Updating and updating...

New changes to Squarespace, plans and features, has me redoing one of my (too many) sites. I thought I would upgrade to the new "professional plan" which included a bunch of stuff that used to cost extra... like the form builder. Uh, I never could figure out that omission from the middle plan? But hey, glad they realized that was something everyone needs for even a basic site so yayy to that! I also see that domain service has been added to the new features. Cool on that one too. But I guess you have to sign up for an annual or bi-annual plan to take advantage of that, so may have to change the plan again. I'm still trying to sort out my domains, sites, and formats (squarespace, wordpress, html etc.) and narrow it down to one platform, domain etc. It's geting a little confusing at this point. 

Charting a course...

I've been working on charts and graphics lately. Since, they usually have to be done quickly, I try and reuse elements I've created over the years... changing them to suit the purpose. Usually, I have to illustrate a process or explain something really complex with a few pictures, so I try and keep them simple — but interesting. I really enjoy doing these as it's more about thinking fast, and telling a story — than a long, drawn out design process. 

 

Guitar Master... IPhone app

I recently completed this project for my Usability Testing class. The assignment was to design an IPhone App. In addition to creating personas and conducting the actual card sorting and usability tests... I had to design the interface for my app. My project was called Guitar Master. Sort of a Swiss army knife toolkit for the guitar player. The app had seven basic functions including: a tuner, metronome, four track mixer and a riff recorder. I also included a chord and scale database since there were no "technical limits" to what we could dream up. It was an interesting project and I had to do some "serious" thinking about designing buttons and other elements of a "realistic" user interface. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be! Since I have been a long time user of DAW software (Logic Audio) and software synthesizers, I'm pretty familiar with this type of interface, but it was still a challenge to try and visualize the best approach for readability and design. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out overall, but I kept thinking of new things to add everytime I thought it was finished. Ha!