25.09.15

CRITIQUE & FURTHER PROTOTYPING

Over the week I was given the task of looking for different visual approaches for our app and how that may or may not translate for the different age groups. We had some sort of mis-understanding with our demographic because I still thought we were going to work with little children whereas Natalie thought we had made our demographic smaller from 10 to 16 year olds. We sorted that out today in class and just thought of not to limit it as much for now just so we can see how the user interface aesthetics can change accordingly. 

So far I've looked at vector avatar art more based around the younger child demographic as opposed to a low poly art style for the older teens. It definitely juxtaposes but we will see where we go from there. We also got to talk with a 4th year student and how she perceived this app. We got some good points to look at and further implement.  

Our app involves choosing a character/avatar and I thought that might limit the user a bit too much because what if so many people choose the same one? I came across this picture that said make your own character. There were some body shapes, eyes, mouth and noses which then the user could personalise. Examples will be in the workbook anyway.

- How will kids be actually motivated to use the 'my mood' aspect of the app?
- How does it engage with the child, parents and mentor to make it a system?
- Would prompts for the parent and child app needed because we would also be looking at how the child and parents would also needed to communicate with one another. 

We also got to talk to Sam from Lifehack and he also had some good feedback and critique for our project. There are some aspects we have researched in depth that would reinforce our project such as how are children and even parents introduced to this app in the first place. It could even be this is a tool a real life service may eventually use. It was very useful because he made us think in terms of the 5 types of wellbeing and how we initially started and how our prototype would link back to our brief. It's about not losing the connection between these points. We need to make that more clear which we will definitely do in the upcoming weeks. For now our important step is to suss down what we need and don't need in terms of the app and the whole aesthetic. Ongoing research will be carried on throughout. 

I feel as if this could be a real thing if we wanted it to be and it seems like the app could get big in terms of content. I think we are on track and just need to keep on moving forward.