user survey, I have learned the importance of user survey. We need to fully understand the user group from the beginning of group positioning, and only by empathizing with the user group can we grasp the problem. Therefore, in usability practices, it is necessary to find a “best” solution that works best for the majority of users. A common approach is to provide a group of users with multiple alternative data schemes and allow them to choose and express their preferences (Julia, et al. 2019). At the same time, I have also learned to grasp the key data in user research, and present the results of user research in a visual form.
Project 3 – Weather app
Review project 3. This is the first APP-based user experience design project that I have come into contact with. It really needs to consider user needs and enrich user experience. Theoretically, UX design provides potential benefits for products and consumers, including products that are closer to users’ preferences and needs, which will get more choices and support from users (Taylor, Christian & Karl, 2007). In the selection of the theme, I finally decided on the weather APP for cyclists. What I need to focus on is how to make cyclists feel that this APP is of practical use and can provide more convenient interactive experience to solve the weather problems encountered by cyclists. To solve this problem, I tried to restore the real scene experience of riding a bicycle in the city, and found that it was very tedious to check the weather through a mobile phone in the process of riding, so I needed more convenient devices to output information, such as watches or glasses. I chose the watch as the output device, which has the functions of weather voice broadcast, wind direction broadcast, clothing reminder, rain gear reminder, music care and special weather reminder, etc. Users can get visual information through the watch, and can also get voice broadcast information through hearing. After the test phase, I abandoned some unnecessary functions, such as navigation, rain gear and music, because they seemed to deviate from the theme of the weather app, impeded the actual functional value, and were not convenient in operation. Therefore, I only retained three main functions on the watch, namely voice broadcasting, wind reporting and weather warning. Therefore, the success of product design is not only the practical use of functions, but also the better effect of design through functional interaction, user perception and interactive experience (Zewen, 2012). This project makes me feel that when we build an app, product positioning, purpose, function significance and value, user experience and other aspects need to be comprehensively improved. If we experience in a real scene, we will get a more real feeling. At the same time, efficient interactive thinking should be formed in our mind. After completing the functional framework, we can further complete better interaction with users, and in this process, we can optimize the loopholes in the product and iterate on the interactive experience of the product. In the design process, we often ignore the user’s behavior when interacting with the product, but it is a way to better understand the user experience and stimulate the improvement of the product design (Zewen, 2012).
Project 4 – Old clothes remake
The fourth project is the recently completed work. Combined with the experience learned from the first three projects, this assignment should be a comprehensive display of knowledge. A series of factors including background research, user research, design concept, creative thinking, user experience, visual expression and so on should be taken into consideration. At the very beginning, I chose the theme of improving excessive consumption and environmental pollution. After a lot of research, I decided on the concept of redesigning old clothes to alleviate the behavior of waste of clothes. It is an interactive app designed to stimulate users’ awareness that old clothes can be reused. The technology includes cutting, collage, color change and recycling of old clothes. In this process, users can make full use of their old clothes for transformation, avoid discarding and the backlog of old clothes, and interact with the APP platform around the concept of old clothes redesign. This is the design concept that I came up with for the project, and then took the emphasis of redesigning old clothes to form a solution. Through the investigation of users, I formulated the functional framework of the APP platform, user portraits, etc., and determined the needs and actual functions of users. Then, the design of the entire visual interface was developed to produce a high-fidelity model. At the same time, I also referred to the exploration and experiment of a large number of fashion designers on the redesign concept. Therefore, I found it feasible after reflecting on the operation process of the whole project, which constituted a redesign cycle formed by fashion designers and consumers regarding how to deal with used clothes, and effectively solved the problem of waste of used clothes. But at the same time there are also a lot of technical problems and material use limits, we need to continue to practice. In professional perspective, therefore, to determine the theme and design concept, product needs us to ponder the purpose of interactive behavior, explore and solve product pain points, and group have a clear market, product and user interaction process, product experience, clear understanding of our thinking, and responsibility is very important, it can make us have logical work flow, Effectively complete projects.
Plan
Finally, in the following courses, I will focus my study and research on four parts. One is the purposeful user research and problem solving to form an efficient user experience. The second is to think of more logical and interesting visual expression. The third is to find and collect more ideas, establish a reasonable design concept, and form creative thinking. Fourth, try to think critically, reflect on and iterate the whole process of project design.
Reference list
Robert, B. (1974). An image study: visual expression in communication. Iowa State University Digital Repository. OAI: lib.dr.iastate.edu:rtd-8972
Hua, D. John, C. Julia, C. Simeon, K. (2005). Critical User Forums – an Effective User Research Method for Inclusive Design. Brunel University Research Archive. DOI: 10.2752/146069205789331628
Julia, S. Ariane, D. Oliver, I. Raphael, W. (2019). Applying Voting Methods in User Research. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). DOI: 10.1145/3340764.3344461
Taylor, R. Christian, T. Karl, U. (2007). Research Note—User Design of Customized Products. ScholarlyCommons. DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1050.0116
Zewen, L. (2012). Motion-based interaction in product design. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. OAI: www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34499
prefect!