Frye Proposal

Frye_7_I

I liked the section in chapter seven about designing for adaptation. This is a huge part of interaction for me. When someone goes on to msn, yahoo, or gmail, they're able to give their homepage a custom fit. Even inside Blackboard your able to adapt the site to what you feel is most important. I think it would be cool to give every webpage this sort of interaction. For instance, you could change the color scheme to something more pleasing to you.

Frye_6_I

I really liked how this chapter mentioned the over-use/under-use of sound on the web. I think that sound can really help develop a particular applications interactivity. The book mentions how some websites can suddenly start blasting music at you while others use sound to subtly enhance an interface. And referring back to the previous chapter when it spoke about designing through emotion, I think sound is a must. It can definitely take a feeling that a developer it trying to create to the next level.

Frye_5_I

I thought that the last section on testing was key. Without properly testing a design, it's easy for the designer to think that their design is finished. By testing a design, It allows the designer to realize the shortcomings of a design at to improve a design upon them. For instance, I've had web pages that I thought looked great. But when I had others check them out from their own computer at home or work, they didn't look that good or they found problems that I didn't see happening. I was then able to take what they had given me and correct the problem.

James Frye 4_I

I really identified with the activities Saffer suggested. Whenever designing something I think it's absolutely necessary to come up with some sort of tangible model whether it be a collage, model or just a drawing. Just the process of physically creating something always helps with working out problems that you might not have envisioned while the project was just an idea in your head.

James Frye 3_I

I thought the section on feedback and feedforward were pretty important. We usually take feedback for granted, but when it's not there or there's poor feedback, it becomes frustrating quick. Has anyone ever had a DVD with a horrible menu where you couldn't tell what you were selecting? Or how about on a web page that doesn't load right away, and you start clicking everywhere and end up somewhere completely unintended. The feedforward part was also pretty insightful. If you can let the user know what the interaction is designed to do before it actually takes place then you can build confidence with the user.

James_1_I

I found that while Microsoft does extensive user testing and research, Apple doesn't do any at all, was pretty interesting. I guess this affirms the idea that people can go for long periods of time, living with inconvenience and awkwardness until something better comes along. So even though there is testing, it it's useless because people will become accustomed to the inconveniences of the software. I guess the best way to come up with a great design would to be by trying to give people something that they've never seen before.