Some black & White data visualization checking

I thought it would be a good idea to check how my interface would look in black and white, so here are my main pages in black and white.

Some more improvement

After some more user testing and discussion with my tutor, I decided to make extra changes to my interface. I stylized my "energy  friend" in a way so that it looks more unique and original and less like stick figure. I also changed font on my buttons to make it more readable. In addition, I changed background color to pale green, so it is more pleasant for the eye. Here are some scetches and developments of my energy man and screen shots of  developments of the interface.

 

  

  

User testing

I have asked 10 young people, who are flatting to test my interface. Here I provide pictures of some of them while testing.

My Development (part 3)

After testing by representatives of the user group I am aimed at I applied some more modifications to my interface.

First of all I made the whole interface more cartoon like.The reason for that is that when I asked my users if they like watching cartoons, all of them answered "YES", which proves my theory that young people in their early 20th still like dealing with nice and friendly cartoon characters. Another important change was made because of some complaints about the buttons. Most of the users could not easily find out wich objects are actually buttons. So I highlighted my buttons with light yellow color, trying to keep the same style for all of them. I also made my man wave on the first page greeting new users and gave him a bright yellow bulb-heart. I also added some text around the button which leads to the room indicator page (from energy consumption page) in case user will need some more clue what the button is for. Furthermore I added "BACK" buttons for more convenience.

 

 

 

I also decided to try the method offered by Angela on the lecture - turning the whole thing into black and white, so I could see if color blinded people would be able to use the interface. And I was quite succesfull. Everything could still be seen clearly.

My Development (part 2)

After trying to actually run my interface as if I was a user, I decided to make a significant change. I added three more pages to it, so the user can acces not only the page which represents the room where he/she spends the highest amount of energy, but the other rooms as well, so he/she can check and reduce the energy consumption if needed, and consequently gets more options for saving energy.

 

 

 

 

 

My Development (part 1)

Here is my first introduction to Adobe Flash Professional CS5 and my first steps in using it and designing my application.

 

 

My first scetches

 

 

Useful web-sites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tWFWJGA7qrc#at=146
http://ilovetypography.com/
http://www.formfiftyfive.com
http://www.typographyserved.com/
http://trufitt.com/2009/09/21-beautiful-infographic-videos/
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/01/21/realism_in_ui_design/
http://visualization.geblogs.com/visualization/appliances/
http://numberpicture.com/
http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/oecd-better-life-index/

Inspiration

I was inspired by this famous new zealand political character.

The image was retrieved September 9th from: http://booksellersnz.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/orange-man.jpg

It could seem strange, but I got the inspiration for my colour choice from tomatos. Looking at tomatos I noticed that  combination of green and red looks really natural and in my case it will remind the user about an enviroment and human's responcibility to save energy in case to help nonrenewable resourses to remain on the earth longer.

The image was retrieved September 9th from: http://www.wallpapersphere.com/preview/photography/tomato-and-parsley/1024+x+768/898/11743