Final Major Project: Evaluation

I feel that my Final Major Project has been a success, I completed all my briefs to a standard I am happy with and I believe I got the most out of the time I had. I have developed a greater understanding of interaction design and improved on my design practice since the start of this module through the five briefs I have completed as well as my design context publication.

The three main briefs all involved proposing an interaction design supported by promotional material and other deliverables. My Quick Reader project allowed me to explore creating an app that improved a user’s reading experience. Creating an experience is something I wanted to explore though my fmp and I feel this brief helped to realise this. If I had more time I would have liked to create a demo video to show the concept in motion; but I think the ‘narrative’ designs I created for the website mock-up did address this.

The Cat Trails app allowed me explore creating a promotional video and also proposing an app that interacted with another device. This project also involved creating some fun character illustrations to be used on the app designs and promotion pieces. The idea of combining my illustration with interaction design is something I wanted to attempt in this module; I believe that I did a good job of this and that the final product benefited from it. I really wanted to create a motion piece for one of my briefs and I’m glad I pulled it off for this one, though if I had more time I would have produced a more in-depth demo reel for the app.

My NHS Therapy project also involved both creating an overall experience for the user though the proposal of a service. This brief tackled the subject of clinical depression and hitting certain emotive qualities was key. I created a smile-inducing doctor character for the app design and promotional material and kept everything in an upbeat visual style. I really enjoyed creating something with the aim of delighting the user rather than just performing a task, I’d say the emotive element was key for this project.

Creating my context publication was another great experience to have had, as I actually produced a functioning iPad book using iBook author. The production of a fully functional app is something I aimed to do in the module from the start, although I would have liked to produce something alongside a developer for one of my other briefs.

My other two briefs were the surveyor website and DFGA yearbook and I feel that I leant quite a lot from them even if I consider them the less influential projects. I managed to propose some digital aspects to the yearbook and even though I didn’t end up coding the surveyor website (due to time constraints) I did develop a better understanding of design for web.

I would have very much liked more time to produce a more detailed video for one of my briefs and to have also done a collaboration with a developer, if I could go back I would have given myself more time for these two things. Overall I think that I addressed many key elements that I had highlighted on my statement of intent through my final major project and I have learnt a great deal, expanding my skills as an interactive designer.

Cat Trails - Final Boards

Here are the final boards that I will be submitting for the Cat Trails brief:

Cat Trails - Board Sketches

These are the initial sketches for my Cat Trails final boards, I'll be submitting these as  printed boards because it is one of my three main projects.



Cat Trails - Collar Mockup

I found an image of a GPS collar online and added this logo to it in Photoshop:



Here is the final mockup of the collar that I will use on my final boards:


Cat Trails - Website

Here is the website design for my Cat Trails brief, it would use the promotional video I created alongside some annotated screenshots to explain the app to the user. There are also links to an online store so that they can buy a collar for their cat and a link to the app store so they can download the app.


Here is a mockup on an iMac for my final boards:


Cat Trails Promo Video

Here is the development for my cat trails promotional video, I used After Effects to put my video together and used a variety of images from my other designs for the brief for the graphics:


An initial version of the video with the music slightly off time at the end:



Here is the final version of my promotional video that will be included on my submission CD:

Cat Trails - More Storyboards

Some more storyboards planning out my promotional video. These boards will serve as a guide while I create the video but some elements will most likely change though the process:



Cat Trails - Second Mockups

Here are the second mockups of my Cat Trails app. I used the new illustrations and modified the colours of the app to match the different cats. I carried the fur background across the other screens to keep the app more consistant:

Cat Trails - Music for Video

Here are some ideas for music I could use in my Cat Trails promotional video:


Cute sound to the music and the lyrics work quite well.


A fun and bouncy sound.


Ambient but quite upbeat.


Quite a lot of energy to the song and sounds like it could work well with the clips I have.

Final Crit

Here is the final feedback I received:



Action Plan:
  • Tidy up blog.
  • Consider printed material.
  • Annotate boards.
  • Finish context publication

Photos for Final Boards

Here are some sketches I drew out of photographs I could take of mobile devices to use on my final boards. I would use these photographs to show my app screens in context.






Here are the photographs I took for my final boards, I will need to edit my favourites in Photoshop and add my app designs to them.

Cat Trails - Illustration Development

Some initial sketches for how the cat character could look:




And the final designs shown in illustrator over the sketch template:






Pet Trails - Direction Change

I have decided to change my brief slightly so that it focuses on cat owners rather than general four-legged pets. The reason for this is that there are already similar services that offer GPS tracking for dogs but not for cats.

I think this will let me target the app design and promotional video more directly at an audience of cat owners and they should feel more drawn towards the service because of this. I will keep to the idea of having a customisable character for the app, but will limit my mockups to changes in their fur colour rather than lots of options.

I will propose that the app could extend this functionality to let the user choose between different styles of facial features for their cat character, so that it can better match their own pet.

Crit 3 - Feedback & Action

Here is the feedback I received:





Action Plan:

  • More visual development needed for some briefs.
  • Movie forward with context publication, blog more content.
  • Code the surveyor website.
  • Start working on presentation boards, try not to make them repetitive.
  • First presentation board for each brief should be able to communicate the overall concept of the brief.
  • Video demos would work well for some of the apps, especially for context publication.
  • Expand range of deliverable for the Pet Trails app.
  • Perhaps include an explanation of RSS feeds for the Quick Reader app.

Interim Evaluation & Tutorial

Here is a scan of the feedback form from my latest tutorial with Lorenzo:




The general target for the next week or so is to finish off my current briefs so that I can progress on to a final couple of projects for my fmp. Below I will explain in more detail how each project is going but overall I realise that I need to start seriously thinking about how I will present my development and final digital designs for submission and my portfolio. Two ideas we discussed were development boards shown as either an issu document or an iBook on an iPad. As far as my final products are concerned I feel that a mixture of promotional videos and in-context photographs will work well to communicate them to an audience.

My blog in general is going relatively well, but I need to catch-up on the context side of things as I seem to have neglected it. Both my context publication content and brief research sections need to be updated with bookmarked content over the next few days. I also need to show a wider variety of experimentation in my practical work from now onwards as I have become set on a slightly narrow with some of my briefs. I may also need to re-title some of my briefs as the development of several has changed the subject slightly.

Surveyor Website

I am happy with the direction this brief has taken although I am still unsure whether I need to actually code the final website design or not for submission, I think it will depend on the time available towards the end of the module. The next stage for this brief will be to extend the brand/logo over to business cards and other stationary for the client, although this will most likely be limited to mockups due to the digital focus of the brief.

DFGA Yearbook

This brief is almost complete and should be going to print over the next couple of weeks. The only parts left for this project is work with my team to complete the final designs and then design some presentation boards showing my involvement with the project.

YCN: BLYK Messages

This brief has gone well so far and I am now working towards developing some promotional graphics for the app concept. I will be putting together a website and mocking up several other designs such as the app icon, store page and online advertisements. The presentation of the final app screens will be of particular importance for showing how the app would fit into everyday life.

Pet Tracker

The main problem I have encountered with this brief is making as personable as possible. The strength of the concept is that people love their pets and the playful nature of this relationship. The next stage for this brief will be to update my designs to me more fun and 'game' like so that they will connect with the target audience better. After doing this I plan to put together a promotional video mixing live-action footage of my own cats with animated app-screens to explain the concept of the app. 

D&AD Microsoft

This is another brief that needs to be pushed in a more emotional direction. The current designs are much too clinical and lack emotive consideration, something that is of critical importance to the subject matter of depression. To do this I want to develop my app into a 'personal therapist' with an on-screen character that guides the user through their treatment in a much more personable way. One idea is to use a retro pixel-art visual identity as found on old videogames and the more recently a contemporary resurgence of the style, although this needs further experimentation/research. After finishing the final app-screen design I'll need to look at promotional advertisements and how to the explain the app functionality and how it will benefit the target audience.

Context Publication

There is plenty of blogging that I need to catch-up with for this brief and I also need to find some more primary research sources such as interviewees and library research. Alongside completing the content research, I need to experiment and develop my publication design for submission. My current plan is to use the free iBooks author tool to create an iPad eBook. I talked with Lorenzo about organising an iPad with my publication on for examination, which I was glad to hear should be doable. Over the next week I have to test out my design ideas and try producing a small section of functioning iBook to test on one of the college iPads.

Pet Trails - Video Storyboard Ideas

Here are my first storyboarded ideas for a promotional video communicating the functions of my Pet Trails app. I will create some more detailed storyboards once I get a better idea of the finished content.

Pet Trails - Wireframes 2

Taking into account the advice from the visiting professionals I have notes some possible changes to my Pet Trails app design. These notes will inform the next stages of the digital designs and promotional animation.





Pet Tracker - After Effects Notes

Here are some notes about how I could animate the interactive elements of my pet tracking app within After Effects. I would include these animations with live footage to create a promotional video for my app.


Pet Tracker - Narrative Ideas

Here are some ideas for how I could communicate the functionality of my Pet Tracker app to the intended audience. I really think this could work well as a promotional video. I'm going to get some live-action video of my cats at the weekend that could be used as part of the video alongside animations and mockups of the app.


Pet Tracker - Brand Ideas

Here are some brand ideas for my Pet Tracker brief. I want to turn the app to feel more like a game and less corporate, perhaps with the use of customisable illustrations, as suggested by Si Scott.


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