Week 08: Mobile Implementation/ Heuristic Evaluation

For this weeks assignment I am redoing my evaluation for Allison from Allison Unzipped  because I felt like I wasn’t as thorough as I could have been in my evaluation.  I just want to thank Allison again for connecting with me via Skype last week and helping me in critiquing my Balsamiq mockup MUCH MAHALOS!!!  Overall I felt her app was really thought through and it seemed as if she covered majority of her bases on the concept of her app.  

Consistency and Standards

Severity Rating:  0

The buttons throughout her app are consistent in her prototype, the buttons are located in the same place while going through each screen/page in the app, the user is not going to have a hard time trying to figure out what each button does or if they are going to mess up while in this app.

User Control and Freedom

Severity Rating:  2

I told Allison about this when I was conducting the evaluation; I think it would be a good idea if a back button was implemented so the user could go to the previous page just so the user has the freedom to do so.

Another thing that I recommended is that for the screens where users have to input text such as their names or the amount that they want to bid in the game, there should be an edit button as well, if there was a typo or if they entered the wrong amount to bid. 

Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

Severity Rating:  1

I think that all of the dialogues that are in the app are useful and contain the right amount of information needed to get through the app in itself.   One recommendation though that I think is minor but I think it also could be useful, for the home screen I would add a how-to just in case people who want to play the game know how to play the game, like handbook where the rules are explained. 

Awesome Job Allison!! THANKS AGAIN

Here is the video from our evaluation

Week 07: Mobile Navigation Patterns

In my opinion the design of the app is what makes it stand out compared to other apps out there.  From the link that was provided to us for our assignment this week http://www.mobiledesignpatterngallery.com I found 3 of them that I sort of really liked.  2 of the patterns that I found were from the Tab Menu and the last pattern that I really liked was from the Spring Board.

Tab Menu:

Spring Board:

The reason why I picked these patterns is because, thinking for my own mobile app, Im trying to figure out which one of these patterns would match my mobile app.  All of these patterns seem very simple and clean, everything is perfectly spaced out, the colors match each other and the text is very readable.  My mobile app doesn't have that much content and much buttons and Im thinking of possible redesigning my layout to one of these patterns.

Week 07: Heuristic Evaluations VIA SKYPE

I have never really used Skype before and wow this thing came in handy.  I got in touch via Skype with two of my peers Chris Wheeler and Allison Diller within the same day and I was able to conduct Heurustic Evaluations of their Apps and they also did one for mine.  *** I will post the video of their feedback for me when I get their videos a little later.***  here is the videos from Chris:

and here is the video for Allison:

**EDIT**
Allison from Allison Unzipped just sent me the link for her conducting the Heuristic Evaluation of my app here is a link to her blog and video: http://allisonunzipped.blogspot.com

Week 07: Effective Blogging

Blogging is somewhat of a new territory for me and explaining my self could seem quite difficult and confusing.  One of the assignments this week was to read an article about effective blogging:  http://michaelhyatt.com/anatomy-of-an-effective-blog-post.html and then blog about another blog.  The blog that I viewed was from http://idevblogaday.com/ and the article that I chose was called Got Buttermilk?.  From what I have learned from the effective blogging article is that blogs should be really straight to the point with the important information explained.  Blogs also explain the writers personal experience, this makes sense to me because it gives the readers insight on the writers point of view.  Michael Hyatt's article has a list of what makes a 500-word blog and you can click on the link to the page to see what I am talking about.  I think that the article Got Buttermilk? is an effective blog post because the writer executed if not all of the main points that Michael Hyatt explained, which is why I think that that blog post is an effective one.

WEEK 6: Balsamiq

One of the changes that I have made in my prototype was that I took out the Social Media option....for now anyways, I just don't think that I want to complicate the app.  Another thing that I changed in this app was that for the Events I did make the decision to go with a calendar look instead of it just a list of the different upcoming apps.  I would also like the events to have a symbol of some sort so the users know when exactly the dates are and when the date is selected you could have the choice to set a reminder of the event.

WEEK 5: EVALUATION

With my work schedule I am pretty busy but since I don't have any free time to myself I asked my girlfriend and her mom to help me out with my evaluation of my prototype.  I tried to make my prototype as simple as possible so here is what I came up with.

• In the events page, I think in the future I would rather have a calendar instead of just a list of upcoming events.  I noticed that when my testers tried to tap on the event dates listed, it occurred to me that it wouldn't lead the user anywhere further.
• Another thing that I noticed was that maybe for the social media page it would open up the built in social media app such as (facebook, twitter, instagram)

I mainly want this app to serve the students at Hawaiian Kajukenbo Association.