Application Design /Project 1: Mobile Application Proposal

Application Design /Project 1: Mobile Application Proposal

From 9.2024

9.2024 -10.2024 / Week 1 - Week 4

Gexianjing/0377636

Application Design 1 / Interactive Space Design

Project 1: Mobile Application Proposal

第 1 周

课堂教学文档

This lesson focuses on the necessity of user experience in software design, such as users reading a lot of reviews before making a purchase to determine whether it is a useful software, and designers can also improve the software through customer feedback. The login interface will be as simple as possible, giving customers a quick overview of how the software is being used, allowing them to learn about the company and find personal information to navigate directly. Designers provide interactive design sensors such as clicks, bounces, and other forms of animation.

Take Facebook, for example, which is a free software that allows users to earn profits by signing up for their credit cards and wallets. Creators will earn advertising fees by buying traffic to increase exposure.

The availability of the software depends on sales on mobile devices (often promoted through computers and mobile phones) and offline employees. Of course, pre-launch testing is also essential. The first step is to ensure low-cost prototypes, the second step is to iteratively test interactive prototypes, and the final step is to conduct remote and on-site testing to verify usability

Homework 📄: Choose three pieces of software that you think have poor page design in your experience and describe their problems and solutions.

Suggestions for improving Baidu, Taobao and China Unicom app pages

 

Baidu

1. Excessive Ad Interference

   • Ads dominate the top results, reducing user experience.
   • Ads are not clearly differentiated from organic search results, misleading users.

2. Inaccuracy of Information

   • Outdated or unreliable information often appears in search results.
   • High-quality content is buried, while paid content occupies top positions.

3. Lack of Personalization

   • Recommendation algorithms are insufficiently accurate, with mismatched suggestions.
   • Insufficient tailored services for different user groups (e.g., professionals vs. students).

4. Outdated UI/UX Design

   • The interface is overcrowded, causing visual fatigue.
   • Functional tools are not user-friendly, with complex navigation.

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Taobao

1. Information Overload

   • Product detail pages are overwhelming, requiring users to sift through excessive content.
   • Frequent pop-ups and activity notifications disrupt the user experience.

2. Poor Search Experience

   • Search result rankings are heavily influenced by ads and seller optimization, reducing authenticity.
   • Product categorization and tags are unclear, particularly for niche items.

3. Complicated After-Sales Process

   • Return and exchange entry points are hard to find, with overly complex workflows.
   • The review system suffers from fake reviews, affecting purchasing decisions.

4. Cluttered UI Design

   • The homepage recommendation section is overly complex, requiring frequent scrolling or clicking to locate desired content.
   • Tool functionality distribution is poorly organized, making some features hard to find.

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China Unicom Software (e.g., "Unicom Service" App)

1. Unstable Performance

   • The app runs slowly, with frequent lagging or crashing.
   • Long loading times negatively impact user experience.

2. Disorganized Functional Entry Points

   • Common functions are deeply hidden, requiring multiple clicks to access (e.g., changing plans or viewing bills).
   • The homepage layout lacks logical organization, making it difficult to find desired services.

3. Slow User Feedback Response

   • Customer service entry points are not prominent, and feedback takes a long time to process.
   • Automated customer service responses are rigid and fail to resolve complex issues.

4. Monotonous Visual Design

   • The interface design lacks appeal, with minimal modern aesthetics or brand identity.
   • Poor use of colors and fonts leads to visual fatigue.

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Week2

Classroom teaching documents

User-Centered Design

UCD is a holistic philosophy that considers the needs of residents (users). It provides a framework and foundation for creating user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing products.

User Experience Design

UX design focuses on the features of a home, such as layout, room size, and ease of movement (user experience). UX design builds on that foundation by ensuring smooth and functional interactions.

User Interface Design

Ul design involves the aesthetics and finishes of the interior (visual perception and interaction). UL design visually brings the user experience to life.

Clearly articulate each requirement to fill out and confirm to the customer. For example, if a customer enters a password, you need to let them know how many characters are entered and the difference in upper and lower case. If the customer wants to cancel this interface, you need to clearly display the location of the cancel button.

Week3

Classroom teaching documents

  This lesson taught how to increase appeal and influence users' ideas, making them interested in the application and more excited to buy things through the buttons you designed. This is what we need to do.

 Purchasing products requires some electronic buttons, which means that after clicking the button, different products can be placed on the page to ensure that users use credit cards or bank cards to purchase products

  Copyright and dates are equally important, and we need to be good at writing copy to increase our competitiveness in the market. For software design, we need to consider maintaining consistency in phone size, application navigation, and color schemes, using iconic colors to increase user awareness of the brand. We also need to ensure consistency in button placement at the bottom or top to avoid confusion for customers. How can we make customers more focused and attentive on the homepage? This is the design for visibility state changes, with important buttons highlighted in prominent colors. 

  After the customer confirms the subscription to the software, a pop-up prompt is required to ensure that the customer did not accidentally touch it. When creating a shortcut key, customers can return to the previous step to check the information on all pages. For advertisements, there needs to be a button to close them, and customers cannot be forced to click on them. Some search areas should include historical search records and favorite folders to facilitate customers in searching for past records.

  

Week4

Usability Heuristic Principles Summary

1.Visibility of System Status: Ensure the system provides timely feedback to keep users informed of the current status.

2.Match with the Real World: Design should align with language and visual metaphors familiar to users.

3. User Control and Freedom: Allow undo and redo actions to enhance users’ sense of control.

4.Consistency and Standards: Maintain visual and functional consistency to improve predictability.

5.Error Prevention: Reduce the likelihood of errors by providing clear guidance and confirmation prompts.

6.Recognition over Recall: Design should make information easy to recognize, reducing users’ memory load.

7.Flexibility and Efficiency: Provide shortcuts and customization options to meet different user needs.

8.Aesthetic and Minimalist Design: Keep the interface simple, using visual hierarchy and whitespace to improve readability.

9.Error Recognition and Recovery: Offer clear error messages and recovery guidance.

10.Help and Documentation: Provide user guides and support resources to help users find assistance easily.

Baibu was selected as the analysis object from the page design, the advantages and disadvantages of the software, and the competition with the same type of App, and summarized how to improve and develop the goals

The completed homework for Project 1: Compare Baidu with mobile search software such as Google, 360 Search, and Quark. View the advantages and disadvantages for future improvement of Baidu's UI and UX design