Russell Webb Design

Tag: design

  • Design habits – Tip your hat to your design heroes

    TLDR: Inspired by design masters, this can aide your creative process: User first through to competition analysis, (innovation nit imitation), to
    familiarity and then focus on value then finally beautiful execution

    Contents

    As a junior designer, way back when, I visited our local design museum (I studied in London, UK, so my local design museum was fortunately the rather impressive Design Museum in Shad Thames) and fantasied over how great it would of been to be involved in, say, designing a Charles and Ray Eames leather recliner, or Dysons Cyclone Vacuum cleaner.

    Now I’m doing stuff I feel proud off, in the field of UX/UI, I thought it worthwhile to see if I could mirror the process these great designers took and document it from a UXers perspective. So, here we go. I started with the following criteria:

    • Give users choice.
    • Competition Analysis
    • Design with familiarity in mind
    • Prioritise features that add value – the “Magic Moment”
    • Beautiful execution
    • Todays’ Brave New World
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  • Wireframing an on-demand Internet streaming media service

    Wireframing an on-demand Internet streaming media service

    I have been recently working with a colleague on a private project around the world of media streaming. We had got to a level where the tech was getting up to scratch, but the UX was missing.

    So, here it is.

    Download here Download the PDF: OnDemandStreamingService-Mobile_Tablet

    Mobile

    Mobile

    On – screen blueprint representing the skeletal framework of the service. These provide an informed perspective to hit, or in this case, promote what will be business objective and a creative idea. As usual these lacks typographic style, colour, or graphics, as the main focus lies in functionality, behaviour, and priority of content.

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  • Design Principles #2; Experimenting with layout

    Design Principles #1; Experimenting with layout

    How layout influences our design (Part 2)

    Whether you are working in publishing, UI or advertising, the fundamental ideas (which may overlap) about the practice of good ‘layout’ composition will always form the basic structure of your design. The elements form the ‘vocabulary‘ of the design, while the principles constitute the broader aspects of its composition. Here I have compiled a second set of loose design principles that all revolve around the fundamentals of layout graphic design.

    This is Part 2 of a 2-Part series: To jump back to the first part please click here

    7. Pattern Design

    09_layout_Formats-Pattern
    Pattern Design

    Patterns always been a safe bet for the design arsenal. Repetitive shapes form the back bone of effective graphic design

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  • iOS Casino App for the iphone

    iOS Casino App for the iphone

    TL;DR; While the gambling industry continues to boom despite global financial woes, a reliance solely on branding through splash screens has its limitations. This post dives into why your home screen deserves more attention. Showcase promortaionl content, search (as navigation maybe?) and Quick Links as crucial building blocks, including introducing the popular hamburger icon for primary navigation and transform your home screen into landing page(s) into a powerhouse of usability and brand identity.

    Contents

    Brief

    Next to essentials like food and water, one of the only other industries not effected by the world financial situation is gambling. In fact the industry is booming. There are many UX challenges in designing the perfect game play experience, catering for the green fingered punter all the way through to the seasoned veteran is a difficult balancing act.
    Plus, as mentioned, in these more straighten times, to be conscious of not forcing the gambling experience on to the more vulnerable.

    Splash screen

    Modern smartphone don’t need 2-3 seconds to start up, so the original notion of the start-up or splash screen is now redundant. But brands love to position their logo ‘front of stall’ so for this reason, this screen is important. Keep it simple and remember, if you can’t get your brand message over in 2-3 seconds, think about a re-design.
    iOS_iPhoneCasino3

    Home

    This is the heart of the application, the place to show off what you have to offer – the ‘showcase‘ if you like. So make it impressive, make it big and try your best to impress.

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  • Low fidelity prototypes

    TLDR: Skip the fancy prototypes! Low-fidelity sketches are fast, cheap, and encourage better feedback – perfect for early UX stages to focus on functionality before aesthetics.

    Contents

    basic is still the best?

    I’ve made a few assumptions here, first… you work in UX. Second, you’re familiar with Agile and third, you haven’t much time so I’ll keep this brief. Straight to it, here is a couple of the main advantages of low fidelity prototyping:

    • Get better and more honest feedback
    • More involved collaboration
    • Make the cost of mistakes cheap, not expensive
    • Refine the page flow, not the pages
    • Figure out the interaction design rather than the visual design
    lowFidelity-VersionControl
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  • Adult Dating Brand – Can you choose the right look n’ feel?

    Watch the video Watch the video here

    Low Key Dating

    Brief: Tale an existing site, still young and yet to launch fully, and refresh the look n’ feel with new brand mark and ‘sexy and sassy’ imagery.

    Branding

    What should this brand look like, and how should it segment  This brand has focussed down on three zones:

    • Singles
    • Adults
    • Matures

    This part of the process looks at how best to promote these three distinct sections.

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