Tuesday 26 June 2012

Interface Design A' Design Award

The reason of choosing the competition:

Interface design is an important part of an interactive artefact which determines how easily can the work itself communicate with the users and how users receive the message within the work. This interface design competition is chosen because it provides opportunity to explore interactions
between users and the application, it also provides a platform for me to practice creating an effective user interface in terms of the usability and design.

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Past Winners

E-Steward Interactive Device For Restaurants by Abhishek Chitranshi





















PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION:
11 weeks | Bombay, Bangalore | India

FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY:
Interface and Interaction Design


It's a interactive device for restaurants, where it allows users to get real time updates using this device while waiting for the food in the restaurants. This device is used for ordering, referring to the menu as well as some entertainment such as game. This device is not a personal device furthermore most of the people now are carrying mobile phones (smart phones) everywhere they go and use it during waiting period such as in the restaurants while waiting for food. I think the unique selling point is that customers are able to order using the device without telling the waiter.

My project will be similar to this as it is a real time update application where users are allowed to get latest updates and information wherever they go and anytime.

pro: good usability where it helps save time when ordering, and prevent mistakes happen (eg: misheard by the waiters, afraid to trouble the waiters too often, communication problem between the customers and waiter)

cons:
-due to I am not able to view the exact interface design of this device, it's hard to tell the how is the content flow and how easily it functions. But base on what I can see from the picture above, the interface design may looks unpleasing//unattractive to the users, as the users may feel they are facing some kind of errors when they are interacting with it.
-if there is only one device, users have to take turn to key in their orders or browse through the menu. (similar to Sakae Sushi's ipad ordering device)



The reason of creating the real time update application's interface design:
As people nowadays are expose to digital devices such as smart phones or notebooks. They usually look for the information using these devices to get their latest updates.











Statement of Intent



Ideation

I've chosen Interface Design Competition by A' Design Award and I was planning to create an user interface design for a desktop application as the brief mentioned it can be interface design for any interactive media or platform (mobile, website, gadgets and many more).

My idea is to create a desktop application for Instagram(it's an phone application that has a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family.) which is able to be accessed via PC or laptop version. Users of Instagram are then able to access or browse through this application when they are using PC/desktop/laptop, and it will be real time update. There are already a few of mobile applications (iphone // android) made to be used at PC and laptop for example: Twitter and LINE.

There is an application for desktop called Tweetdeck, created by Twitter.  It's a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter and Facebook accounts. It interfaces with the Twitter API to allow users to send and receive tweets and view profiles. It is the most popular Twitter application.

Their User Interface:
Users can split the program into columns which show different things, for example user can view real time update tweets from friends. It can appear in separate columns and it also allows users to split the people they follow into groups. 













source: http://www.tweetdeck.com/