I have noticed in my experience that often the “Wireframing” stage in the design process is often overlooked by designers and developers, and I have personally been guilty of this in the past as I did not quite understand the merit of it at the time. With experience I have re-evaluated and developed my design process, and realising the best way to succeed is to plan. Wireframing is arguably one of the most important stages in the planning of any project. Wireframing allows the designers to unleash their creative thinking and allow others to visualise how the interface may not only look but also how the user can interact with it (UX), helping others to foresee any complications.

Rapid Iterations

Once you have setup a template for your wireframes, its very easy to produce quick wireframes with boxes and shaded areas to represent placement of content in the interface. With loads of iterations of wireframes it allows the designers to consider all possible ideas quickly and include it to test to see what fits the best.

Sharing is Caring

By producing wireframes, it allows others such as developers and clients become involved in the design process at a very early stage. With their involvement they can help shape the design to help suit the client, and allow the developer to see what is possible and what will not work.

It’s Cheap

It’s cheap for a lot of reasons but there are two major reasons why its cheap. All you need to produce a wireframe is a pen and sketchbook. Another reason is it can save you money in the long run. By involving it early in the planning stages of the build you will be able to save from future complications and will cost you time and money.

Focuses on Content

Wireframing takes the focus off the color and the aesthetics of the interface, and forces the designer to focus the placement of the content, and places an emphasis on what the content is as it will shape the design.

Paper Prototyping

Paper Prototyping is one of the best methods in getting feedback on usability issues and especially an opportunity to involve the user at a very early stage of the design process. Its so simple and quick to work with Paper Prototypes although they its not the same as live testing on the correct platform, but at the planning stages this method can help guide your designs.

Client Engagement

Wireframing presents the opportunity to share your ideas to the client, and for them to offer feedback and share their own ideas. This is a brilliant way to engage the client at the beginning of the process and will lead to the likelihood of the client signing off on the design.

Download iPad Wireframe Template for Illustrator

Before I started studying on the Multidisciplinary Design course, to be honest I did not quite yet know what kind of a designer I wanted to be. Towards the end of my undergraduate course on the Interactive Multimedia Design I found myself working more in the development, and that I was perhaps working more so as developer than a designer. My mindset has all changed since that, largely due to masterclass session with Christoph Zwelleger.

Christoph Zwelleger

Christoph deserves a lot of credit for helping me shape my thinking as a designer, and his insight on Art and Design was awe-inspiring and a very nice man to talk to. During our masterclass with Christoph, he spoke of how designers — “have a desire to improve the world”, and artists — “have a desire to understand the world”. He also talked about how both of these statements are connected as in my scenario as a designer, I believe that we need to understand the world so that we may be equipped to improve the world.

I asked Christoph during the session about personal identity, in that how do we describe our role as a designer or artist to others? Christoph asked each of us to write down how we would describe ourselves in our practice. For me I thought of words such as web designer, web developer, iPhone developer, user experience designer, user interaction designer… the list goes on. The list of words all describe the things I can do but didn’t describe what kind of a designer I was until Christoph suggested — User-centred designer, a lightbulb went off in my head and the idea of translating my long list of buzzwords under the umbrella name of user-centred designer fitted my profile as a designer perfectly.

Networking

I had started to design some new logo icons as I wanted to design a new business card and brand myself as a user-centred designer. I have noticed from other Masterclasses with Kris Turnbull, and sessions with Andrea Montgomery that the business cards played a pivotal role in networking. I should be using events such as Refresh and Build to help get my name out there among the community.

Tutorial

I had a tutorial with Chris Murphy, and I was able to show him some of the ideas I had for my new logo. I had quite a few and I was undecided how I should take my ideas forward. Chris suggested to create 50 unique icons, and after that I could possibly take my top icons, and use the 10 icons as my logo. The idea of having a dynamic icon was really nice and unique to me. I then started to look into braille, as I like the shapes and the idea of it encourages you to touch to understand the information.

I was able to catch Chris for a follow up tutorial, and he really liked the idea of using the braille, and in particular going with the braille equivalent of my initials DT. So next step was to begin designing the business card. Chris and I discussed about using the idea of designing the business card in the shape of an iPhone icon. I wanted the design of the card to be something different and away from the normal shaped business card, something that once I hand over my business card that that experience is something different for the other person.

Printing

I was originally thinking of using Moo to print the business cards, that was until Chris McClelland (@chrismcclelland) from Ecliptic Labs gave me one of his business cards. I was really impressed with the quality of the card and the UV Vanishing was a nice touch, and Chris got them printed by Print100.com. Print 100 offer a impressive range of options and especially at a great price. They have a diecutting option if you wish to shape your card differently, and this was exactly what I was looking for. So I have placed my order with Print 100, and will post up some pictures when the business cards arrive hopefully before Christmas.

The Design…

Shortly after finishing off the User Interface for Oblique Strategies, a great opportunity presented itself at one of the master-classes organised by the Multidisciplinary Design staff. We were to asked to work in groups of three, and to collaborate our creative thinking and present these ideas back to the class. The great advantage of working on the Multidisciplinary Design course, is that their is a wide variety of design disciplines, and working together on the project was a lot fun and the ideas we came up with were fantastic. In particular one idea that emerge from the group was the Virtual Concierge iPhone application.

Concept

The concept behind the Virtual Concierge is to target the 5 and 6 star hotels, who are looking to create an experience of exclusivity among their clients. One of the most important roles in creating a positive experience amongst the customers is down to the Concierge. What the Virtual Concierge will do is take that experience to the next level. It will allow the customers of the hotel to have access to the best knowledge around the area and on the history of the hotel. I have some more ideas in the pipeline to continue to develop the product, but for the moment I have drawn up three visuals that I believe will make this application desirable amongst the hotels clients.

User Interface

The Virtual Concierge is still a work in progress, but I have very much enjoyed working on this project, as it has been very exciting so far to hear such positive feedback from tutors and class mates. I would love to hear your thoughts on the Virtual Concierge?

Today, I had the opportunity to speak with Joseph in more detail about the next assignment — the 3,000 word coursework based on answering the question, “The problems with my practice in the 21st Century?” Over the last few weeks I had been considering writing explicitly around the impact of the iPhone. However, Joseph wanted me to come out of my comfort area, and consider looking at design in a more macro sense.

The Macro Approach

This macro approach led to me to thinking more of what kind of a designer I am, and only recently I realised that my area of expertise is user-centred design, which covers quite a large area from User Interaction, User Experience, Information Design and Usability to name a few.

Joseph suggested reading some extracts on the “Design Studies: A Reader” book, as well as looking at “Lev Manovich – The Language of New Media” to help me apply their theory to answer or provide a possible solution(s) to the problems within my practice area.

Multi-discipline

To answer some of the problems I will be looking at user-centred design pieces across different disciplines and to analyse its approach on the effectiveness. I will also be looking into commodities, democratic (sharing), and the process of removing the barriers to entry from the user’s perspective.

Action Agreed

To continue reading into the work of Edward Tufte, Don Norman and Lev Manovich, and to create a detail plan of the different sections I will focus in on for the 3,000 word assignment.

Today, I had a long list of things I wanted to cover with Chris. Firstly, I wanted to ask Chris about potentially going to UX London (User Experience Conference), and possibly volunteering as means of attending the event. Chris suggested some great books that I could read especially on interaction design (Designing Interactions) by Bill Moggridge, who is one of the many impressive speakers at the conference.

Personal Identity

Next, I wanted to discuss about my personal identity icons, and how I could narrow it down from 50. We both liked the idea of Braille, as it encourages the idea of the finger interaction, and the feedback from the feel of the Braille texture. I also wanted to develop the brand icon into a unique business card design. So we talked about possibly designing the business cards in the shape of the iPhone icon, with the gloss and rounded corners. I thought it would be nice if the Braille icon could be embossed to encourage others to touch and interact with the card, and let this act as a touch point, and therefore leading to a conversation starter.

Semantic Presentational Style

Chris also gave me some feedback on my mock presentation I did the day before. One interesting point was the idea of using semantics in the design of the slides. So we talked about designing the slides as if it was an iPhone app, and with a progress/loading icon to indicate the time allocated to each slide, as a way of visually connecting with the audience.

Action Agreed

We agreed to work on the personal identity icon and develop a business card. Also to design and create a semantically designed keynote presentation for the Viva assessments in January.

Fellow masters student Mr Brian Burns posted a tweet a few days back, letting the world know that he was soon to become a proud of owner of an iPhone 3GS! Although he never does much work anyway! lol only joking, he tweeted the following:

Fully expecting to get no work done tomorrow. Finally taking the plunge… iPhone in the post. Any must-have-app recommendations?

Mr Brian Burns, 22/11/09

Brian got a lot of responses from the Twitter Community, but I thought I could take it a step further and list my personal Top 10 iPhone Apps. I could easily have made it 20 but thought 10 was a fair enough round number considering I currently have 98 iPhone Apps. How do I consider which app is better than the other? That is a difficult question to answer as everyone will have a different opinion on their own favourite applications but I chose mine on terms of how often I use them and of course how beautiful their User Interface was designed. I have organise my top 10 list in reverse order keeping the best to last .

#10 – Tea Round

#09 – Birdbrain

#08 – Bloom

#07 – Postage

#06 – Little Snapper

#05 – Voices

#04 – Tweetie 2

#03 – Weightbot

#02 – Things

#01 – Convertbot

What are your top 10 apps?

What are your top 10 must have apps? It would be great to hear what apps you are using?

Dear Mr. Brian Eno, if you do happen to fall across this web page, we’ll be contacting you shortly. Over the past month I have been working and developing on the User Interface (UI) design of the very first application built by DubbleTap.

DubbleTap — we build apps

DubbleTap is a tiny iPhone & Web Development studio based in Belfast. It is a collaborative project by two Multidisciplinary Design students, Brian Burns and Danny Turley. We have several app ideas in the pipeline, that we are hoping to roll out next year, so watch this space…

What is Oblique Strategies?

For those of you who have not heard of Oblique Strategies before — just as I was only a month ago, I have taken a quote from the interview with Mr. Brian Eno about Oblique Strategies:

The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation – particularly in studios – tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you’re in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that’s going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn’t the case – it’s just the most obvious and – apparently – reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, “Don’t forget that you could adopt *this* attitude,” or “Don’t forget you could adopt *that* attitude.”

The first Oblique Strategy said “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” And, in fact, Peter’s first Oblique Strategy – done quite independently and before either of us had become conscious that the other was doing that – was …I think it was “Was it really a mistake?” which was, of course, much the same kind of message. Well, I collected about fifteen or twenty of these and then I put them onto cards. At the same time, Peter had been keeping a little book of messages to himself as regards painting, and he’d kept those in a notebook. We were both very surprised to find the other not only using a similar system but also many of the messages being absolutely overlapping, you know…there was a complete correspondence between the messages. So subsequently we decided to try to work out a way of making that available to other people, which we did; we published them as a pack of cards, and they’re now used by quite a lot of different people, I think.

Brian Eno, interview with Charles Amirkhanian, KPFA-FM Berkeley, 2/1/80

Pen and Paper

My iPhone Stencil Kit came in handy and was fun to use when I started my design process off with some paper mockups. When starting any new project, I believe it is essential to start the design process off with some old pen and paper, whether it may be simply making some notes, brainstorming, or sketching — it really does focus your thinking, and helps develop your ideas.

The UI

User Interaction Flow

Feedback

If you any thoughts or comments, I would really like to hear them and to get some feedback on User Interface of Oblique Strategies would be great! Thanks

Yesterday, I did a Presentation on the Intelligence of Interaction as part of our coursework for the Design Thinking module. My task was to take a single design object — iPhone and look at theory by Nicholas Negroponte on User Interaction. Most of my research was based on Negroponte’s book, Being Digital, and a video of him on TED.

Brainstorming

Slides

I had originally agreed with Joseph if I could postpone my Presentation on 17th November to the following week — 24th November, as I had a plan to be at an iPhone training course. Unfortunately, the course was postponed to the following week, so it was best for me to present on the original date.

Assignment – Presentation

The assignment was to take a single design object, and discuss it in terms of theoretical reading. The Presentation to be between 10 – 15 mins, accompanied with a 500 word written statement.

Interaction v’s Packaging

Joseph had simplified the process for me, and told me that he was looking for one theory, and one object. I was very interested in working with a theory of “Intelligence of Interaction” by Nicholas Negroponte. I was also interested in the role of packaging, and looking at Adrian Forty on the Lucky Strike redesign by Raymond Loewry.

Action Agreed

To either take Interaction or Packaging, and find one theory and one object for the 10 minute presentation.

It was great to finally get talking to Joseph McBrinn about the two assessments. I really did not what to do for each assignment, and was good to talk to Joseph as I was finding a lot of the reading material very difficult to comprehend. Although I did notice that from reading the difficult texts, I found reading other material to be much easier and my overall understanding was improving.

Assignments

For the first assignment we discussed about looking into the theory of designers such as Nicholas Negroponte, and Don Norman and apply the emotional design and the how we will interact with touch sensitive screens.

For the second assignment I will have to look more so at the area of my practice — iPhone Development, and we talked about:

• Look at the bigger picture how does the iPhone affect the way we interact with the world.
• If stranded on a beach would an iPhone be one of the 3 objects you would take with you?
• In 9 months Apple have reached over 1 Billon iPhone App sales, and how can this effect the economic values of the world and its competitors.
• The pros and cons of the iPhone device.
• The possible effect of the much anticipated Mac Tablet have on the consumer market?

Action Agreed

We agreed to start looking at different theories by individuals such as Nicholas Negroponte, and Don Norman, and how these theories can be applied to the object — iPhone.