Assignment 2

  1. My name is Bob Zhao, a senior studying Economics and Computer Science with a minor in HCI
  2. I'm coming from a CS background and would like to learn more about the design aspects to good digital design for my own sake and to better collaborate with designers in the future.
  3. Yes! Have worked with these technologies in the tech-for-social good space (designing government services to be more accessible and useful.)
  4. I hope to learn principles of good interaction design and how to translate those principles practically to evaluate/tweak/improve websites
  5. Responsiveness is probably the first thing that comes to mind, as desinging for screens necessitates automatically resizing content for mobile/tablet/different desktop sizes etc. given the way people browse the internet.
  6. The Radical Design Course by Jack Mcdade is an example of effective design, as the content of the page harmonizes with the page's layout, typography, imagery, color pallete, and more. The course is pitching itself as a design course that breaks out of conventional/often seen design tropes, and makes several choices (unconventional block font-face, the "electric" color pallet, and punk-rock themed images) to communicate these ideas visually as well as linguistically.
  7. IA.net, the website for the IA organization, is an example of effective communication. Leaning on minimalist design principles, the site offers links only to the handful of things the organization does, offering up an example of its expertise at the same. The non-english elements also help to communicate that the organization works internationally without calling it out explicitly, and the monospace typeface helps to establish the feel of the organization as an technically competent content organization.
  8. The United States Web Design System Website, which houses the code, principles, and documentation for a design system for government websites, is an example of an overall effective website. With clear call to actions into the "get started" sections followed by a navigational menu that allows users to venture further into the dense library of features offered, the site manages to combine an intuitive user experience together with the complexity required to maintain a system used by government sites.