Author: Tamsin Elisabeth Stacey

 

Here is another example of work take from Pinterest that I wanted to use as inspiration for the design of my own app. This focuses on flat design mixed with the same minimalistic style in the previous ‘Design Research’ blog post.  This work is exceptional in the flat design assets such as each logo and the use of colour. It creates a consistent theme throughout which remains strong yet the flow of the work and the layout is also incredibly strong.

 

Within the layout, the menu organisation is interesting because of the simplicity. From this research I am going to develop my own style with a menu that appears clean and visually pleasing.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/Abydd-d_-ag1fPglQBA033u8S_n3JQ0HJJZyFXrJ1LxkRFZLPj-p7Es/

 

 

 

 

In order to understand what style of app I want to create, I began by searching on Pinterest to understand user interface and the potential styles I could develop.

one style that I thought was visually pleasing and complementary to my idea development was flat design and minimalism. An example of this would be the picture placed below. I think that minimalism is a pleasing aspect to design because it allows the user to breathe among the various assets placed. This is essential to the development of the app because I want to focus on not just the usability, but the interface.

Furthermore, this minimalism and ‘space to breathe’ because it creates a sophisticated house style, which is similar to what I wantto adopt to my own project.

Link: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/168955423502317043/

 

GiveGab

basic Information:

•  GiveGab is a social volunteering platform, website and app. It offers:
  1. Volunteer opportunities
  2. Campaigns
  3. Non-profit crowdfunding

 

https://www.givegab.com

 

This is a similar service to what I aim to create. Therefore I am using this closely as inspiration for content, and what issues I can find within the service that I can solve in my own work. One ‘issue’ with this service is that it is American based, meaning there is a gap in this market for my product.

 

Interesting Aspects:

1. Product Features

The features of GiveGab is arguably more developed and offers more to the individual that ‘Razoo’ (refer to previous research). This is because GiveGab offers crowdfunding to non-profits along with volunteering. These are two main elements to my current idea. Therefore this solidifies my idea to collaborate these two aspects of contribution to a community for the project.

 

Considerations:

After this piece of research, I still feel as though my project could offer more to the ideas of ‘active citizenship’ by adding more elements that can benefit a community.

From researching into GiveGab I think there needs to be a higher place of important around a friendly user interface home page in comparison to GiveGabs. This could include the design and aesthetics including the icons used and house style used.

https://www.razoo.com

Basic Information

• Razoo is a crowdfunding website for non-profit organisations.
• Since 2006 Razoo has raised over 500$ million

 

 

 

Interesting Aspects:

1.Aesthetic / Design

The use of simple icons to illustrate the website and make the information more interesting is an effective method in increasing the levels of interactivity.

2.  Features

 

3. Ability for users to set up projects.

This is an aspect of my own idea that I wanted incorporating into the product. Therefore, this is reassuring to see it be successful in a real organisation.

 

Considerations:

1. Some assets on the website don’t fit correctly

From this I will make sure to test the project thoroughly before submission to ensure assets are suitable for the product.

 

2. Razoo profits from user donations

There is no context to where the money that Razoo so a full conclusion can’t be made. Optimistically it could be assumed that it just used in order to maintain the website itself. However, I don’t necessarily agree with this to source funding for the product itself.

Taking the numbers from the website, where Razoo states its raised 500$ million since 2006.  Take the lowest number stated on the website that it takes 4% from users donations to charities. We can then calculate 4% of 500$ million which is 20$ million. This is a huge profit margin for the website and the maintenance cost of a website over 11 years would not equate to that much.

 

Therefore, I will have to make considerations into the funding of my project itself. One idea I currently have is to have an open donation section for the app itself to ensure its running where users can donate to keep the project maintained. I feel like morally this is a better option to take when regarding non-profits.

I have developed a simple idea for the navigation of the app that I think currently is the most user friendly option. The pictures below show my idea in a basic form. The idea behind them is that the bottom three circles are ‘pages’ that the user can swipe through to quickly access different parts of the app as soon as they open it. The darker colour circle indicates to the user which one they have selected. They would then press the grey box located about the circles to continue to that side of the app.

 

Here is the link to the wireframe that I created:

https://wireframe.cc/yj3qrL