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1 week ago

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Tech

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Meet our UI & UX design process in 8 steps

In the beginning there was (almost) nothing This is how the projects addressed to us by our clients start. In the meetings we encounter great ideas and courageous visions about a successful product. Until this happens, we have a long way to go. From experience we know that reality laughs from the end of the street and looks forward to an early meeting. Let's look at the street where we are going to take a walk. Before the product starts to emerge Before the designer starts to play with sexy pixels and colors, he has to overcome wild waters of tasks, jump through minefields of surprise, and avoid cross fire of feedback. Exactly. The relationship between the client and the designer is sometimes like a small war. Until we realize that we are not fighting against each other but together for a successful product. And it belongs to customers, users and those who pay for it. People like to surround themselves with similarly minded people with whom they feel good. However, the products are made for someone else. Everyone who is working on a digital product should realize that all decisions are subjective unless they are based on at least the basic consumer survey. Being in the industry, talking to friends and inventing a product while drinking beer is a strong basis. It has only one potential problem. People like to surround themselves with similarly minded people with whom they feel good. However, the products are made for someone else and we want to get to know them. Thorough preparation is a must The first step to a great product is a product analysis. We want to know the answers to several questions, such as: What problem will the product address? Who is the product intended for? How can we scale it? How will the product earn money? And last but not least, a very important issue for digital products: What product features will solve the given problem? Questions about the problem, functionality, and usage should be consulted with customers themselves. We call this information insights and they are a great basis for creating the successful product. Then we put them into a meaningful document - a technical specification. The more sophisticated and detailed the specification, the better the designer and the developer can estimate and work on the project. Usable product and UX Based on this information, the designer can begin working on the design of a mobile or web application. The first phase of design proposals is chaotic, full of scrawled paper and pencil sharpener waste. Sketching helps detract from beautiful product and focus on functionality. The goal is to lay out all the functional elements at the right places, in a logical sequence of events to meet the requirements of good usability. We strive to create an effective and attractive experience for the user, so called User Experience (UX). At this stage the communication between the designer and the client is very intense. Many of the functional and procedural issues that were not solved or emerged during work are fine-tuned. Clickable product and Wireframes The best sketches grow into digital ones, which are professionally called Wireframes. They are gray, without images or text, focused on functionality. However, digitization allows us to better understand how the product will be displayed on mobile or computer screens. With paper sketches it´s difficult to estimate how many words and elements will fit on the iPhone X or tiny iPhone SE screen. We can connect these digital sketches to prototypes - simple product simulations. At this stage, the product begins to pick up real contours, and should be tested on a sample of 6-8 people from the target group and it is also important to consult the feasibility of the design with developers. By testing, we identify 80% of the imperfections, which are then improved in the final prototype. Not just a beautiful product Great specification, ongoing communication and patience bring the designer to the moment when he can start working on the visual side of the product. The product's visual interface, so called User Interface (UI), is directly influenced by the company's brand. It reflects the values ​​defined in the brand or in the product. We talk about expressions like "youthful, bright, cheerful, courageous" vs. "stable, professional, trustful, adult". Based on these words you can already imagine the direction in which the visual will be taken. Taking all the acquired information in the account, a full inspirational digital moodboard is created to show a visualization of the entire product. Looking at it, the client should see and feel his dream product. Designer considers dozens of variants and combinations during user interface creation process. He works with sizes, colors, shades, transparency, ratios, icons, photos, fonts, line thickness, shadows, and many others. All elements affect each other and create one whole product. UI is subjective and a matter of feeling. Every designer, product manager, developer, or user would suggest different elements. A little more here, a bit less there ... It's possible to play with details for weeks, but it's not good for product development. We look at the final design from two points of view. The first, as mentioned above, is the emotional point of view. The first impression creates the feelings we want to control even in line with the brand of the product. The second point is based on the goals we want to achieve. The design should be first and foremost useful. This is mostly ensured in the UX phase, but with the right UI application, we can reinforce or weaken our intentions. Is it a sales channel? All right, Call-To-Action buttons will be noticeable. Do we need to present certain information? Okay, we'll use larger size, maybe add Bold. Product for people Product design is a dynamic thing. It changes with time, and so does our view of it. That's why it's good to further test your proposals with users. By testing the finished design, we get the most important information. Their feedback is very valuable. It is better to ask the opinion of 5 people than to spend 1000 hours rewriting your own ideas. The next step is to evaluate the results and optimize the product to the final form. At this point, developers can begin to work on development. Summary - The process of designing a digital product Consumer survey - We get to know the people for whom we make the product. Product Analysis - What product will help these people? How will it generate revenue? Technical Specification – We define what and how we want to create. UX Design – Functionally not attractively we bring the product to life. Testing - Is It Right? We verify and work on what we have learned. UI design - We make it more attractive and functional. Final Design Testing and Optimization - We fine-tune the last details. Development – We create an amazing product. So, we finally met the reality at the end of the street and we can laugh together. What are your experiences? What would you recommend to your clients? You can find out more about our approach and process of designing a digital products. If you have questions, do not hesitate and write us at hello@goodrequest.com. Ciao

1 month ago

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Design

How to

World class designers, business and fun. Report from By Design Conference 2016.

There aren’t many design oriented conferences in the center of the Europe. Most of TOP designers are based in the US or England so its pretty hard for an european conference to attract them. Buuut, thanks to main organiser Jakub Ptáčin, By Design Conference 2016 hosted the best designers not only from the US and England, but from all around the world! The second year of the conference was held in Bratislava on May 21 and the main theme was Business + Design. Organisers were doing their best to find the most inspirational speakers from different countries. Let me introduce you By Design conf from my point of view! Tobias Van Schneider After a few warm words from organisers, Tobias Van Schneider took a place of the first speaker. Tobias is digital designer and art director from Germany, currently living in New York. He’s Lead Product Designer of Spotify but he loves occupying himself with various side projects, applications, podcasts or portfolio systems for professionals. Read more about Tobias HERE. It’s not about making something perfect. It’s about start to do something, because the best way to not complain is to do things! Because of Tobias’s strong passion for creating things, the main theme of his keynote was “Side projects are stupid.” Why? Its simple: Sometimes shine trash objects makes awesome things. Everybody’s trying to make an awesome product from an awesome idea but there are a lot of products made from trash idea or just to make fun of something and they are incredibly successful. No idea is good enough if at least half of your friends told you that is stupid ? It’s not about making something perfect. It’s about start to do something, because the best way to not complain is to do things! Peter Bilak Peter was the only Slovak speaker on conference. He stands behind collaborative project called Indian Type Foundry, desktop app Fonstand and he’s well know for his editorial projects such as Dot Dot Dot or Works that work. Read more about Peter here. Less is more. That`s a functional design. Design that works. Design of tomorrow! Peter starts his presentation with funny video from India’s six lane crossroad. Imagine cars driving like crazy with a looot of bicycles. One would say: Impossible without at least 10 traffic restrictions, right? Actually the truth is, there is no restriction at all as well as no accidents. How? Less is more. That`s a functional design. Design that works. Design of tomorrow! Mat Heinl Mat is the CEO of one of the most recognised global creative agencies Moving Brands, with studios in London, Zurich, San Francisco and New York. Moving brads are working for the best-known companies, such as Google, Apple, Sony, Phaidon, DeviantArt, BBC, Norton & Sons, Swisscom or HP. The fame, money and power stops good work to be done. Except of Movings Brands workflow or great branding portfolio, I can say I learned a lot from Matt’s speech especially because of his experience with HP was very closer to mine when I was designing for Mercedes Benz. In 1941 Moving Brands was working on brand identity for HP. It was a hard job for Moving Brands, because HP was pushing their own company ego and power into design process. So they prioritised their own opinion for the logo design, before the expert’s advice. Ok, lest go back to the reality. Its 2016 and HP just refreshed their logo with amazing timeless design. In fact, this amazing timeless new logo was originally created in 1941 by Moving Brands as one of the rejected proposals. Booom! Why it takes HP 60 years to make a good decision? Because the fame, money and power — stops good work to be done. Fact is that people have no idea about what is behind the design. They have their opinions but that’s all. It’s the same with Instagram logo. People are just dissecting terrible disgusting new Instagram logo. But what is behind the design? Probably there are 50 world class designers doing their job very bad in Instagram. And you, John from nowhere, you can do it better. Ok. Sorry for my weak moment, but I had to release it finally ? Malika Favre Malika is a French artist based in London. Malika’s clients include The New Yorker, Vogue, GUCCI, the Fashion Council and Penguin Books, amongst many others. Check more from Malika’s work on her Instagram.  I’m a big fan of material/flat illustrations so I was very impressed by her work. Malika is passionate about grids. Her style is expressing meet of a grid from the real life things and flat illustrations with shadows. Peter Bilak + Michael Wolff — One to one discussion One of the best talks on the conference was definitely Bilak + Wolff discussion. Michael Wolff is the co-founder of the world’s most iconic design and advertising company Wolff Olins that specialises in corporate identity. His clients include world known brands such as The Ministry of Sound, 3i, Mothercare, Citibank, Citigroup, Apple Corps, Volkswagen, Audi, Bovis, P&O, Renault or Pilkington. Read more about Michael here. Wolf has started the discussion with decent hate of Tatra Banka (main partner of the event) logo. There was a small tension in the air when Bilak points on a CEO of Tatra Bank siting in the audience ? Wolf was talking about his experience with big clients too. He described it in a short story: Big businessman from car corporation ask me to do a job. After I introduced my proposals he told me: “Do you know what sells a car? Price, quality, service. “ I told myself: We, designers, are in sh*t than. But I asked him: “What do you drive?” He said “Jaguar”. “So you are driving Jaguar, an expensive, unreliable car with bad services. Why do you drive it?” He said: “Because I love it.”. “ Me: So let me do my job and people will love your product.” Job was done and everyone was happy. Michael’s main working principle while designing a brand identity is, that he’s always trying to work with human being not with brands. “Its really important to know how to walk in another person’s shoes” he said. Oliviero Toscani One of the most admired, yet also one of the most controversial advertisers of last decades. Oliviero is internationally renowned as the creative force behind some of the world’s most successful brands like United Colors of Benetton, Esprit, Chanel or Colors magazine. Read more about Oliviero here. Toscani introduced himself as the most lucky and privileged person in the world. Why? Because when he was younger he could learn from the best designers and photographers. Oliviero was talking a little but very suggestively about his starts with an art, how everything was analogical compared to todays digital age. Toscani points on how it is important for artists to close technologies and start with imagination to keep your mind working instead of creating a lot of copies and rubbish for this world. There is no vacation for artists! If you are an artist, you should live your life as an artist and there is no vacation for your creative mind then. We knew Toscani is gonna be a little controversial, question was when he is going to start. After a few warm words he starts presentation of his work with some short talks about some different topics. First — his opinion to “vacation for designer” described very “softly”: “There is no vacation for artists! If you are an artist, you should live your life as an artist and there is no vacation for your creative mind then. If you are stupid, then go to the vacation!”. Next on on guillotine was the term Creative Directors. “Creative directors? What the ****?! What kind of art are they directing?!” Half of the audience almost fell down from their chairs. Creative directors? What the fu*k?! What kind of art are they directing??! There were a lot of sharp quotes from Toscani. If you are an artists you have to choose a form of presenting and communicating yourself. He decided for a picture. Toscani says: Picture have to be published, or it is no picture. He ended his keynote with deep think: “You can’t be sure and be creative at the same time. If you are sure about what you did, you were not creative enough.” You can’t be sure and be creative at the same time. If you are sure about what you did, you were not creative enough. Erik Kessels The most influential creative in Netherlands, partner and co-founder of the famous communication agency KesselsKramerand the author of the well-known “I amsterdam” city identity campaign which is celebrated by Amsterdam citizens and people from all over the globe. Erik is a person who can seed something very inspirational and mind-blowing inside you. I never thought Erik speech is going to be so strong because the name of his keynote was — Lets failed it! Like a lets failed what? Anything you want. Erik’s studio KesselsKramer was facing very hard brief some years ago. Small, dirty, smelly hotel in the center of the Amsterdam ask them to build a marketing campaign. The problem was, that no-one knows about Amsterdam Budget Hotel before and there was nothing to catch, nothing in what was the hotel better than others or at least good enough to attract some clients. KesselsKramer studio decided for a different approach — Failed it. Campaign was full of controversial spots like pictures bellow. What happened? The campaign has attracted thousands of people to visit the worst hotel in the world. Read more about the campaign here.  Keynote part of the conference has finished with the very last selfie of all speakers with audience followed by after party with amazing catering.Ok, but what we have learned from the best designers in the world? Lets summarise it: Best way to not complain is to do things! But how to do things? How to come up with ideas? Make something for you, something for the people around you or ever just something for fun but — DO SOMETHING! Keep in mind that No idea is good enough unless you find at least 10 haters of it. No idea is good enough unless you find at least 10 haters of it. So you have an idea but please don’t jump into Photoshop or Sketch instantly. First use you imagination, paper and pencil or at least try to be creative fist and keep in mind: You can’t be sure and be creative. This is not working. You can’t be sure and be creative. This is not working. Now you are finally doing something and growing and you think its time to give a cool title such as “Art Director”. But please, first ask yourself a question: “What kind of art are you directing?” When you are growing as a designer you should keep it mind that your business growth is very important as well! Designers shouldn’t code. They should study business. Designers shouldn’t code. They should study business. Now you have a nice title before your name, you have some business basics in your little finger and you are working for your first big client. Just try to keep two things in your mind and everything should be fine: 1. Don’t let fame, money and power to stop good work to be done. 2. Communication is the most important thing in design process. Don’t let the fame, money and power to stop good work to be done. Thank you for your attention, hope you get something from my report and we will see each other at By Design conference next year! You can find more info about conference here. Original post can be found at Medium.com

2 years ago

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Events

DemAlert application available!

In last months we`ve been working hard on brand new app for JEF Europe. DemAlert app aims at raising awareness on the need of updating democracy in Europe, giving the opportunity to young people to discuss, propose and develop new forms of democracy. This is a unique way of addressing today´s challenges in Europe, such as populism, intolerance, extremism and nationalism. The DemAlert is available on GooglePlay and AppStore free of charge and at no additional costs. The application is compatible with smartphones and tablets. As there is a significant number of unaddressed gaps in democracy in countries especially outside of the European Union, the DemAlert app currently covers the whole continent of Europe including countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Kosovo. Users are encouraged to pinpoint breaches of democracy that they witness or experience. The specific pinpoints can then be endorsed by other users, thus increasing the visibility of the given pinpoint on the map. Any kind of positive action, movement and simple act supporting democracy can also be pinpointed and therefore endorsed as well. These DemAlerts can be described in words and a photo can be attached. You can watch how the DemAlert app works in practice: .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } JEF Europe hopes that the DemAlert app will encourage the youth to engage more in the creation and management of democratic procedures in their community. The European youth continuously shows low turnouts during European elections which are undoubtedly a clear sign of the lack of interest in political engagement from their side. We believe that the DemAlert app will be able to offer them a platform for an efficient communication leading to common and organised actions.

3 years ago

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Applications

Girl`s day

Girl`s day is an international day to support and encourage girls to consider IT as their future job. We decided to take a part in this event and organize Girl`s day at our office. We prepared awesome program: Introduction of our team and our job TrashOut story iOS vs Android Evolution of mobile design Presentation of our projects How we works and which tools we use Story of succesful application (Flappy Bird and 2048) Competition in 2048 game Goodbye We enjoyed it a lot and looking foward to organize similar event again. :)

4 years ago

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Events

Why is GoodRequest here

Couple years ago we started development of our first app. You may know it – TrashOut. It`s pretty cool app for reporting illegal dumping all around the world. We started this idea, because we wanted to change the world (as everyone else :P). TrashOut was really great and huge project, where we learnt a lot. In those years not many people were doing mobile development in Slovakia. Not many designers knew that mobile design is different from the web one. So it was tough. Titanium appcelerator (multiplatform framework) was the first tool we used. It is easy to use platform with good possibilities for starting developers. But quite soon we realized that if we want to have full control over the code and have no limits in development, we need to do it differently. That`s why we jumped into native development. Native development is basicly writing code for each platform from a scratch. No shortcuts means longer development, but much better user experience, stability and speed. These changes were appreciated widely and we became winner in the category Best app of AppsRullez 2012. Winning this competition was great for us and we realized 2 things: First of all – TrashOut makes sense. Second of all – professional jury appreciated our app from many perspectives – stability, user experience, design, … It was something like wind in the sails and we started thinking about making apps commercially. And we made it. We founded GoodRequest. Creating apps for clients have one great advantage – we are always into something new. No stereotypes, no boredom. Well, of course it is really challenging sometimes, but we like it. We like it so much, that we are excited to start new project almost every 3 months. Reason is simple, we truly believe that mobile phones are changing the way we live. Phones and its applications influence our lives on daily bases. That`s why we want develop such applications, which makes our lives easier, richer or simply more fun. And this should be our contribution.

5 years ago

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Community

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