COP3 - Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have definitely developed my animation and app design skills, as I have managed to design something more comprehensive and realistic than before. 
I used After Effects to create my animation, and I have only used it a couple times before. I felt more at ease this time doing things I already knew, and I didn't restrict my design based on my limitations. I felt more comfortable this time learning new things so that I could achieved the effects that I wanted. I learned a lot about splitting layers, using masks, expanding and creating gestures. These all helped me create the vision that I have for the app and portray it to other people. 
I have only designed one app before this and I found it relatively easy to design for mobile compared to how I thought it would be. By doing wireframes and taking these to crits I found that continuing to improve the wireframes and getting feedback from people was beneficial in improving my app design skills. I think doing wireframes is a really important part of the process because it helps me figure out the layout on each page, and what colour/sizes everything will be to keep it consistent. 

I also improved on my writing skills, naturally, as I have never written this amount before. I was incredibly apprehensive before I started and thought it would be really hard, and although it was a big challenge I found it went more smoothly than I had anticipated. I knew that I would have to make a lot of changes in my first draft as I'm not very good at writing, so I wrote it early so I would have enough time to amend it. Once I had done my second draft I felt I had improved a lot since the first time and felt a lot more confident with it. I'm still not great at writing, but I surprised myself with how much I wrote and I feel it is better than any I have done before.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I felt that in crits I needed to show my idea rather than just explain it to get better feedback. So I created and printed out wireframes for each crit and showed how each page would lead to another so that it made sense to my peers. In doing so, I received better feedback because they understood my project, and in the second crit I got a lot of detailed feedback which helped me decide what features and pages were important to include. 
I feel that creating wireframes in general help my whole app design process, and is something that I will continue to create for each digital project. 

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

The main strength of my project was the app design and video. I feel since I am quite strong at web design, I find it easier to apply those skills to app design because they are both digital mediums. I feel like I capitalised on this by producing a video to showcase the functionality so people can see how it would work as a real app. In terms of animation, I feel this was also strong. Although I have only just started learning how to use After Effects, I feel I have managed to show how my app would work clearly.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I think decision making is a big weakness for me, as I only decided what to do for my practical after I had written my dissertation. Although I had thought of many different app ideas I kept discarded them to think of a better idea or because it had already been done before. I am glad I waited until I thought of this idea because I am very happy with the outcome, but I was still debating what to do even after I had thought of this. 
It also took me a while to decide what to include in my essay, and I even changed a chapter of it after I had handed in my first draft.
I feel my written element could have had more sources, as they were mainly from websites. I found it hard to find books and journals that were relevant to my topic though.
I feel I am really bad at logo design as well, and this is the part of the practical project I am least happy with. I really need to improve on my branding skills as I feel this is my weakest area.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Improve Animation - I want to continue practicing using After Effects so I can produce an ever better video next time, with animation and perhaps a voiceover.
2. Start Earlier - I started my practical pretty late and I could have done the last draft of my dissertation earlier so I should aim to start work earlier next time
3. Decision Making - I should be more confident and sure in making decisions instead of debating ideas and wasting time
4. More Sources - Although I had a lot of sources in my essay, they were mainly from websites. I feel like I should have had a bigger variety
5. Do More - I feel I could have done more for my practical.. I'm not sure what, perhaps a full Android version of the app?