Week 6A- Feb. 24

Today in class each team critiqued another team's icons and wireframes. After viewing ours, the suggestions we got from other teams about our icons was to perhaps integrate the CL from my icon into Jenna's purple C wearing a graduation cap. For the wireframes, the teams enjoyed my idea of the navigation bar at the top of the screen that gives you the option to go back, view options, and displaying where you are on the top of the screen. Jenna's was successful in terms of her rendering of the different accounts on the app that would be located under the specific school, which in our case is Millersville. It was then suggested to have a 4-digit passcode, just like on an iPhone in order to gain access to your account. That would then give you access to view activity on your different accounts, and display a barcode and photo in place of your physical ID card.

Below you will see the icons I worked on so far. I will post screen shots of Jenna's wireframes later...

Week 5 Outside of Class

This week outside of class, I worked on the colored icons and read the assigned readings. For the icons, I used the sketches that were rated the highest and that more people liked when we did our round robin critique last class. I decided to go with a typeface that looked like "college" lettering for the C and L. Below you will see my illustrated icons.

Week 5B- Feb.19

Today in class, we did a round robin activity where each team rotated around the room to view and rate other teams' icon sketches. The sketches in which I combined the different categories of symbols got the most ratings, especially the graduation cap with the wing. Afterwards, we learned about wireframing, and were given a tutorial on how to use Azure, which is the program we are using to produce the wireframes for our app. Below are screenshots of the wireframes I have completed so far, as well as the ideation behind them:

Homework:
- Wireframes in Azure
    - watch training videos
    - develop 6-9 wireframes in Axure
-Design 6 colored, detailed icons in Illustrator (no depth)
   - Size: 120x120
   - Corner radius: 13.5

Read in IID book:
- Branching and Nodes
- Geon Theory
- Reading Distances
- Sequence Mapping
- Wireframes

Week 5A: Feb. 17

Today in class, we did a special activity that involved mind mapping, where teams went around and added to each others' mind maps based on what we thought the app names were about. We then met up with Pannafino and further discussed our app ideas, all while working on our icon sketches. So far we are on a decent track, but still need to further refine our idea. We have decided that our app will show the different balances of the cards we have on campus and their balances and transactions. We also worked on rough sketches for our icons based off of the content on our mind map. Below are sketches of my icon ideas, as well as the mind map.

Week 4B- Feb. 12

Today was basically a work day, so Jenna and I just refined our ideas for the app as instructed. After discussing it, we have refined our app idea, which is to basically have about 50% of the app be centered around banking, paying bills, and such. The other 50% would be as we discussed before about the laundry and household cleaning tips. This would not be the sole focus of the app, but just an added side feature to help college students learn to live on their own while controlling their bank accounts, bills, etc. We have also decided to change the name of our app from All Grown Up to either College Living or College Lifestyle. We feel that they best sum up our revised idea of the app, but we will decide which one is better come Monday.

We also worked on our breakdown of existing mobile design patterns, which you will see below:

Over the weekend, I plan on reading the assigned readings, which I will summarize in my next post!

Week 4A- Feb. 10

Today in class, all of the teams presented their ideas so far for their apps. It was very interesting to see some of the innovative ideas that other teams had. When it came time for Jenna and I to introduce our app idea, we only had enough time to present our elevator pitch and flow chart. The feedback we received was mostly to narrow down our app, since it mostly consisted of tips for laundry and household cleaning, which would not make the user want to come back to the app, so it was suggested that we stick to the banking category, just at a level for college students. Since another team is doing something similar to our potential refined idea, we have to be careful to make ours unique from others.

Homework:
1. Refine concept/ idea
2. Read part 2 of Mobile First book (Ch. 4-5)
3. Read IID book
    - controls
    - design patterns
    - gestures
    - hub and spoke paradigm
4. Create breakdowns of existing mobile design patterns (6-9 apps)
    - see example

Mobile Design Patterns:
1. Mobile-Patterns
2. http://www.pttrns.com/
3. http://inspired-ui.com/
4. http://www.appreciateui.com/#/

Week 3: Outside of Class

We did not have any class this week due to the harsh winter weather, so we were assigned to continue to work on developing ideas for our app. First, we were told to read the following terms in the Interdisciplinary Design book:

• Content Inventory 
• Denotation and Connotation 
• Design Constraints 
• Flowchart
• The Pareto Principle 
• Personas 
• Site map
• Wireframe

We then had to read an article based on naming our app (http://www.creativebloq.com/tips-naming-app-9112818). The name we have selected for our app is All Grown Up. I feel that the name justifies the fact that it is for young adults on their own and would give them the idea that it would aid them in common everyday issues of being out on your own without parents. 

My teammate, Jenna and I worked on our flowchart, personas, and matrices as instructed. Below you will see each of them.

Week 2- Outside of Class

This week outside of class, my teammate, Jenna and I worked together on filling out the Elevator Pitch and Tribe Questions forms, which you will see screen shots of below:
Elevator Pitch:

Tribal Questions

Next, I read about the new Dark Sky app. This app is basically an innovative, state-of-the-art weather application for iPhones and iPads. It has detailed forecasts which are accurate to the minute, as well as current conditions for your current location, and delivers messages warning you of impending storms. What makes this app unique is the fact that you can see weather patterns developing globally through time by simply sliding your finger, and is powered by a weather service built specifically for the application, giving them the freedom to explore more innovative ways of delivering the weather to you.

Week 2B- Jan. 29

Today in class, we mainly discussed our 10 ideas for apps and worked on a spreadsheet which further elaborated on each idea. We ran into an issue while trying to come up with ideas for a roomie app, so we changed our problem to new college students and living on their own for the first time. Below are screen shots of the spread sheet containing our revised ideas.

We also learned about what an Elevator pitch for an app is, as well as a tribe. An elevator pitch is basically a technique for distilling the product value proposition into a discrete, easy-to-remember, compelling, and repeatable phrase. It is like a mission statement, but has a particular formula and is created in the context of being on a brief elevator ride with your boss or investor. A tribe, in this care is the group of people who are most likely to use the app in which you wish to create.

Homework:
- pick one app and fill out 2 forms digitally together (Tribal Questions and Elevator Pitch forms)
- Read about New Dark Sky App: http://blog.forecast.io/the-new-dark-sky