Name for app

-Honeybun

-Calf

-Chick

-Piglet

-lamb

-Little chick

-Friendly farm

-Farm friendly

-True friends 
-Fluffy friends

I tried to come up with some different names for my app. I started by writing all the names of baby farm animals.

My favourite so far is Fluffy friends, this is because it calls these animals friends, which are typically associated with farms and livestock, and the word fluffy creates an emotional reaction for children as it symbolises cute things. 

Logo for app

I decided that I wanted a pig as my final logo as I am going to be making just the pig route, however if I were to make each route I would make similar logos but with each animal that I have chosen on it.

I started by drawing an idea for the pigs face, and I liked my initial drawing so I based the rest of the logo off of that face.

I wanted the pig to look as if it is having fun, so I came up with the idea of having it rolling around in mud. To create this I drew a line, which would be the floor as well as a barrier for where the name will go. I then drew a cartoonistic body, as this is the style that I want the whole app to look like.

Once I had drawn out a basic sketch of the final logo, I decided to redraw the outline in illustrator so that it would have more clean lines which fits with the whole aesthetic, and is quite difficult when using photoshop to draw.

After I got the shape what I wanted it to be in illustrator, I brought it back into photoshop, as illustrator is quite restrictive with alterations to the drawing, such as erasing parts of lines that I did not want.

I then began to colour in the pig, starting with a base colour. Then I lowered the opacity of the brush and made it bigger, I then painted on different pinks and orange colours to create the look of texture on the pig. I also added highlights to the tops of its feet, snout and ears. Once I finished this I wanted to add the mud, I did this by using the same brush effect then drew brown onto the pig, adding opacity closer to the floor of the logo.

When id finished colouring the pig I added the name to the bottom. One issue I found was that within Adobe not all of the fonts that I chose out were available, so instead I decided to use of the ones which was available, Helvetica. Another issue was that when I drew the floor I did not make it straight, which meant that I had to skew the word 'friends' then I rotated the whole logo to make it appear to be straight, this worked and I think it is barely noticeable.

Kats presentation notes (week 5)

“People ignore design that ignores people” Frank Chimero

They need to analyse people’s behaviour. Design on what people do, not what you think they are going to do. 

Human centred design. When you focus on creating a solution to an issue you are creating design for a purpose and should be using humans to test on. We should have a purpose behind each piece that we create, this is due to there being so many things out there now, the market is saturated. An example of this is ‘Google glass’ they were created for fun not an issue that they wanted to solve. An example of good UX is tactile pavement, there is different textures to pavements that mean different things, this has a purpose and is well done. 

We should create a product that creates a good emotional response.

“Data is the new oil” Clive Humby

People want our data. It helps us to design better products, such as if we have data on their age, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, etc, we can design better products more suited for them. Data helps us make informed decisions. Data allows us to prove that we know about our client’s audience, to back up our design process and thinking. It also allows us to know what is going well and what we can keep, expand on. 

Good design is invisible, bad design stands out. Use data to make the design more assessable. 

Think about these three things working together. Humans give data which changes design. We need data to justify creative ideas. 

hatchi (site map, wire frames)

Since Hatchi is such a similar app to what I want to create, I decided to look at their app and create wireframes, a sitemap, and their colour scheme.

Doing this helped me as it meant that I saw what they did to make the app really good and gave me ideas for my own app.

Tamagochi style apps

https://www.producthunt.com/ask/1351-best-tamagotchi-like-digital-pet-app

I found one article that has a list of Tamagotchi style apps, which will be similar to the app that I am going to be creating. 

1.     Mold Marauder- The description for this app is ‘Breed adorable molds and fight off the interdimensional worms that want to eat them. Become the richest mold breeder in the world!’ This app aesthetically looks awful as the colour scheme is neon’s and the molds are a bit weird looking, as a child this would have scared me. 

2.     Pet Amoeba- I could not find the app for this anymore, so I assume that it has been deleted off the app store. However, someone commented ‘Really cute, excellent AI and physics, and lots of interaction. Can play games like 2049, memory games, tic-tac-toe, etc with your amoebas, with lots of toys and items to get. Did I mention they’re cute?’ 

3.     Hatchi- I actually bought and played this app to see how it worked. It cost £0.99 on the app store and includes extra in-app purchases. The app resembles Tamagotchi heavily, with the retro style, and the creatures that don’t resemble any living being. I liked this app a lot because it resembles Tamagotchi so heavily, as well as it has some mini games which makes the game more fun. 

4.     Mountain- This an app where you generate a mountain in space and you just watch it, it goes through seasons, grows, collects things, and cleans itself. However, you take no part in it, and just watch the mountain. 

5.     Hugging face- This is an app where you talk to an AI and it will communicate back to you, it learns from people talking to it (a chat bot). I find this app quite sad as people that don’t have many friends will use this and that’s quite sad. 

6.     Hatch- This app allows you to have a virtual pet, that hatches out of an egg, you can then style this pet and care for it. The app costs $1.99 to download. 

Initial drawings for apps (icons, etc)

Here are some initial drawings that I did when I sat down and thought about the style of the app, and what kind of icons I would want. I wanted the app to be very cartoonist, and cute, as this is what I feel resonates with children, as well as I personally like that style for apps, and find I am drawn to cute things.

Idea for my final app

My idea for the app is to have a Tamagotchi style app, that has animals that are typically used for food. This app would be used to have people become empathetic to these animals, as people tend to not even think of them as once being living beings before, they eat them. 

The app will mainly be to educate people on the animals and create empathy with them. This will be done through having people care for the animals as if they are their virtual pets. I will also add some ethical choices that the player has to make, for instance ‘a farmer is offering you £- money for your pet’ then you have to decide whether you want to sell your pet to a dodgy farmer. 

As it will be a game, and I want it to be quite cute looking, hopefully children will want to also play it, which will teach children from a young age empathy towards these animals. 

I want the app to have the option of pigs, cows, chickens, and even salmon fish. The interface would be similar for each of the animals but with slight differences, such as the cow will be in a grassy field, and the chicken will be in an open pen with a little house, the salmon will have an interface that is a pond underwater, these will show the natural habitat for each of these animals. 

The ethical dilemmas that are shown will have a little picture to go along with it, for instance the farmer coming, the pet will be shown in a van looking sad, and the farmer will look evil and scary, to make the player understand the better option, as this one is making the pet sad. 

Rapid prototype- Pintrest

Rapid prototyping (Using Marvel)

Login function- puts people off sometimes. Simpler is better. Try to not have links to other apps, as it makes it difficult for the user to find posts that they previously liked. It’s good to have filters, so people can find exactly what they want quickly. People like white space. 

Today we were told by Kat to draw wireframes for the app Pinterest, as well as their website. We were put into pairs, I was with Sophie K.

We noticed that we were not a massive fan of the app due to it having too much incorporated into it, when it could have been simpler and easier for the viewer to use. 

Honestly, I did not think that this task was necessary as last year we did something similar, and since the whole class was only doing one app then presenting it, it meant that we all repeated the same thing. As well as that wireframes are relatively easy so we don’t really need a whole day to learn this, which we could use to learn things we haven’t already done, such as coding the apps. 

Social media communities for Vegans and Vegetarians

I looked for a couple different vegan social media communities. One that I found was on Reddit, called ‘r/vegan’. It has lots of threads where people post any problems, questions, recipes, ideas, etc. Personally, this was the group that I was already a part of, and sometimes look on. This is due to it being easy to navigate and find that it has the most relevant information for what I want. 

I then found a stand-alone vegan social media, called Vsociety. To use Vsociety you have to register and give them your email address. On Vsociety you can connect with your community, buy and sell ethical products, watch, listen and read a collection of conscious content, find events. Personally I did not like this social media that much, this is because I found some issues with their UX and text, also you have to give lots of different data when signing up, such as your country, birthday, videos you like, things you like to read,  what you buy, what you talk about, what events you attend. After fully signing up, I have noticed that it is similar to linked in but for vegans and vegetarians. 

I also found a Facebook group called ‘UK Vegan’ it has different recipes, ideas, questions, recipes, fashion, beauty, food, etc. It seems to be a quite friendly community that genuinely cares to encourage people as well as educating people. I really like this group however I am not a massive fan of Facebook on a whole, however this is just my opinion. 

I also looked at the Happy cow forum to see how they did, they spoke about raw food, meditation, different foods, animal rights, health, etc. However, I found that they do not get many responses and doesn’t have the same community vibe as the other forums. This was personally my least favourite social media that I found, as it seems more disconnected than the rest of the ones I found.  

Pre-existing vegan/vegetarian apps

https://chooseveg.com/blog/9-best-phone-apps-vegans/

I found this one article that had a list of 9 apps that are for vegans, here they are: 

1.     Happy cow: Happy cow is a website and corresponding app that is a bit like TripAdvisor but for just vegan food. They have lots of different sections, such as ratings on which are the most vegan friendly cities, advice on going vegan, famous vegans, and vegan airline meals. They also have forums where people can talk about many things, such as recipes, meditation, just to name a few.

2.     Forks over knives: This is a food & drink app that helps people discover over 400 healthy meals. Each of these recipes is plant-based. This app is for not only vegans but also vegetarians. The app costs a one-time-fee of $4.99.

3.     Vanilla bean: This is an app for vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians. It is similar to Happy cow, as it suggests your restaurant around your area, however it has less on it, such as the forums, and articles are missing. 

4.     Food monster: This is an app that suggests recipes, unlike Forks over knives you have to pay monthly for this service. This is for vegan, meatless, and dairy-free people. 

5.     Dr. Greger’s daily dozen: This is an app that details the healthiest foods and how many servings of each we should try to eat every day. This app is free to charge and instead of being specifically for vegans and vegetarians it is for anyone that is looking to be healthy. 

6.     vegEMOJI: This is an app that gives you extra emojis that promote healthy, plant-based lifestyle.  

7.     21-day Vegan Kickstart: This is an app that has meal plans, recipes, grocery lists, daily videos, nutritional tips, cooking demonstrations, etc. Basically, it helps you to try and go vegan for 21 days, by using all the features listed above. 

8.     Yelp: This is great to find vegan-friendly restaurants in your area. It is a review site so you can see recommendations and feedback on all of the restaurant’s menu items. 

9.     Meetup: this is an app where you can meet people and get new friends. It can be used to find vegan friends, or meetups.