U63 – Task 1: App Research

App Design Research

 

In order to find a suitable design for my mobile application, other applications should be taken in consideration before I begin development. My choice of application is weather and I therefore must look at popular mobile apps and apps that have attracted my attention with their unique designs.

BBC Weather (popular)

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Visual Style

The design of this app is very clean and simple. This is because the page isn’t cluttered with much information that isn’t needed and instead BBC went for a more conservative design. The Celsius for both day and night; a pictogram of the current weather; location of the weather; future weather; a refresh button, UV and Pollen; the logo and the current time are presented on this page.

 

Interactive Design

When talking about the interactivity, the background is on the top of the list with transitioning weather images for individual weather conditions. There is also a search bar available for searching specific locations which is placed at the top. In addition, when the refresh button is pressed the weather is updated. Saving your favourite locations is another feature the app has and you can view these by scrolling to the right, unveiling the list on the left. When clicking on the temperature, a list transitions in from the right revealing the weather in an hourly format. Finally, the horizontal list placed below the temperature is the daily weather and can be clicked on to reveal greater detail as well as a unique background provided for each day.

 

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Critical Assessment and User Experience

The app hits all the key points. It has an attractive look, very good interactive design as it displays as much as possible without it being too cluttered. In my opinion however the app can still communicate the most important parts of the weather and look even less cluttered. The favourite location is a good idea for users without GPS or without it switched on however with GPS on it makes this feature useless and a waste of time. Also the app can add some additional information on different pages that are hidden from the homepage because I feel the menu should be used for those who are trying to look for something more in depth and specific. The layout is well organized, as it is broken down into three sections location, temperature and temperature of different days.

 

Rating

Visual Design – 4 out of 5

Interactive Design – 5 out of 5

Information – 3 out of 5

Layout – 4 out of 5

Clarity – 5 out of 5

Weather Locations – 5 out of 5

 

 

 

Yahoo Weather (personal favourite)

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Visual Style

The visual design on the app is very beautiful which is what caught my attention. The app displays the important bits of information and completely neglects showing anything to reduce its aesthetics. In other words the visuals do the talking rather than the words. The application even hides the refresh bar as it is done by scrolling down. However the brilliant thing about this app is that information is also displayed right away if you scroll up. This reveals the forecast and very in depth details such as wind pressure including animating pictograms as well.

 

Interactive Design

By pressing on the plus sign in the top right hand corner, you are able to add many more locations that you would like to check on and after all it takes is a swipe to transition between areas. What’s also great about the app is when you swipe to the right information is revealed about your saved area, giving you the ability to edit them as well as visit the setting menu for customization and notifications. The background also transitions as weather conditions change for example if there was fog then background image would be foggy too.

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Critical Assessment and User Experience

The app is a personal favourite due to its visuals, layout and customization. The app however does have its downsides as the only areas that are available are cities and not smaller areas to give you more precise readings. In addition to this the app offers you to save the location of cities however this would be a waste of a feature for the common man who tends to stay in the same city and would only be useful for people who travel consistently.

 

Rating

Visual Design – 5 out of 5

Interactive Design – 5 out of 5

Information – 4 out of 5

Layout – 5 out of 5

Clarity – 3 out of 5

Weather Locations – 3 out of 5

 

 

Authoring

Authoring is the making and creation of applications using both databases and programs. Author-ware or authoring tools are special programs made to assist developers create their final application.

These are some examples of programming language for apps that are made to assist people that aren’t programmers create multimedia.

  • DocBook
  • PILOT
  • TUTOR

Applications

Authoring is usually applied to:

  • Entertainment
  • Marketing
  • Presentations
  • Product Catalogues
  • Documentations
  • Games
  • Education
  • Computer-based training
  • Assessment

 

Format

A format is the way in which media is presented through.

Interactive Media formats can be authored in the following forms:

  • Web
  • CD/DVD ROM
  • Information Kiosks
  • Presentations
  • Interactive TV
  • Handheld Devices

Assets

Assets are tools that can be used and in this case they are ways to attract people to through  pleasing audiovisual

Authoring means you have the ability to use multimedia such as

  • Sound – for example music
  • Text – for example ‘welcome’ on the home page
  • Video – for example YouTube videos
  • Animations – for example an animated GIF
  • Image – for example PNG’s or JPEGS.

Interactivity and Controls

Interactivity allows the user to control the content on the screen. For example buttons are pressed by the users to display desired information.

  • Buttons
  • Events
  • Hotspots
  • Scripting
  • Timelines
  • Slideshows
  • Effects

Limitations

Every designers must realise that there are limitations in their designs for example:

  • Size – Is the file size too big for certain phones to handle, is it too damaging to the phones storage.
  • Download Time – The amount of time it takes to download is important too as users with short patience may not wait for the download to finish or forget about it all together
  • Type of Content – The type of content may be limited on phones as they do not have cooling fans like computers in order to deal with challenging tasks.
  • Requirement for Plug-ins – Can all the content be played on all devices? An example of this is the Java plug-in which may not be available for all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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