Alarm Clock Application

Project Brief

The “Alarm Clock” application was the most saturated category when the first Apple iPhone and Apple Application Store opened. Your challenge is to design an Alarm Clock Application for iOS with the Art Center Student Community as your target audience. Will you utilize default iOS components or invent new ways to communicate interaction and information? What are the effects of deviating from design standards and inventing new graphical user interface paradigms and interactions?

Learning Objectives

• Apply the mindset and methods introduced in Interaction Design 1.
• Demonstrate the Microinteractions framework in the creation of a mobile app.
• Communicate functionality and intent through design artifacts.
• Understand and implement industry standard design guidelines.
• Invent new modes of interaction and display of information.

Deliverables

• A process presentation including the following design artifacts: user research, insights, flow diagrams, microinteraction rules, wireframes, paper prototypes, user test results, and a final digital click-thru prototype and high level style guide. 
• A video click-through of specific tasks.

Readings/Resources

• Apple, iOS Human Interface Guidelines. ca. 2015
• Saffer, Dan. Microinteractions: Designing with Details. 2013
• Cooper, Alan. About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design. 2014

Reflections

This project was an assessment to determine a students ability to recall and implement methods and skills gained from their previous introduction to interaction design course. The project focused on the creation of specific design resources and artifacts that facilitate a larger design process, in this case, for a mobile application. Critiques were facilitated by providing feedback gained from user testing sessions and discussions with mock application users. The class stressed the urgency of understanding the artifacts as modes of communicating with various stakeholders, connecting how something at the surface impacts a high level strategy,  however there was an incessant need/pull to design the final look of the application without understanding why and how the system worked. 

The project was an effective way to deep dive on the creation of specific design artifacts that influence the final outcome, whereby in this case the final outcome was the creation of a simple alarm clock mobile application. The concept of Microinteractions introduces a framework of focusing on a system both at the detailed level as well as the higher system level. Students were also exposed to how design artifacts facilitate communication between different stakeholders such as executives, software developers, and customers. 

In hindsight, the subject matter could have been more interesting. However, I believe the trivial and saturated market space are real and specific challenges to overcome in the real world of design. The goal was to reveal how focusing on a specific group of students or even a single student can lead to bespoke and unique solutions.