Learning Commons:Student Orientation/Sessions/Perception Check
Your objective?
To identify your preferences and consider those in the broader context of mobile and web design principles and our current constraints in order to:
- understand the role of bias and objectivity in site design
- translate inspiration to approach
Responsive Websites
Take 20 minutes to explore some of the following sites (or other responsive sites that you know), and answer the following questions.
- Sweet Hat Club
- Do Lectures
- Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek - New York Times
- SoSweet Creative
Questions
- What inspires you?
- What makes it easy for you as a site visitor?
- What are you frustrated by?
Take-aways
Take 15 minutes to discuss and document here:
- What approaches can we borrow for our LC site? (think: storytelling, design elements, use of color, use of images, etc.).
- Refer to the .net mobile design principles linked below. Now re-consider your list based on these principles.
Our Perceptions:
- Story-telling through information that we put out. (ex: when we're putting on an event, recreating the experience of what that event feels like in order to further tell the story. Also include: What can I do to be involved or how do I contribute?
- 'The Middle Way' with graphic elements. Shouldn't be disorienting but responsive and clean-looking/operating. It should help do or show something
- We like clean. Simple colour schemes, easy to read fonts, use typefaces well to portray information- no tabs or layers necessary
- Easy to recognize logos or taglines
- What am I here for? We like websites where we instantly recognize what the site is about. action words over abstract. If you can't summarize in a simple sentence, we get lost.
Constraints
- What are the constraints we have to work within? 10 minute brainstorm.
- Apply the constraints to your list above - what remains?
- Time- we all have other projects
- CLF- Common Look and Feel
- Sustainability- can someone else adapt it or change it? (easily replicated)
- We aren't web designers. Where do our expertise begin and end? We have our own professional constraints
- Mandate must be upheld. Academic support is paramount
- Re-use - where does our stuff go and how does it get used?
Resources
Web Design
Responsive Design
- UBC's Common Look and Feel support site
- .net's 10 principles for mobile interface design
- A List Apart's Mobile Design Series