If there is one topic that marks our time, I guess it is quite unarguably the human impact on climate change. Whenever I meet with friends for dinner, rare are the evenings where we will not at some point discuss the ecological impact of the products we’re eating. Between choosing local, organic, vegetarian or fair trade products, it’s hard to understand the impact of our daily choices. So what if there was an app that would tell us exactly that: the ecological impact of individual products?
This is the fantasy that I will elaborate in this case study. Although no such product exists at this day of writing, it is not too science-fiction like either. We can already get a better understanding of the ingrediënts of our products through apps as Yuka, and several NGO’s have already launched their apps that enable calculating your ecological footprint by filling out your daily habits. In France for example, there is the We Act For Good app by the WWF and the somewhat similar 90 Jours and Eco Life Hacks. …
A case study on reinventing a micro event site
The Salon du Livre et de la Presse Jeunese is an annual event that takes place just next to Paris. It’s the event in the industry in France and very well known amongst the in-crowd. It hosts a very large audience, reaching from high brow editors, authors to teachers and librarians — and ultimately: children.
The website AS IS: an insider’s affair
Having visited the event not too long ago myself, I was struck by the difficulty of the website about the event, of which the screens look like the following:
As you can see, they are full of jargon and I had to use the search…
In a stage where we all follow hundreds if not thousands accounts, maybe it is time to create some organisation in the chaos of following?
It’s been a while since Instagram has been growing. Does this mean it’s heading into the same direction as Facebook, meaning: many people out there but fainting creativity and interaction? It sometimes already feels like that, as within the 700 or so people that I’m following it always seems to be the 20 or so same ones that seem to dominate my feed. I sometimes vaguely remember content that I would like to see, but when it comes down to remembering the name of the author/publisher, I often have to give up.
So as I see it, Instagram is already…
If there is one topic that marks our time, I guess it’s the future of our planet and our influence as consumers on it. At least, when I meet with friends, hardly ever a dinner passes by where we will not at some point discuss the ecological impact of what we’re eating. Between choosing local, organic, vegetarian or fair trade products, there are so many factors to take into account — and yet it’s hard to tell whether our choices will truly make a difference. …
Amongst the many impressionist museums in Paris, it’s the Orangerie museum where you can find Monet’s famous Nymphéas. The oval spaces in the heart of Paris attracts visitors from all over the world. How can we offer them a better experience? This is a case-studay about finding playful digital solution for visitors of any nationality or background.
The Musée de l’Orangerie is a small museum with happy visitors. Yet the experience is not the same for a Korean who visits Paris for the first time, compared the the Parisian lady that comes to see the exhibitions en passant. Cultural references are not necessarily alike, and Parisian museums are generally ill-equipped for Korean speaking people. Yet the foreign visitors from seem to be in the majority. So what are the possibilities to improve the experience for them?
Digital experiences are always in a way linked to a physical context, but I find public spaces with digital tools particularly interesting. They reach a lot of people and the digital product becomes a prominent actor in a physical space. In this UX review of post-stamp machines resulted in a redesign of the entire post office, rather than only the machine itself.
Field research in a busy Parisian post office
Machines like a post-stamp automat are there to help the user save time, I suppose — as well as saving employee costs on simple tasks. And admittedly, they can be quite a relief when you walk into a post office and see a long queue for the main desk. This was also the case for the little post office me and my team members visited in the 11th district of Paris. …
A case study based on solo travellers
In my first usability & redesign mission for the Ironhack UX/UI programme, we were asked to audit a travel application or website. I decided to focus on young, solo travellers. Then I did a benchmark study on several travel apps/sites and chose the one that I found most suitable for my user. I then tested it on true end users, leading to a new design proposal.
1/ My user: the free millennial
A millennial European (18–38 year old) wants to take a 6 month break. When (s)he quits her company there is a little money to start off, but the budget is not super high either…
What are your 3 best and worst design experiences? This is a question I have to answer for my UX/UI course. Yes, I am only trying to be come an interface designer, but if you think of it UX can be applied practically anywhere. In our lives we have been users of so many different products, and our experiences with these products and objects have been varying as well.
Let’s start with the worst, so we will finish this article with an optimistic mind!
My 3 worst design experiences
1. Plastic packaging that seems to be unable to open without using violence Clearly there is…
This is a report of my first exploration of the UI design tool Sketch. The goal was to reconstruct five or more pages from one of our favorite apps. Although this seems quite basic it really made me familiarize with the many details UI designers need to make choices in. I chose to copy several screens from Pinterest.
I use Pinterest mostly for illustration work. Either just for myself or for clients, it is very handy to use their mood boards to get a clear idea of what we want. Also, I can spend quite some time just letting myself be inspired.
Perhaps it’s the pretty images on the app that do the work, but to me, unlike some apps, I find this app very relaxing to use.
For the exercise I chose 6 of the screens I use most often.
- The home screen
UrbanGo is a transport planification tool that enables users to calculate their trip from one point to another. It provides maps, time and cost estimations for both public and private transport companies. On my first design thinking mission I had to think of a new feature that would allow users to also pay their transport on the app. Here is what I came up with.
Any traveler knows it can be a pain in the otherwise exciting experience of arriving in a new city: you want to get to your destination and discover the city quickly, but yet you first have to buy a ticket, somewhere, either from a vending machine with a strange interface, or from a service desk where no English is spoken — both of course only accessible after long queueing. UrbanGo now wants to propose a solution for this and let users buy the tickets on the app directly:
Users should be able to buy their transport tickets in their app…
Julia Fortuin
UX/UI designer based in Paris, France. Also into illustration & writing. https://juliafortuin.me
