Design for Screen: Evaluation

Room 136 effectively fulfils the brief to create an even and fair platform to showcase students work. The use of bold typography demands the users attention to the adjectives that represent each student, with the 'mix it up' section meaning the same students are not featured at the top of the website all the time adding to the fair and even nature of the platform. Furthermore the simple and refreshing aesthetic fits with the new approach of showcasing students personalities to industry through the use of adjectives and self portraits before professionals get to see their work is seen. Throughout the design process the approach of achieving each workflow within three steps has been adopted which has allowed for a simple and intuitive design to be created. This allows professionals to have the option to view the site quickly if they have a limited amount of time by using the refinement bar or spend longer by looking through the adjectives and choosing one that resonates with them. In relation to the adjectives themselves originally they represented characteristics of students work however following a crit with Matt for Only it was identified that professionals would prefer more personality based adjectives with this change reducing the likelihood of students repeating the same adjective.  I found this critique very helpful as it gave me a professionals opinion on the website which was overall positive, allowing for the assumption the website is appropriate to the target audience. Furthermore the use of animation within the website is successful in engaging users as during crits people have found the animation interesting and fun providing an interesting talking point within the website, which would translate into a professional environment, getting professionals interested in the website and students. When developing the website the use of Adobe XD would of provided a smoother more professional finish as a prototype could of been created, however this was not possible due to the inability to link sections on the same art-board meaning the navigational aspects of the site couldn't be showed resulting in the use of After Effects. Due to the use of After Effects some navigational tools such as the refinement bar and 'mix it up' have not been shown to there full potential due to limited knowledge of After Effects. Throughout this brief I had to draw on my limit experience with After Effects in order to animate the website as my skills only related to production of simple animations. Consequently the animation of the website could benefit from refinement if more time was available to perfect my skills. Overall I feel I've learnt a lot within this brief due to experimenting with different software and different design specialism.