Rob Green - Final Major Project

Here are some screenshots of app promotional websites that are informing my own designs, my favourite is the iA website because of it's clean simplicity:

I have taken a couple of my designs and mocked them up onto a photograph of a previous yearbook:

Here are some more visual ideas for the infographic yearbook cover:

The Angry Birds francise is hugely popular, but a less-known fact is that it was basically a copy of various other flash games found around the internet. The developers of Angry Birds basically created a brand around their game with an accompanying storyline and combined this with excellent customer support that listens to their users and updates the game accordingly.



The animated video above is an example of this story, that is created alongside the games they release. This particular video is an introduction their new version of the game 'Angry Birds Space' and will even be broadcast on the popular children's TV channel Nickelodeon (very, very smart move!). I think that this kind of brand identity/narrative can be invaluable towards the success of an app, especially in the crowded and continuously expanding virtual app marketplace.

The Rechner app for iPhone is a simple calculator where the operations are chosen using touch gestures. I think that although it won't make much difference to the speed of using the calculator it would be more enjoyable and 'tactile' for the user.

I also like their simple visuals for explaining the different gestures available, I need to start looking at more visual ways to communicate the functionality of my own app designs:

Here are the boards I had for the second feedback crit:

A4 Brief Summaries:

Here are some of my initial digital designs for the Microsoft 'NHS Therapy' app:

Here are some of my initial digital designs for my Pet Trails app:

Here are some of the initial digital designs for my BLYK quick reader app:

This book presents an innovative eight-session program designed to prevent relapse in clients who have recovered from depression. Integrating cognitive therapy principles and practice into a mindfulness framework, the approach has been proven effective in controlled clinical research. The authors demonstrate how to teach clients to make a simple but radical shift in their relationship to the thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations that contribute to depressive relapse. This shift can help prevent sadness from spiraling out of control. Written in a highly readable, accessible style, the book describes the theoretical basis for the approach and details each of the structured group sessions. It offers practical information on how to duplicate the program, including session curricula, samples of participant handouts, and numerous case examples and session transcripts.

The Mindful Way through Depression draws on the collective wisdom of four internationally renowned mindfulness experts, including bestselling author Jon Kabat-Zinn, to provide effective relief from the most prevalent psychological disorder. This authoritative, easy-to-use self-help program is based on methods clinically proven to reduce the recurrence of depression. Revealing the hidden psychological mechanisms that cause chronic unhappiness, the authors gently guide readers through a series of exercises designed to break the mental habits that lead to despair. Kabat-Zinn lends his calm, familiar voice to the accompanying CD of guided meditations, making this a complete package for anyone looking to regain a sense of balance and contentment.

It was a sudden awareness that I felt depressed simply because I was used to feeling depressed. I then started to backtrack within my own mind to find root causes of my depression. This is why I referred to my reactive self. All of my anxiety came from a reaction; not from the situation itself. The situation was, in a way, irrelevant.

Client-centered, or person-centered, therapy was established by Carl Rogers in 1940 as an alternative to the existing orientations that relied on guidance or interpretation. Through this non-directive approach to therapy a therapist is able to relay back to the patient what they have expressed so that the patient can identify the changes they would like to make in life. Rogers provided evidence that this process of client self-discovery and actualization occurred in response to the therapist supplying a consistent empathic understanding of the client’s experience, based on the attitude of acceptance and respect.

Cognitive behaviour therapy aims to show people how their thinking affects their mood and to teach them to think in a less negative way about life and themselves. It is based on the understanding that thinking negatively is a habit, and, like any other bad habit, it can be broken.

In a recent study of people at risk for relapse in clinical depression, PhD candidate Alisa Singer found that 40 per cent of them could not apply the concept of mindfulness to their own thinking. Mindfulness is the practice of simply being aware of thoughts and emotions, rather than getting caught up in them or analyzing their meaning. 

“Mindfulness helps people step back and recognize that the negative thoughts they are having on a given issue are simply thoughts and may or may not be true,” Singer says. “By acknowledging and accepting such uncomfortable feelings, our research has found that negative moods will dissipate more quickly.” 

Google's My Tracks is a mobile app that uses the phone's GPS connection to record various information and statistics whilst the user is running/cycling. The app links up to Google Maps and overlays the route and stats allowing the user to see and share where they went, how fast they went and lots of other interesting information such as elevation and maximum speed.

I thin this kind of information would be really interesting for cat owners to know about their pet's secret lives whilst they're out and about, and also good for dog owners to share how fast (or lazy) their animal is!

Flipboard is an excellent mobile app that aggregates content from many different sources including rss feeds, social networks and also special feeds curated by the Flipboard team. The result is a 'personal magazine' of content that is always personally relevant to the user.

I think my BLYK app will combine the idea of personally relevant information with the idea of delivering bitesize amounts of reading content. I aim to propose a system that delivers highly relevant and consumable content on a daily basis, allowing the user to control the amount and length of the information presented.

Here are the main points from my tutorial with Lorenzo that concern my design practice briefs:

• I need to look at the deliverables for my briefs and how I will present them for submission.
• One possibility is to produce a narrative to show my proposals in context, showing the viewer what the interface does in a visual manner.
• A direction I could take is looking into producing animated demos of my proposals to communicate the concepts and visuals.
• This secondary element to my design process is similar to how websites for apps communicate their products in a clear and concise manner, aiming to persuade people into downloading them.
• I need to start producing digital mockups of my proposals as soon as possible to show during the crits later this week.
• This direction means a look at not just how the app will work and look, but also how it will communicated and marketed to potential audiences.
• These changes should help give my designs the human element that they are currently lacking in.

• My design context need to be restructured to follow the processes behind interface design, to tell the story behind creating these designs.
• I need to relate interface design to people and how it works within people's lives.
• One idea is to initially focus on what functions interface design can perform for people, how people relate to these designs, how this relationship influences the delivery of the interface and then break them down into usability, emotive design and other elements.