3/21/14

Game app that I found


 Game app that I found:

         One app that I found is a game called "Smash Hit". It was simple and fun. It's a FPS (first person shooter) game. The goal of this game is to get the highest score as much as possible than other players. Its a both single player and multilayer (if you use game center to submit your high score). In order to survive, the players have to increase their health (it is also used as ammo shown on the top of the HUD) and doge objects or walls. in order to fire an object, just tap the screen. In order to avoid getting hit by a glass wall, etc. just shoot. In this game the colors begins to change showing that the player is in a different level. Also, there are these triangle or diamond objects on the ground. Every time you hit it, your health or ammo will increase by 3 or 6. When the game starts, it gets easier, less obstacles and slow from the beginning, but later in the game it gets faster and the obstacles gets harder. There are two ways to get a game over, getting crashed into a glass wall until your ammo is depleted (every time the players gets hit by a glass wall, the player will louse ammo by 10) or keep firing until the ammo is depleted. There are check points along the way every time you beat a level. If you louse, you can always start where you left off. How ever, in order to do that, you have to buy the updated version which sucks.



3/20/14

#ThursdayApps Mar 20

UNICEF USA TAP PROJECT

To raise awareness about the global water crisis, UNICEF created an app giving users an opportunity to do their part to help.

How it works: for every 10 minutes a participant can leave their phone untouched, the donors backing this initiative will provide enough funding for one day of clean water for someone in need.

http://tap.unicefusa.org/

MoodMap

MoodMap Concept Presentation

Team Members:
Natasha Lewandrowski
Crystal Tong

App Marketing

https://www.icloud.com/iw/#keynote/BALQX0kfjELAl-PmUEeBK44PH_81cwB5GRCF/Presentation


iOS marketing guidelines

Android marketing guidelines

(This a year old, but it's a pretty thorough look at app marketing if you want to look into it. A quick Google search will bring up tons of other resources—this is just one of many.)

Developer Tools

https://www.icloud.com/iw/#keynote/BALtpb5gQZCTi0y7YDGBM7I4TwXXCzub5xCF/Dev_basics

Assignments for April 3rd

Next week is SPRING BREAK!



Woooo!

For the following week, iterate on your concept and develop a first pass at an app map and wireframes. Post to the blog and tag accordingly. 

A word on app maps:
Remember that each view should be represented in the app map, and it should be clear from the map from where the user can get to that view (hence the "map"). Your map needs to make sense!

A word on wireframes:
Do NOT start designing your app yet—it's distracting at this point in the process. Keep it simple. Pencil and paper is completely fine.

------//------

EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENT

Based on the critics' feedback you received on your midterm presentation, iterate on three views from your Project 1 app. You can create three new views or make edits and changes to existing views—whatever makes sense in your case. The idea is to show how you would continue to improve and evolve the concept, the flow, and/or the design.

Do not do more than three views.
Do not do fewer than three views.

ALSO. Write a short paragraph about your thinking behind the changes you've made, why you made those particular decisions, and what other changes you would make (if applicable) in the rest of your app.

Post to the blog before next class.

Presentation Project 2

Thursday App: Relay

Relay is a message app in which not only you can send text messages and photos, but also hilarious GIF's. It comes with a huge GIF library, you can look up for the one you want or just send a # followed by the word you want and it will send a related GIF. You can also make your own GIF in the IOS version of the app(in the android version it is not available yet)!

More information on the relay website:  http://relay.im/about



Project 2

Project #2. Ideas.

Our ideas are:

1. A platform where you can barter your skills or things with stuff you need. 


-Users: Artists, designers, entrepreneurs, etc. who believes in the sharing/gift economy. 

- Objective: To create a platform to meet and barter, and start conversations around the gift economy.


- How it works: A has a space to let but needs logos and identities. B needs a space and have design skills. A + B can find each other through this platform and barter. (eg. ourgoods.org)


2. A dating app that recommends places for tailored dating experiences.


- Users: Couples or singles looking for inspiration and ideas

- Objective: To ease the stress and hassle of planning dates

- How it works: User will input criterias for the date, eg. type of date (blind date, date night, first date), mood (romantic, adventurous, off the beaten path, educational), how many people (2, group date), location (current location, union square), budget, day (monday or friday, etc) and time (afternoon, night). The app will then recommend a list of places and things to do. Users might be able to book and plan the date from the app.


3. Organization project manager as an extension of google drive or dropbox. (eg. tidy app.)


- Users: Busy designers

- Objective: To ease workflow

- How it works: Busy designers don't have the time to organize their project files, this app will rename their files and group them into folders such as images, typefaces, etc. Similar to the package file feature in InDesign.


4. Typography “dating” app. 

- Users: Designers who wants to use different fonts for their project easily.

- Objective: The app makes using different font on a project easier with suggestions and references.

- How it works: User starts by picking out a typeface. The app will then suggest potential matches. After the user's chosen their matched typefaces, the app will then direct users to the website/type foundry to get them.


We are still weighing our decisions. Will update after class.

Concept Ideas for Project 2

Our concept for project 2:

-An all-in-one app that would allow the user to track packages from various different shipping companies (UPS, DHL, USPS, etc.) and from big retailers (Zara, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc.)

-Users: People who frequently shop online and have a busy schedule. They would like to keep track of their orders to make sure they can arrange a pick up time as efficiently as possible.

-The objective is not to show the tracking number, but to show items on which stage they are at in arriving to the final destination.

Thursday App

Threes! is a number matching game that provides an adorable user experience to a game that is normally perceived as 'geeky' and 'nerdy' (i.e. think of Sudoku). There are many games that are similar to Threes! that are free and available on the web (a very popular example that is extremely similar in terms of game rules is http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/ ). However, Threes! is able to captivate the attention of many users is due to its friendly approach to numbers using cute characters, animations and sound effects/music.

The introduction of the game is straight forward and easy to approach, which soothes the anxiety most people have against number games (due to the mentally challenging logic that most number games have). The tiles are personified into characters that are cheerful and joyful when joined together, which makes the user feel lighthearted and accomplished when they have successfully matched up numbers.

The sound effects and music that are present during game play also helps to create a lighthearted, heartwarming experience for the user. The user is often addicted to the game for hours, as it is easy to play and succeed, while rewarding the user with a unique experience for number games.


This app is something like a wikipedia for "how things work", but in a very user-friendly and easy way using a smartphone. All you need to do is take a picture of a mechanism, system, machine [you name it] such as a watch or a pen and then the app uses its bank of data, recognizes the object and shows the user all of the structural/mechanical parts+ components and how it was made.

3/19/14

#thursdayapp: Fitocracy

For all you fitness heads out there.  Ever get a little competitive with you friends or want to form workout groups?  Need a good tracker/motivator for your fitness regimen?  Fitocracy is something recently I've stumbled upon as I try to get beach ready for the summer. Available on Android and iPhone
https://www.fitocracy.com/
Share photos and receive comments

Track daily workouts including reps, types of workouts and progress

Create custom workouts 


Engage with your friends

#thursdayapps: Tidy


Tidy organizes your photos with just a simple swipe.

With smartphones becoming ubiquitous, the way we store memories and references change. We end up taking photos of everything, from things we find funny and want to share, to stuff we want to remember, to beautiful moments. We accumulate tens of photos everyday, all stored in one big mess in our Camera Roll. 

Tidy aims to help you reorganize your photos in one swipe. When you launch the app, the photos will be categorized as "untidy". You can organize the mess in a few different ways, by time (1 hour, 6 hours or day, week, month or year), by location (500m, 1km, 10km, 100km or 1000km), and by shape. This feature is the most unique compared to other photo apps, it will go through your photos an categorize them by squares, portraits, landscapes, panoramas and even screenshots. Needless to say, I start categorizing my photos by shape, as I take tonnes of screenshots. 






3/18/14

Thursday App: FANCY

Today I'd love to introduce a new Thursday App. It's called Fancy, and it's a social photo sharing webstore. The app allows users to engage in socially oriented shopping through picture feeds and sharing. What I find particularly awesome about the app is the ability to actually buy what you fancy, and have it shipped to you.

The items in the feed are crowd-curated, and are filtered according to your specific interests. Best feature about the app is when you fancy something 'by double tapping on it just like Instagram', it sometimes gives you a promo code that you can use for that store.


 

Crystal's Thursday App


I am kind of in love with this app and so disappointed that this 12hour app is not available for iOS7! This app is simply just an analog clock that color codes your calendar events and places them on the dial so that you can keep track of all the events you have going on for the next 12 hours. Perhaps this would be only helpful for people like me who need help with time management.

The events are synced with your Google calendars, and updates itself every 30 minutes. I would love to use this app on my iPad and keep it on at my desk throughout the day. 

This is a free app.




Crystal's Project 1, Midterm, TrackMate

FeedBack: Overall, it's important to try to make this tracking app seamless and effort free. So it is advised to re-design a lot of the forms I created. Perhaps, I wouldn't even need the user to take any action to be tracked, but to simply add a switch that automatically tracks the users whereabouts and still send text messages during a time period that a user sets.

Presentation:






3/16/14

Ambroise's Thursday app


Kuler is an app created by Adobe. It helps its users generate color palettes based on images, using a point and shoot technique with the devices camera. Its free, well designed, and extremely useful when looking for color combinations for a design project. I recently used it on a branding project, where I took several color palettes based on pictures of the location I was branding.


You can save pallettes, name them, and edit them using rgb or cmyk sliders. The palettes can be saved for use in adobe suite softwares using the Kuler plugin.

It's an awesome adition to your mobile design arsenal!