RECAP, WHAT I'VE COLLECTED

Who's my usergroup?

Our orignial usergroup was Expats and our collections staats bosbeheer. While our collection did not change we mapped our users to be: International WDKA students!

We created different persona’s from our usergroup, but when put together we can conclude that our users:
- Are aged between: 17-32
- The’re from: all over the world
- They are: all genders

We also interviewed a couple of international students and came back with the feedback that:
- They’re interested in spending time outdoors
- Are creative and are attracted to art
- Theyré interested in getting to know dutch culture

This still seems like a pretty broad usergroup, I found the need to find something that differentiates the international wdka students from the non-international wdka students.

Durings the classes from mark and rogerio we talked and researched around the topic of stereo types, and while doing so i encountered certain aspect international student will encounter during there stay within the netherlands that non-internationals are less likely to, like:
- A langues barrier
- Beign alowne in a country unknown to you
- Beign in a country where you don’t know people
- Massive wealth gabs (dependent on country)
- a completely different culture to their own

If i were to create something for this usergroup it had to keep in mind all these aspect that where commonly shared amongst my usergroup.

While for my usergroup one could create a plethera of different creations that could solve or focus on these issues, mine had to include and relate to my collections which is the collection of staats bos beheer.

During my groups creation of our user-stories, polling, interviews and persona’s, we came to a couple of conclusions about what their relationship to the collection might be.

With the poll, we learned that they find:
The Netherlands is free and open.
No free public transport
Communication difficulties

Out the interviews we found that:
The Netherlands is expensive
Finding it hard to find information in
english about anything dutch related.
Preferation to free activities
There’s a willingness to explore dutch nature

With this data i started to think of possible relations
between the collections and user like:
User - Willingness to explore dutch nature
collection - 273.000 ha of natuur (95% open for public).

User - The Netherlands is free and open.
collection - 800 Dutch momuments viewable for free

User - Preferation to free activities
collection - 613 free nature routes within the Netherlands

User - Communication difficulties
collection - Routes also depicted by maps and symbols

Which contents am i interfacing?

I'm going to be interfacing the collection staats bos beheer already has to offer in a different way then already exist. The focus around what part of the collection i will focus on wil be layed upon art and monuments.

What type of interaction is fitting for this?

My first thoughts on this where that a fitting interaction for this usergroup already existed in the collections in the from of routes surrounding art and nature. But upon further inspection (and an email exchange) it appeared to me that some statistics on the website of the collection are advertised falsy, and next to this spesific routes for people interested in art are hard to come by (i found 3) because the filter on the website doesn’t work as intended.

Apart from this i still don’t think there’s fault in the collection, but its less then attrative towards my user group for reasons as: the website beign in dutch and the filter not working.

Then i started thinking, perhaps even if these function where optimal they might still not be interesting to my usergroup. So what about creating something new/better that attracts them?

A fitting interaction could be to make the already existing routes moure ‘‘interactive’’ in some kind of way that would attract my user group.

Maybe a fitting interaction could be created by combining the idea of an escaperoom with the nature routes creating new narratives and challanges that make the existing routes more interesting to our usergroup.

Or perhaps i should focus on current stuggles that such as covid-19. People including my usergroup are sick of beign held up inside, not beign able to go to school nor friends because of regulatory messueres. Maybe theres a concept of interaction to be found in creating a place to work for these students obeying the covid-19 regulations by keeping it outside but giving utilities like wifi and electricity to the park so people can actually work there.

What type of medium is fitting for this?

I think there are lot’s of different mediums and ways of aproach that could be fitting. I don’t want to start here but an App could be one sollution altough this might seem uninspired, it might be the clearest way to communicate the collection to the user. An app offers the ability to include all available information and the place for additions to it, since you have quite a unlimited canvas in an app. The same could be said for a website, but a website is maybe more confusing scince the collection already has a website with the information available.

I’ve also thought about creating a package that starts a nature routes for the user. After looking at the available information that i found online about the collection i thought there might be more interesting route to be made specially for our user group itself. (don’t directly know a medium for this)

Lastly i thought of a physical interaction station, that would grant wifi, electricity and perhaps an overhead so people could have a ‘safeplace’ to work in nature. It would not only inspire them because there would be located in ‘‘viewpoints’’ if dutch nature but it would get them out of their little 20m3 aparement for a moment and grant them more headspace.

What are you trying to accomplish through the interface you want to design?

In the end im trying to get my usergroup to use the existing collection of staats bosbeheer. But while doing so i would like to aid the struggles of my user groups that i’ve mentioned prior.

I would like to keep in mind that issuus such as: langues barriers, beign alowne, not know people and wealth gabs are not easily solved, but my creation has to
atleast include these aspects so i can try.

My interface should be a place that facilitates, getting outside more, getting inspired, gettign to know dutch nature and perhaps even getting to know new people.

Which visual design elements have you already collected/designed that can be useful for this?

QUICK AND DIRTY EXERSIZE

Pick 1 interface example from your archive

Define its medium and the type of interaction and what elements of this would be interesting for your collection and user-group.

I think the DSLR Camera is a great medium to capture something, it grants the abilitie to capture and collect and i think those parts could be very interesting to my user group.

Expats tend to only stay in a country for a certain duration of time, to look back upon those times in the futures it would be nice for them to have a sort of collection of photgraphs perhaps where they can reflect on, so they can have a feeling of acctually having learned something of the culture and can remenis upon it in later days. (or when showing family).










With the interface of a camera they can document the "advantures" the’ve had within the netherlands. It could collect data about the monuments and art the’ve visited .

Visually imagine and sketch how you can connect this medium and the type of interaction to your collection of knowledge.

Analyse

The choice of medium was a camera, and what is asked of the user is to collect.

Because there's often no certenty about how long an expat will stay in the country he's staying in, i think its good to have a little collection of ''memories'' from your time in the Netherlands in this case the memories beign photographs of interesting places and art from the collection of staatsbosbeheer

Continue to develop your sketches

Prepare 10 sketches

Concept name: Park murder
Medium: Book/journal
Interaction: Searching, finding, collecting

In this concept you are set out to investigate a murder that has happend in a park owned by staats bos beheer. This investigation leads your trough sight seeing places, and artworks that are located in the park.

Concept name: Art collection
Medium: App/phone
Interaction: Searching, finding, collecting

This concept is based on collecting and gathering. On the app you will find routes you can walk, along these routes you will find sightseeing places and artworks. You document these artworks in jour digital journal.

Concept name: Park DJ
Medium: Physical interaction station
Interaction: Playing, entertaining, amusing

There are lots of open spaces/gras fields within parks. These fields are often populair during summer times where people use them as replacement beaches. The concept is creating a sort of DJ booth to place in one of these open fields, and place speakers in places in the field. Anyone can go up to the booth connect their phone and become the park DJ.

Concept name: Just platform
Medium: Physical platform
Interaction: Creating, judging, leaving behind

The concept here is to create platforms meant for art to be placed but leave out the art installations. Then informing the users about these open installation locations and opening them to them. Granting them an exhibition place that is public and has foot traffic.

Concept name: Interactive park
Medium: App, physical qr name plates
Interaction: Learning, finding, collecting

For this concept we take the existing collection by staats bos beheer and give it to addition to make it collecable through an app. The app is a sort of journaling system where you can collect locations and artworks you've visited and find information surrounding these locations and artworks

Concept name: Find a friend
Medium: Interactive podium
Interaction: Speaking, human interaction

In this concept i would create some sort of platform that would be divided by an opaque wall. On both sides of the platform there would be a pressure plate. When 2 humans stand on both of these pressure plates on the different side of the wall, the opaque wall becomes transparent and the speakers open up giving you a chance to talk.

Concept name: Public work station
Medium: Physical work station
Interaction: Working

Amonst the covid-19 lockdown and regulations we've become locked up inside of our houses for a long time. Students who are locked up in rooms about 10m3 and up are becoming fed up with this situation. With this concept you grant them a workspace outside thats covered, grants green electricity and wifi.

Concept name: Projection wall
Medium: Projection
Interaction: Projecting, exhibiting

For this concept there would be a projector that would be located in front of a wall thats closeby. You can operate this projector by connecting to it trough an app. What every you put on the projector will stay there untill some one else plays something on the projector instead. You can only use the projector if your in a 10 meter range of it.

Feedback Megan + Maytal

My final concept is an app that features: Art routes where you can collect and comment on different open art installations, with the end location of these art routes beign a place where people can work/get inspired.

To make the concept more clear im going to be telling it in a couple steps:

- You start out in the app by choosing an art route or workplace where you would like to go.

- Then you walk to art route in question or the route towards to workplace.

- While walking this art route you will encounter open air art installations (already existing) that you will scan and collect inside of the app (by doing so also granting some kind of currency). After doing so granting to ability to leave comments behind on the art work aswell.

-The art route always ends at the ‘‘workplace’’ the workplace will atleast have to provice for WIFI and ELECTRICITY so people can take their laptops and such withem to extually use it as a place of work.

-Since this workplace is open for anyone using the app, you will encounter people at the workplaces if they are also using the app creating some sort of community around the app.

Now when looking back on my prior research the app will also have to cover for a couple of things. To combat problems like a langues barrier, beign alowne in a country unknown to you, beign in a country where you don’t know people, massive wealth gabs (dependent on country), a completely different culture to their own - i will have to implement some functions regarding these subjects.

Combating langues barriers isen’t is a problem thats solved by making it the same langues we speak at school: english.

Massive country wealth gabs aren’t applicible towards my app since the app will be free.

To combat, being alowne in a country unknown to you i have to have a very clear way of telling people directions and some sort of a way to interact with other people (perhaps things like a friendlist and such).

Last problem where im struggleling with this concept is that my audience is creative and are attracted to art. If they walked a route more then one time, will it still be interesting to them? surely they would not be inspired by seeing the same works of art mutliple times. To combat this conceptualised something that could chance this (to an extend).

The workplaces i had in mind where not that complicated when i had them in mind but this had to change a little bit. In the end the workplaces needed to be a source of atleast wifi and electricity, but it’s also always the last location you visit when following a route, and what if a person would be walking the route not to get to a place of work but just because the person wanted to get outside? for this reason i created the following:

Concept name: Capture the moment
Medium: Trow-away Camera, physical journal
Interaction: Capturing and collecting

For this concept, the user group would be given a route to walk and would be given a collection journal. In the collection journal they would find places to put pictures of artworks they would encounter along the route. Because the photos are not physical, theres no filters and suchs things and they capture and document a ''real'' moment.

Concept name: Collect and create
Medium: Machine that turns sticks into pencils
Interaction: Collecting and obtaining

In this concept the user group would be asked to collect loose laying trash within the park. At the end of the route you will empty your collected trash in the compacter, and it would power the machine that creates pencils from sticks. You then would insert a stick you've found and it would create a unique pencil for you. Resulting in doing something positive for nature and obtaining something to remember the expierience by

Combining sketches

After explaining my concepts to Megan i got the following feedback: Gamefying the routes is an interesting choice (during the explaining i had mentioned simulairitys between me idea and pokemon go) and the focus in concepts like the public workstations or music station had a nice spotlight surrounding communities. I was also given simular feedback as Eva Borrow who was present during feedback with Megan, the feedback that followed was: that there might be something to be found in combining aspects of concepts together.

After the feedback i looked back at my sketches and concepts and made some connections and realisations. One of the realisations i made is that with a concept such as the music station, al though fun in nature might defeat the point of a quite place in nature that people like to visit for that reason. Another realisation i made is that the idea of granting the users of the app points that they can spend on purchases for in the park might combat the bad stereotype that expats only take things from places they visit think of: jobs, money, healthcare, etc. Feedback from Maytal told me that this add to the stereo type rather than combat it, for it could be used as another thing that ‘‘they could take’’ rather then leave behind.

I also talked about my dislikes on suchs things as apps with Maytal and wanting to stay away from it because i found the concept of an app less then inspiring. After a short discussion about this and the rest of my concepts she gave me the feedback to maybe combine my ideas, and even think about creating an app. The reasoning that got me over the edge was something like the following: Although people have the same collection, they have different usergroups so the chance of simularities in apps created by other people is less..

With this feedback in mind i reflected back upon my concepts, i left some things out and i combined others.

It’s name is a piller of creation. These pillars will be at the end of a route rather than a workstation, yet they will provide the same utilities as before. These pillars are made to exhibit work that the students have created, so that every time when you reach the end of a route you will find something new and interesting. These pillars will also house powerslots and a wifi router so it’s original utility functions are not lost.

This is a way i can add another reason for my user group to visit these locations, participate in the communitie it creates and make and interesting/inspiring place to work at.

Design at least three options for how you would like to apply typography in your design

Font combinations out of the Googlefont libary and the Optifont Archive

I have chosen the fonts displayed at the left because i want to keep my design minimalistic and clear to understand. I have created 6 different combinations of two typefaces where one of them is always a google font and the other beign an optifont. What the google font libary has as a plus is very extensive font families, where optifont often only has 1 display option.

By combining them together i can create different display options with the google font, and have a leading font with the optifont.

I do not know yet how good a font like Carling will fair in an application setting since it very tall. An argument could also be made against using playfair, because legebility becomes a problem the smaller the font is displayed. This will have to be tested in a later state where the app screens are already developed.

In class exercise

Font recieved was from Boy. The font reminded me alot of perhaps a thinned down version of the Timerland shoes font. Because the font is playfull in nature i found a sans-serif font a big contrast. To combat this i combined the font with the Candara font, as its also playfull in nature but has high legibility and is "decently sans-serif''.

DD-week creation of prototype and testing!

I started with listing all the funcionality and style
i would like my app to have.

- Creations of a profile

- A friends list

- Having a map of the netherlands

- Having a compas/weather meter

- Journal where people can find what artworks you’ve collected

- A page where people can see if you have and exhibition thats going or have done an exhibition in the past

- a page for induvidual art works, so that they may be commented upon by the public

-A page to interact with the pillars of creation

-A navigation system so you can walk a route

Through some visual research on websites and apps like the ones from BKOR and even the Piet Zwart Institute i made the conclusions that websites and apps surrounding art are often either very minimalistic or very extravagant. As i’m not a big fan of extravagant things i much prefer the minimalist option. And taking inspiration from the BKOR website i would like to make my app minimalistic but granting the choise to the user to change some of the options in the UI.

Settled on the functionality and style i began sketchin some of the screens

I started out with some rough sketchings about screens for the functionality that i wanted my app to have.

Then i stepped away from paper and brought them to illustrator, where i can copy frames and elements and save lots of time.

After not beign happy with the look of my simplistic map on the left, i was looking for a way to make google maps different types of colours and it was apparenly a service they offered themselves.

I worked out the screens a little bit more, with the finding of the grey google maps

I then worked out the screens that would match the buttons from the menu bar first, so i could have a basic setup without the follow up screens.

Creating a functioning prototype for my app

In the creation of these i finished all screens from my original task list, and changed things according to feedback recieved and realisations that were made.

Whats displayed here is all the app screens i created in adobe xd to make a functioning prototype

Additional font testing screens

Mono font use troughout the application.

The font used is:
Poppins

I want to make the app minimalistic, but i do have the feeling that the use of a singulair font in over the app was just not really exciting nor inspiring.

Duo font use troughout the application.

The fonts used is:
Playfair & Source sans

Although i admire playfair for it's style it's legibility get's it into trouble when used in smaller formats.

The font has lots of thin stems which makes it a problem for me (a person with dyslexia) to read.

Because i think more will suffer the same fate i need to look further

Duo font use troughout the application.

The fonts used is:
Academy & Roboto

Academy is a playfull font, and roboto gives it the legibility it needs for its broad tekst areas.

Yet i thought this font was pushing against my main concept of making the application minimalistic so i moved away from it.

Duo font use troughout the application.

The fonts used is:
Source sans & Poppins

Source sans has the same narrowness as that the academy font had, but it wasn't as playfull. Thats why i thought this in combination with poppins for broadtext would solve my problem.

When comparing to prior versions of the style i did tend to like it less and i wanted to move back to a tinner font.

Duo font use troughout the application.

The fonts used is:
Calluna Sans & Proxima

While calluna was going back to a narrowfont, it was more playfull and thats why i choose it.

While calluna is more playfull it was also more narrow, which meant my heading titles lost a lot of their original drawing power.

i needed to find a medium that would be in between.

Duo font use troughout the application.

The fonts used is:
Times & Intro

I've finally settled on Times New Roman in combination with intro.

While Playfair had legibility issues when portrayed at a smaller scale because of it's narrow stems, Times doesn't share this feature. Times also keeps it drawing power as a heading title.

I found intro a good combination for times, since it shared similarities when portrayed in all caps