AREA CASE STUDY
Design Objective
Many Apartments for college students especially are colorful. Knowing that our design must be similar to attract the same type of customers, I needed to focus on color and vibrancy. As our team did our research on the different types of places, we noticed the color but also the modern feel. Our design objective became clear as we confirmed the type of look we needed to go for. Color, Vibrancy, and welcoming.
Project Concept
The project concept was to build an app that would help locate specific needs for students with finding an apartment. The main three tabs we decided on was a like page, a roommate page, and apartment
searches. Using these tabs are to enhance a user's way of navigating throughout the app with ease and effortlessly.
The Team
Kate Fox - https://katelynnfox.wixsite.com/portfolio
Kate Fox implemented the home page and a apartment search tab within the app. Kate made sure what was going to happen and when it was due.
Evie Weeden - http://Eviewashere.com
Evie Weeden worked on the roommates tab. The roommates tab showing which roommates were available to live in a certain area with.
Hannah Lee - https://hliaerok.wixsite.com/leedesign
Hannah Lee incorporated the like page. Gathering the information the user liked into one simple page to get onto.
User Research Synthesis
The research objective was to find as many information to take into consideration as we designed our prototypes. We conducted a survey for students to figure out how many students live in apartments and their thoughts of trying to find apartments. Taking a look at the resources available to the students and how easy it is to use. We wanted to use those thoughts and opinions to put into our app, to help students with the efficiency of apartment seeking. Some insights that were helpful were trying to find a roommate. Trying to find a roommate that would match with you especially. Many room with friends, but it is difficult when you don't have friends that live with parents or other people. This helped us think of a tab to help find friends and a roommate together.
Competitive Analysis
There a a few apps that help locate apartments for individuals or with roommates. Those apps would be Zillow, Apartments.com Rentals, Rent.com, or Zumper. These apps are up in the top 5. These apps show locations and the prices of the apartments the user would be looking for, however what made our app different was how you can also find someone to room with. We give you a list of options showing the different types of people and their information according to the location that you were interested in looking at. The other apps did the most of finding you a few apps that you were looking for but it didn't have an option to help you split the cost with a potential friend. Although these apps were mainly blue and white, CoLAB, one of the main apartments students in the city of Denver, Colorado look at, was very bright in color as well as modern. Our target audience being college students we have based our colors off of what CoLAB has done to ensure a modern look directing towards students.
Feature Design
The research objective was to find as many information to take into consideration as we designed our prototypes. We conducted a survey for students to figure out how many students live in apartments and their thoughts of trying to find apartments. Taking a look at the resources available to the students and how easy it is to use. We wanted to use those thoughts and opinions to put into our app, to help students with the efficiency of apartment seeking. Some insights that were helpful were trying to find a roommate. Trying to find a roommate that would match with you especially. Many room with friends, but it is difficult when you don't have friends that live with parents or other people. This helped us think of a tab to help find friends and a roommate together.
Project Retrospective
What did I find most challenging about this project?
This project was the most challenging when we as a team needed to meet up and use cohesive designs throughout the app. I also had some trouble when I couldn’t meet up with my teammates. I was always able to meet with them from time to time but now I am unable to.
- How was your product design affected by your research?
The product design was affected by the research by the color and the tabs. The color was determined based on the colors of the other apartments. The other colors were bright in color and were also vibrant. These colors influenced the color palette of our design.
- What are your perspectives on responsive design?
I think responsive design is a very effective way of designing. Using websites and their layouts are nice when they are put out in grids however, I can definitely say that it takes a lot of time and effort to make the website nicely done.
- What was the most valuable lesson I learned?
The most valuable lesson I learned was to make sure and go back to the design of what others have done in order to have a cohesive design. During this project it was difficult to make sure that the design was cohesive due to one of the members not being able to catch
Video Presentation Link Here
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PERSONAS
Who We Are
RIVER WATTS
22/Student
He is living with his parents however he wants to live closer to school. He is looking into an apartment near the school with affordable prices. His personality is cheerful and he likes to work with Photoshop. He aspires to be a famous photographer and is doing freelance work as of right now.
JESSE NEIMUS
20/Student
She is living in the dorm but wants to move out next semester into an apartment. She is looking forward to meeting new people but it's difficult because a lot of her friends live with parents. She needs to find a roommate soon. She loves to take walks in nature. She focuses on her studies, but she is undecided, recently taking interest in business.
YORA PARKER
19/student
She lives in an apartment with a roommate but life isn't exciting when her roommate only wants to study. She wants to move a little closer to school and find another roommate to split the prices. She likes to be busy so her life consists of constant schedules. She makes sure she lives a healthy life but with fun.
AREA
A project under Interactive Media 2Â creating a digital solution for a problem in the world. Our team decided to tackle the problem of student living problems by designing an app that helps sort apartments for students.
HOME PAGE
The home page has the most vibrant colors while the main colors we utilize are a blue and a purple shade.
THE AREA
This is to adjust the the users preferences and some data too find some apartments that match the users.
LIKE PAGE
The like page gathers all the users interest of the apartments. This is mainly used to go back to the apartment the user liked to make it efficient.
READING QUIZ
Summary
The book "Discussing Design" by Adam Connor talks mainly about the process of critique. Critique isn't just for designers, but for "anyone looking to improve whatever they are developing". Adam Connor targets design and designers, but mentions that they are not the only ones who use this process as mentioned before. There were a few main topics but I will discuss two. Feedback built a shared understanding between teams. Adam Connor discusses three forms of feedback: direction, reaction, and critique. The two forms of feedback, direction and reaction do not help better understand design, but critique analyzes design through critical thinking. Adapting to critique, you must first understand the culture of the organization. Understanding the culture helps improve your critical thinking of your project. This will integrate knowledge into your design and will serve as guide. Facilitating this critique is crucial by practicing it by yourself as well in with teams. Facilitating critique will serve as a guide through your process as well as keeping yourself on track and recording your feedback. Overall "Discussing Design" discussed critique and its use in your design process as a designer by understanding the culture, guiding you to gather feedback for a proper solution.
The critique in our project was not placed due to being unable to see each others work on the discussion page, however we did critique on our own when we met up in person to check out what every body has been doing. This was implemented by seeing each others design and discussing what could look better and in unison.
A way to improvise the critique more efficiently, I would have discussed with the group to get certain things done by a hard deadline and checked on what each of the member was doing. This way we could have kept on track with everybody and helped anybody behind.
There was a time where I received a difficult feedback when we originally wanted to do a 3D room tour of the apartments. The professor told us how to implement the idea into something more, but the more I got into it the more difficult it began to be for the project. Realizing it could cost us a lot of time and effort for one tab, we redirected our thinking to a simpler term.
EMPATHY EXERCISE BLOG
Inclusive design is the design of an environment that can be accessed by all. This design keeps the diversity and uniqueness of each individual in mind. Inclusive design is important because it allows all and not specific people as target audiences. For the empathy exercise, I had to use a sharpie instead of my hands. This made me related to those who had a disability with hands and arms. As I was doing this, it made me realize how difficult it was for me to try and type anything on my computer let alone take a look at the screen while doing so. There are so many more people who have different disabilities than just this. I realize that as designers we should be able to think about those with disabilities as well when we research about our possible target audiences. The biggest takeaway was just knowing that putting myself in someone else's shoes, you can see much more than where you are stand-ing at. I put a bookmark on this empathy exercise website as a reference to a possible idea or even a target audience to think about.
