Next Camera User Interface
Summary
When making a design decision, wireframe is not enough to discuss for designating UI direction. That's why prototyping is essential. Also, prototyping is useful especially when communicating with software engineers for describing how to make it. There are various methods for prototyping such as making paper prototype, developing flash file and so on. This time, assignment for camera application roadmap was to apply trendy user interface. At that time, Material Design from Google just came out and the battle between flat UI design and skeuomorphism was a big issue. Eventually, my team decided to go for flat UI. So, this project is about how my team and I made a design decision to go for flat UI by doing iteration of prototypes and user testing.
My Role: Research, UI Design, Prototyping
Team Members: Jisun Yoon, Aehyun Kim
Project Period: Jan - April 2014
Design Process
Market research for knowing trend of design was practiced and made direction based on core trend. And then hands-on prototypes, two version, were made to evaluate which prototype best satisfies user needs. After usability test, final design was chosen and developed in detail.
1. Trend Research "Flat design with Interactive Animation VS stylish UI"
For knowing design styles that can be adapted to Camera application design, trend research was practiced on not only camera relevant design, but also other references.
2. Design Direction and Prototyping
From trend research, my team concluded core trends which will guide direction of next camera application’s user interface. To practice usability test objectively, we made hands-on prototype as an app software type to make users directly use camera app. It helped them to understand how it works substantially which helped them to answer questions easily.
** GUI was Designed with Photoshop and Software was made with Android Studio program.
3. Usability Comparison Testing
We had usability test with 10 users for both concept A and concept B. The result of the test was used for making a decision which way we should go for. At first, I asked which concept they prefer more. Second, I conducted a user testing by letting them do a certain task using each camera app such as taking a. I wrote every mistakes they made while doing tasks. Lastly, I asked the preference one more time. Because it is possible that their preference can be changed after using each camera apps. It was interesting to see how their taste has changed after using each app. It was about half and half for liking concept A and B. But afterwards, they liked concept B more. Of course, they made more mistakes with concept A. I think in this case, it is important for camera app not to have too much elements on the screen. People mentioned that they felt concept A distracted their sight toward an object they want to shoot.
4. Final Design: Concept A. Interactive Motion
As a result of usability test, we decided to go for concept A as next camera user interface. Since this decision was made with substantial prototype, communicating with software engineers and GUI designers wer easier than other roadmap that did not have this process.
Thoughts
Since hands-on prototype was made as real software this time, communication with stakeholders was not difficult especially when delivering explanation about how our design will look like to software engineers. In conclusion, I realized that as much as the prototpye be sophisticated, the quality of the product or service will go up.