Final Project's Started

Alright, so it's been awhile since I posted.

Assignment 3 ended recently. It was quite interesting. I don't have a lot of experiencing in designing icons and UI and so I had to do quite a bit of research for this one. There were many interesting little things that I have learnt about UI, that though are small, can make a bigg difference in user satisfaction. Like where the buttons are placed and whether it's good to have a hamburger icon. I used to think hamburger icons were all the rage.

Now on to final project, I'm quite excited about it. I do hope that we will be able to create something that is as close as it can be to what we're imagining it to look like and work like. This project will have a lot of work with html, css and js, of which I am not as experienced as I hope to be in.

No matter, I will work hard and train myself alongside coding out our project.

Midterms and assignments from other projects are here as well. I really need to learn to manage my time better. 

Week 5 is over

Time really flies by fast. It's already assignment 3 and final project time. Recess Week is almost here! (that means midterms and assignment 3 deadline and etc.)

I have always done backend work when it came to making web apps. I really do have a lot experience with it. Hoever, I've always wanted to try out front end and see how things are done there as well. It was refreshing to have a chance to do front end work now for assignment 3. I think I like our idea. I hope we can pull it off well and I hope that I can also learn how to be a front end developer fast enough.

=]

Welcome to September

The past week was quite hectic. 

I'm quite happy how our assignment 1 web app turned out. There were a few things that we had planned before that we had to leave out of the final app due to time constraints. Perhaps if we had worked a little more, maybe we could have added them in too. Oh well, we tried our best! I do hope we have the time to add features or maintain it after our module.

Assignment 2 was fine. I liked my critique. Hopefully others like it too. Now time to critique others' critques!

This week also came out with assignment 3. I have yet to discuss an idea with my group yet. I'm looking forward to what we might create. Other modules have also started releasing their own assignments. Week 5 is starting already. Time flies.

App Presentation: Pinterest

I thought that the presentations yesterday were a good way to get to know more about the strengths and flaws of apps out in the industry today, The app presentation that I've been tasked to talk about is Pinterest. I thought the presenter spoke well and was able to bring the group's thoughts and opinions across very well. I'd like to bring out a few points that caught my attention during the presentation.

I really liked their suggested improvements to the logic flow of the app. I really feel that this might be a better way of having users test and try out what the app uses before deciding to log in and create pin boards and contribute on their own. In my experiences with similar social content sharing sites like Deviantart, Tumblr and the sort, most people start off as passive users. It takes time for them to come to like and use the app. It would do Pinterest good to do the same. The book 'Rework' by Jason Fried and David Hansson, talked about something similar to this. 'Don't be afraid to give a little away for free, as long as you've got something else to sell'. In this case, it would be the 'free' trial of using the app without logging in.

I have not used Pinterest before, so I went to check it out. You can actually explore the site without logging in, but that is if you search on google for your categories on Pinterest (which should not be the way to go). But after awhile the website prompts you to log in and you can't close the prompt, so I guess it's not really counted. :P Anyway, kudos for picking that point out.

The commercial element of Pinterest was nicely stated. It is true, that a new model of business is arising through social media apps where users get inspired to buy from looking at pretty things. Pinterest seems to have that platform ready to pin the things that you are interested to buy. Businesses can use this to promote their products, by marketing them well to Pinterest users. As mentioned, Pinterest already has ad features like promoted pins and machine learning. Combining these two, businesses can definitely benefit by advertising their items to people who are actually interested in buying similar items. Higher chance of them clicking on the ads. Native advertising ftw!

Lastly, they mentioned about little UI/UX flaws, such as inconsistent texts and weird video displays and I believe that these small mistakes can really undermine the app. It makes it look unprofessional and feel like testing had not been thoroughly done. It is important to have a stable app when releasing production. We should learn from others mistakes and try not to repeat them.

I feel that Pinterest has its own specialized user base and I think that is a good indication that an app has been successful. These loyal followers are emotionally attached to this app and may be able to help Pinterest by asking their friends to join and use the app as well. Social sites have that kind of advantage when it requires users to be social so in turn leading to more users using the app. Of course when starting out, this might be hard because people do not want to start using a social site if it is empty. Like it was mentioned in the Growth Hacking session last week, it is important to understand the psychology of users as well, when marketing the app. (and for UI/UX too!)