Tiffany Chen

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Card Creation Software Design Exercise

As a fun exercise in interface design and protoyping, I decided to design and prototype three different interfaces using Axure.

Exercise Intro

In the 2013 movie Her, set in the near future, the main character Theodore's job is to write "personal" cards on behalf of other people - who are presumably too busy to write their own (i.e. Happy Birthday, Mom! Congrats on Graduation, Bobby!).

For this exercise, we'll imagine that an 'outsourced card corporation like that exists today, called A Personable Touch (APT for short). They use specific card making software, CardMaker Pro (CMP), to create cards.

The process that APT writers use to write cards is as follows:

  1. They open up two separate CMP files (each of which has its own window) side-by-side:
    1. One empty file for the new card they've been tasked to write
    2. One archived card on a similar topic. They use this second card in two ways:
      1. They copy-paste choice phrases from it into the new card and
      2. They look at the second card for inspiration

Exercise

The things to address were:

Initial Assumptions

I decided to approach the problem by first identifying the constraints and assumptions I would be making, which would form the scope that I would be working in

The Card Structure

A cards of two key components:

  1. The written content
  2. The design (images, formatting, etc.

The Process

As observed from APT writers' interactions with CMP 1.0, there are two distinct flows that can be taken to create a new card:

  1. Refer to archived cards for recyclable content and design inspiration
  2. Create original content adn design from scratch

APT Writers

Writers are expected to produce as many new cards as is feasible in a given day. Additionally, APT emphasizes content consistency across all of its cards in order to maintain branding cohesion. As such, APT writers have the following goals:

Process 1 (using archived cards) requires less time and effort than Process 2. Additionally, copying and pasting choice phrases from archived content ensures some degree of similarity and consistency between the new card and its predecessors. As a result, APT writers will look at old cards for inspiration and convenience rather than creating radically new content. This conclusion about user behavior is confirmed by the writers’ observed use of CMP 1.0.

CMP 1.0

I will assume – based on the observed behaviors of the APT writers using CMP 1.0, the time allotment for an APT writer’s card-making process when using CMP 1.0:

This results in 20 minutes per card. If an APT writer works a normal nine hour workday, he or she can be expected to produce around 25 cards in a day.

CMP 2.0

It will be assumed that:

Additionally, time allotent for the card-making process using CMP 2.0 is:

This results in a total of 25 minutes per card. If an APT writer works a normal nine hour workday, he or she can be expected to produce around 20 cards in a day, or five less than he or she would normally produce.

CMP 2.0 Intended Goals

  1. Economize the workspace
    2. By only showing one half of the card at a time, the active half can be displayed on a larger scale adn minute details are easily visible.
  2. Simplify the workspace
    3. Because only a single card and window is displayed at a time, there is no redundancy / duplication of tools by having multiple copies of the same taskbar for individual cards. Additionally, by only showing one half of the card at a time, attention is focused on the task at hand (content creation OR design)

Brainstorming

From the initial persona and understanding of APT writers, I was able to draw out use case diagrams for a card-making software that they would be able to use.

I then began iterating on potential interface designs for the software. There was a lot of experimentation with having unfolded vs. folded cards, understanding the affordances that certain visual objects might present, and spending some time thinking about the micro-interactions that users will encounter.

Prototypes

To see some (semi-high fideity) prototypes of my three iterations, click here (pw: tiffanychen)!

Design 1

Key features:

Pros Cons
  • Memorability - simple controls
  • Economize workspace by eliminating redundancy of taskbars
  • Simplify workspace by limiting views to half of the card
  • Maximized vs. Restore Down view allows for different actions (card personalization vs. copy and pasting between cards)
  • Inefficiency - toggling back and forth between card faces
  • Low learnability - affordance to switch between card faces doesn't adhere to norms
  • No affordance for card dragging (relies on moving windows convention)
  • Potential for mode error - which card is active?

Good for: International Users

Design 2

Key features:

Pros Cons
  • Economize workspace by eliminating redundancy of taskbars
  • High usability - see multiple cards in full simultaneousy
  • Efficiency – recall unnecessary since all cards / faces are visible
  • Maximized v.s. Restore Down view allow for different use cases (card personalization v.s. copy and pasting)
  • No affordance for card dragging (relies on moving windows convention)
  • Potential for mode error - which card is active?

Good for: APT Writers / Other professional card-makers

Design 3

Key features:

Pros Cons
  • Learnability - size gives affordance for importance; shadows give affordance for being clickable
  • Economize workspace by eliminating redundancy of taskbars
  • High usability - one card in full and switch between other open cards
  • Memorability - intuitive controls and simple actions
  • Relies on recall
  • Low efficiency – if viewing multiple cards, need to toggle back and forth

Good for: First time users / Eldery people / Young children

Takeaways

 

☾ Made by Tiffany