OUGD501 - chosen idea and initial research

My three main ideas were brought to a COP session to gain feedback from Simon and a peer from my class. After explaining my ideas thoroughly, Simon and Jen gave me feedback regarding my ideas so far. This can be seen below.

Prototype solution 1

I discussed the idea to create a publication about the things I talk about within my essay with Jen. I noted my aims on interactivity and linking with digital content. My main essay points were outlined to help give a better understanding of how my user would combat the design problem. I also explained my ideas for interactivity including bar codes linking to a web page. At this point I was unsure about the distribution methods as it was unclear how many people would buy the publication. This was something I discussed with my peer.

Jen was enthusiastic about this idea as she felt the interactivity element between print and digital could make this book unique. She liked how I had decided to use bar codes rather that QR codes as they look more professional than the latter. After running through the points I wanted to discuss within my essay, such as the popularity of independent books and highlighting the importance of interactivity, my peer felt this content would work well and appeal to a large, creative target audience. As I was unsure about distribution methods, this was something we discussed within the critique. Jen felt this publication could be sold well online and within bookstores such as Village as the target audience would most likely be from more of a creative background.

Prototype solution 2

I explained this idea to Jen in detail as I was least confident about it compared to the others and felt it would need improvements. We spoke about my intentions to redesign the online editorial for Cosmopolitan. Jen felt this idea was weaker than the other two as there are already varies digital formats for Cosmopolitan. Although my idea would differ from the website and apps by this popular magazine, she felt there would always be a different place where the information could found such as Cosmo’s website. Because of this, I have decided not to pursue this idea any further.

  

Prototype solution 3

As the work for this app idea takes longer than the other three developed ideas, only wire frame sketches were available to show my peer. Despite this, because of my research and knowledge of my idea in conjunction to my essay’s themes, I feel I was able to give a good explanation of the concept. Jen favoured this idea out of the three because of my ideas so far and the opportunities for development from Cereal’s original travel guides. I noted that these guides are available both in physical and digital formats however my hope is that I can create an app that is more useful because of its digital and interactive elements.

Jen felt these added ideas were essential in producing a final product that abided by the design problem as they meant the app better linked with the focus on interactivity. She suggested I looked further how my app could interact with the user. Ideas included further sharing options such as adding reviews and photos within the app. Talking with Jen also inspired me to add a bucket list page to my app wire frames. She noted that users would want to plan journeys to cities before they visited so a bucket list feature would enable this.

I first looked at the physical edition of the publication as this is the entities main focus. One thing I noted within my essay was how the distinctive minimal theme is used consistently across all its media.

Although Cereal does not yet have an app for their publication, the mobile web page works well to show how it may look. Examples of this can be seen below.