June 5, 2011
June 2, 2011
May 12, 2011
Artefact Six Results
My sixth artefact started out as an evolution of the publication created in artefact five. Artefact five set out to test all the theories previously provided by my other artefacts but was not as dexterous as anticipated. I researched currently available publications to discover what mine was missing, and used this information to build an updated version for artefact six.
My research led me to believe that in order to achieve the desired user-experience I needed to include a broader variation of content, more interactive elements, a generic navigation ‘area’ and a left-to-right chronological reading system. The user-interface used by all the effective publications were all made for the device, and were not a mimic of any other publication type, something that I must also change.
Introducing all these concepts to my publication vastly improved the overall user experience of the product, and made it much more intuitive to use. Half way through producing the upgraded version, it became apparent it might not be as intuitive to use for people who were unfamiliar with this new interactive format. In order to prevent confusion or misunderstanding when using the product I introduced a series of easy to recognise symbols to denote certain functions on each page. A key describing what each of these functions mean is presented to the user when starting up the publication. This is also an idea adapted from my research in to currently available digital publications
The only downside to artefact six was the compromises I had to make in functionality due to a number of technical problems. I spent a lot of time approaching the problems from different ways, however it became evident that I simply didn’t have the time or resources to get left-to-right chronological system, the vertical navigation or the central navigation system working in synchronous. I decided that the left-to-right chronological system was the most important in terms of user-experience, so implemented that, along-side an example of how the central navigation system would work. I got around the vertical scrolling issue by only using articles that required a single screen size to portray it’s information.
In conclusion I am very pleased with my final publication as it shows success on all the research established throughout the duration of the project. I am confident that it can be considered a good platform on which to base design and development for digital publications and intend to use it to do so in future projects.
May 10, 2011
Artefact Six Ideas
My sixth artefact is simply an upgrade of artefact five based on research I have done in the interim period.
My fifth artefact summarised all of the research I had done by creating a digital publication that took in to consideration all the results of previous artefacts. Although the publication worked as expected and was very easy-to-use, it lacked a ‘wow’ factor that I was used to experiencing when using digital publications on the tablet device.
I then did research in to what other elements contributed to a good digital publication. Out of all of those elements I intend to try and include the following in to artefact six:
- Video content
- Central navigation area
- Left-to-right chronology (this provides a ‘flow’ to the experience)
- Vertical navigation within an article
- Interactive photo/gallery feature
- UX Animations
- ‘Rotate for more…’ functionality
- Social sharing options
I have chosen these as I believe they are the most achievable as well being the more important aspects to a quality digital publication.
May 7, 2011
Artefact Five Results
The purpose of artefact five was to summarise all of the research I have done in to the preferable aspects of digital publications. To do this I put together a digital publication which constituted to the following:
- On a tablet device.
- Uses responsive design techniques.
- Interactive features.
- User interface similar to that of a magazine or website.
Although the publication worked as expected and was very easy-to-use, it lacked a ‘wow’ factor that I was used to experiencing when using digital publications on the tablet device, I suspect that this was because it was too much like a regular website.
In order to understand why my publication did not delivery the ‘full’ experience I had anticipated, I researched many different digital publications to see what the differences were between those and mine.
I set out to discover what it was that my publication lacked, and those effective ones did not.
The positives behind my publication were:
- Easy to use (intuitive)
- Made for the device (no rough edges)
- Responsive (some are very static)
- Appropriate design (many are confusing)
Things that constitute a good digital publication are:
- Video content
- Central navigation area
- Left-to-right chronology (this provides a ‘flow’ to the experience)
- Vertical navigation within an article
- Interactive photo/gallery feature
- UX Animations
- ‘Rotate for more…’ functionality
- Social sharing options
- Usability options
- Omnidirectional sections within a page
- Pop-out information (Lightbox style)
In conclusion I can surmise that although I created a publication which abides to all the constraints set out by my previous artefacts, they are no the only elements which make a ‘good’ digital publication.
In order to improve my publication, I believe that more varied and tested types of interactivity and user interface would need to be applied.
I intend to take these results and re-apply my research in hope that a higher-quality can be produced as a result.
May 5, 2011
Artefact Five Idea
After finding it difficult to decide what to do for my fifth artefact, after some deliberation between my tutor, my prp group and myself, we came up with a fairly obvious solution.
So far throughout my research project I have discovered the following about new communication in publishing environments; what type of medium people prefer to consume published media on, what type of development method is most preferable for creating publications, what type of user experience (UX) is considered preferable and what type of user interface (UI) is considered preferable. I have produced elements containing parts of all these results, but never all of these ‘most preferable’ elements together.
For my fifth artefact I intend to create a digital publication that amalgamates all of the results from me previous artefacts. This means creating a digital publication for a tablet device, that is built using responsive design technologies, has a device-specific design with interactive features and is styled in a way similar to that of a traditional magazines or website.
I will use specific types of articles to populate my publication and test it’s success by using as I would expect from a digital magazine. As a means of using it ‘as intended’ I will posts from the .net Magazine website as it is the publication I most frequently use.
Artefact Four Evaluation
My fourth artefact set out to discover what type of user interface is preferable when creating a digital publication. I used an online-survey, which asked volunteers to choose their favourite cover-design from five different layouts, to collect my results. All the designs were presented to the participants as in a tablet format; this decision was based on the results of my previous artefacts.
To produce accurate results, the volunteers were asked to choose their favourite layout five times, using a different type of content on each of these ‘rounds’. This was done to prevent people choosing layouts they associate with certain types of publication, and to give a better idea what is considered preferable over-all.
The results of this artefact were varied, yet conclusive. The majority of people still prefer a ‘book-like’ interface if reading a digital novel or eBook, however they did not feel that this design layout was suitable for any other type of content. Designs based on magazine and website layout proved most popular throughout, taking over 64% of votes collectively. The traditional newspaper-style layout received very few votes, making it the least favourable. I also included a ‘hybrid’ design that I considered tailored to the device, surprisingly this was not as popular as expected.
Participants were also asked if they thought the designs appeared professional enough to be used in a digital publication, and if they thought better solutions are possible. 100% of the responses thought they were of a professional enough standard to be used in a publication, however 50% thought that a better solution may be available.
This artefact concludes that when designing a digital publication, using familiar or pre-established layout methods are usually the most preferable, magazine and website layouts being the most preferable in a wider range of situations.
Artefact Four Idea
My idea for Artefact Four was to try and discover what type of user interface (UI) people preferred when viewing digital publications on tablet devices.
To do this I intended to create an online survey which gauges the public’s opinion of different styles of digital publication design.
I decided to see what type of layout was considered preferable between a traditional book-style, newspaper-style, magazine-style, website-style and a ‘hybrid’ style which I considered to be ‘targetted’ and the medium.
In order to prevent peoples pre-conceptions about how certain types of media should be displayed, each participant was asked to choose which style they prefer for content from; a novel, from a news article, a magazine article and a blog post. This basically equates to having four rounds, with five options in each round. Twenty total options.
The practical element of this can be seen here: http://tom-edson.co.uk/artefact4/
