#thursdayapps | moodnotes | Hanyu Zhao

website

Moodnotes is an application that can capture your instant moods. By asking couples of questions, Moodnotes can analyze the users’ feelings in professional ways.  Moodnotes not only just records the users’ thoughts like a diary, it also will give the user a lot of solutions and suggestions to make their moods better. The part I like the best in Moodnotes is the way the user to select his/her mood. By using a finger to slide up or down, the user can create either a smiley face or a sad face. The whole animation is very smooth and attracts people keep using this application. Moodnotes is made by Ustwo studio who also designed Monument Valley, therefore, the visual design of Moodnotes is pleasing as well.  Since I always want to do something for Healthcare, I really like Moodnotes and think it is useful.

 

Hanyu Zhao & Chuyi Sun | IOS | Fuzzy | Wireframe

Research

Several articles reveal the fact that seeing fuzzy animals can cure people who are living in a stressful environment. However, according to the data, people between 25 to 50 years old rarely visit zoos. Since most of the zoos are located far away from cities, people find difficult to visit them too often. In the other side, zoos are also searching for a new solution for promoting themselves to attract more adults to visit zoos.

Concept

Fuzzy is an application that allows people who do not frequently visit zoos to have an opportunity to see wild animals on their phones wherever they are.


Interactive Prototype


Feedback

  1. The Main View has no difference to the Twitter View.
  2. It is better to automatically play random video in the Search View.
  3. If it is a Live Stream App, the layout for the Main View should be different than what we design now.

Hanyu Zhao | Apple Tv | My Recipe Book | Visual Design

User Test Feedback:

  1. It is difficult to notice which one I am focusing right now.
  2. It is not necessary to create a book on Apple Tv. It can just be a book review application.
  3. Book Details view might overlap with Page Details view. It is better to remove Page Detail view or pages can be really small to just see the whole style of this book.

Visual Design

Interactive Mockup

Hanyu Zhao | Food App | My Recipe Book | Final Iteration

User Test Feedback:

  1. There are some typo errors. Also it is better to keep spelling style to American spelling.
  2. In ‘Template Making View’, it is hard to know where is tappable. It is better to have some instructions to show.
  3. Add button may block the view of main contents.

PDF Link

Digital Prototype

Motion Design (Click to see)

 

#thursdayapps | Hidden Folks | Hanyu Zhao

Hidden Folks is an IOS App that requires users to find hidden objects in this 2 dimensional hand-drawn interactive world. Hidden Folks is inspired by the popular book Where is Wally?, however, the most of props  in Hidden Folks are interactive not only with animations but also with real-human sound effects. I was attracted by its lovely black and white drawing style and interesting sound effects at first, but lately I found this game really helped me relaxed since there is no punishment if you lose the game. It also can record the screen while you are playing the game in order to be more flexible for you and your friends’ communications.  This is the link for this game and please enjoy the game! http://hiddenfolks.com/

Hanyu Zhao | Food App | My Recipe Book | Visual Design

Digital Prototype: https://xd.adobe.com/view/76724b5d-1cad-459d-a9a3-eda71f93bc5b/

PDF: Visual Design-MyRecipeBook


3 things I learnt from paper prototype:

  1.  If I choose to use Android Design element(the “+” button), I need to keep all the design in the same design method and style.
  2. The Save Icon is looked like a 90s design style. Normally designer can just use the word “Save” as the icon for save function.
  3. The user might want more choose for their templates. Some people might prefer a messy layout another might prefer a neat layout. It might be helpful to give a categories to these templates.

Hanyu Zhao | Food App | My Recipe Book

My Recipe Book is an application that allows the user to customize and decorate their recipes with various templates and stickers. Inspired by recipe books that housewives love to write after they finish making delicious meals, My Recipe Book App provides similar functions that allows the users to create their personal and unique recipe books.


Appmap PDF link


Wireframes

Video Link – Wireframing

 


Three things I learnt from IOS HIG (Human interface Guidelines)

  1. Social Media: Don’t ask people to sign in. iOS employs a single sign-on model for accessing social media accounts, so you can get authorization to access an account without requiring authentication. If the user isn’t signed into an account, you can display a system-provided interface that allows them to do so. (This is something I have strongly common feeling when I was doing the first assignment. It is better to let users at least to try your App first. If users find there are too many requirements or limitations to your App, they will lose interests and even delete your work from their phones )
  2. Notifications: Don’t include your app name or icon. The system automatically shows this information at the top of each notification. (Always to keep the interfaces of  phones clean and neat)
  3. Refresh Content Controls: Perform automatic content updates. Although people appreciate being able to trigger an immediate content refresh, they also expect automatic refreshes to occur periodically. Don’t make users responsible for initiating every update. Keep data fresh by updating it regularly. (How to save time for users and never bother them to do anything “too simple”, therefore, the users would spend more time o gluing to your App)