Natasha Jones

Ideas Cloud
 Contents

- Introduction
- What Is Ideas Cloud?
- Ideas Networking
- How is it different to LinkedIn/
Facebook
- Design Development
- Areas of Research
- Logo Development
- Design Development
- Functionality
- Testing Results
- Alpha Test
- Beta Test
- Conclusion
 Introduction

Ideas Cloud is the result of a game of Uno with friends resulting

in a series of mental brain storming. It is the result of me trying to
think of new ways of sharing and growing ideas. It is the result of
me trying to solve a problem.

Put simply. Ideas Cloud is a new form of networking, a form of

networking I’ve taken the term Idea Networking for.
 What is Ideas Cloud?
Idea Networking

Idea Networking to me is an offshoot or new branch and way of

social networking. Rather then it being based on socialising and
updating friends on what has been done though it is a way of al-
lowing ideas to grow and develop through communication. It is a
means to share ideas.

It is something to note that Ideas fulfil their worth the best when
they are free to develop and grow in an environment with in-
put from other people. They grow stagnant and stale when kept
locked away and developed alone with no input.

However it is a common problem that many people don’t share

their ideas. They seek to hide them away, whether due to fear of
being wrong, or the need to protect them. It is my belief that in
part this fear of being wrong comes from school where you are
taught you have to get everything ‘right. To allow ideas to develop
at their best you have to remove this belief, instead following in-
stinct and sharing to grow the idea. In the realm of ideas there is
no right or wrong.
 What is Ideas Cloud?
How is it different to LinkedIn/Face-
book.
When Facebook was first released it was claimed to be the best
place to socialise. However recently FaceBook has become stag-
nant. There is too many distractions and clutter included in it. Too
many apps and its become too overloaded to serve a purpose for
creatives and designers. It is not a place to develop and share
ideas, but instead to share with friends what you did.

LinkedIn was meant to be a place for professionals to gather

and discuss and talk. The balance here isn’t right and the de-
sign doesn’t work sufficiently. Rather then allowing creativity and
ideas to grow it stifles them. There is nothing exciting about the
design.

This is where Ideas Cloud hopes to differ. It has cut through most
the clutter that blights FaceBook to create a professional inter-
face and design. But it is also a design that encourages creative
thought and the development of ideas. This means that it will
work not as a place to try and find work, but to suit its purpose. A
purpose LinkedIn was never meant to fill, and a purpose Face-
Book couldn’t envisage showing up.

It is this vision that means that Ideas Cloud must be kept seper-
ate from LinkedIn and FaceBook to protect the idea and vision it
was developed under. This doesn’t mean though that ideas that
work from Facebook and LinkedIn’s interfaces can’t be used.
 Design Development
Areas of Research

Contents
- How People use Twitter, Facebook etc
- Features most commonly required for Idea Generation
- Good User Interface Examples
- Good Website Design Examples
- Best system to fulfil idea
- Symbolism behind animals
- Colour Schemes and their meanings
 Design Development
Areas of Research

How People use Twitter, Facebook

etc
 Design Development
Areas of Research

Features most commonly used for

Idea Generation
 Design Development
Areas of Research

Good User Interface Examples

While this site is to be developed in the sphere of social Net-
working it is my belief that there is no use just searching into ex-
amples of Social Networking Site UI, as there are flaws that are
present in all of them. As thus to me it is important to research
into a variety of User Interfaces used on the Web to find out the
most important ways of working.

I will also be researching into various theories on the best way

to set out User Interfaces to enable the user to identify the most
important content and areas. This is because by finding a system
that works to guide the end user around the page makes in the
long run an easier to use page and site. This to me is something
important due to the need to create a site that is simple to use.
It can be as clever as you want, but there’s no point to it and it
won’t be able to live up to its vision if you can’t navigate it easily.

On the other hand though some areas of navigation need to be

more difficult to access to prevent more costly mistakes. These
mistakes can include accidentally deleting something important
- it is therefore also important that safeguards are put in place
to ensure that content isn’t accidentally removed, that there’s an
additional step. This will assist in helping the user have a suc-
cessful, easy time navigating through the site.
The Google User Interface utilises simplicity and white space to
allow the user to immediately pick up the most important ele-
ments. In this case this is the site name (Google) and the search
box and elements. This is well planned out as, even though some
users might want to utilise the links at the top to navigate to other
sections within Google, the majority will have just visited Google
to search for something on the internet. Therefore having the
Search Box element being instantly visible without having to look
would work well. This is an example of good User Interface De-
sign, with the most important elements being in a central location
and drawing your eye to them instantly.
While Google relies on a simple clean user interface LinkedIn’s
interface is much more cluttered. It is also more complex to navi-
gate with the amount of items on the page. There isn’t use of
element size to link to the most important elements, instead it
seems like the elements were places almost haphazardly with
no thought of placement or thoughts on the order of elements.
This has meant that items like the logo which should at least be
slightly larger are instead too small and unimportant, whereas
items of lesser importance such as the ‘see who you already
know’ box dominate the page.

With the User Interface being poorly thought out, and as a result
more confusing to navigate it means LinkedIn is more likely to
create a more costly, and less rewarding User Experience. Of
course with the end User having a less rewarding Experience it
also means there’s a chance that Users will not keep checking
back. In effect the poor User Interface Design is forcing LinkedIn
to fail in its primary vision, which was to provide professionals
with their own version of FaceBook.
Facebook’s layout is extremely cluttered making it awkward to
navigate about. However there is some improvement, in places.
The area to type your status update is larger then the other ar-
eas, as is the activity stream area itself. This means that they
user identifies with that area first.

Facebook makes use of white space to a certain degree, but it

doesn’t make use of this in a way that helps the user to make
sense. Instead in places the user is left hanging and confused
not sure what to navigate to next.

While this is better then LinkedIn’s UI before it, the amount of

clutter still makes it an awkward site to navigate. There are still
areas which would leave a user lost and confused as to where
to navigate next. This means that for a user who may not even
be the most computer savvy FaceBook has failed to communi-
cate effectively through the User Interface to all potential users.
The poor User Interface and lack of thought to what elements
are most important can easily result in a poor User Experience,
which ultimately will drive Users away.
In contrast Twitters interface is much simpler, and shows signs
of there being some thought to the order that elements would
be looked for. This provides a better user experience as the el-
ements that they’d want to use are more instantly noticeable.
However even this design isn’t ‘perfect’. The side bar which con-
tains less important information is set to equal size as the activity
stream area.

This means the main area can be confusing and cluttered. How-
ever in comparison this does have the simplest User Interface of
the Social Networks, a welcome change compared to FaceBook
and LinkedIn.
The previous page shows two shots from Youtube. Overall the
interface is extremely well thought out. For what it needs to do
(allow videos to be posted and displayed based on what the user
browses) it works, with the videos being the most important part,
followed by the search area that would enable users to look for
new and potentially inspiring videos second important.

There is even more thought on ensuring that the user has a posi-
tive experience on the personal page, with the x buttons that
would cause something to be deleted off the section being small
in comparison to the area given to the actual content. This helps
by minimizing chance of accidentally clicking on.

All these go together to create a user interface that is easy for the
end user to understand as well as visually pleasing on the eye.
These combine to give a positive User Experience which will en-
courage users to return more then once.
While the WikiAnswers user interface to a certain extent works,
there are some rather serious issues with spacing that ruin the
design. Some areas aren’t crossbrowser compatible, or there are
issues with the layout itself which could do with being fixed.

There is a chance though that if the layout issues are fixed as an

interface it could work. Two things preventing it, alongside the
issues in display is the amount of information in the ‘main’ area.
There’s no way of identifying quickly what it is that’s the most
important, other then the Search for answers part. Other areas
of the User Interface need to be improved to give the best User
Experience possible.
DeviantArt works well for what its meant to be. Yet there are flaws
even in DeviantArt that make the User Experience when it comes
to feedback poor. While it works and displays user art which is
the main reason for the site, the User Interface doesn’t work as
well to facilitate easy viewing of new users who might have tal-
ent. This is due to a system of feedback and favourite and watch-
ing which has now become skewed as people judge more by
pageviews.

There is no way of giving feedback though that is displayed if

someone ‘likes’ or ‘promotes’ an artwork without it being added
to the persons favourites. Some people however only want to do
this for pieces that they love, which is understandable.

However this means that for a new user, or one who isn’t as well
known in the community on DeviantArt the experience can be
disheartening. This means that while the User Interface is more
then fit for purpose some flaws in the system and how its been
exploited has made the User Experience bad. This means that
there is a chance the User will not return repeatedly.
My research on the past pages has highlighted one issue that will
be hard to handle. While most the issues highlighted are ones
that should read as common sense (indeed there’s a law about
how elements should be arranged called Fitts Law), there are
some areas that rely on how humans interact and try and cheat a
system for their own gain.

However by following Fitts Law one can create interfaces that

work well and are easy to navigate - without allowing people to
make mistakes that could be deemed as costly. These ‘costly’
mistakes include accidentally deleting content they don’t mean
to delete.

This means that it is important to make important elements you

want the user to pay attention to larger then costly elements such
as a delete button. The delete button should also have an alert to
try and ensure that they have the option to back out of deleting
content if this was caused by accident.
Good Website Design Examples
Even with a strong understanding of User Interface and how it
should be laid out to allow users to identify with the elements of
most importance for interfacing and interacting with the design,
the design is also still important. It is the first thing a person sees
on a site, as thus it has to make sense to them. It also has to be
one they respond and react to easy.

The design has to speak to them. If the design isn’t something

that works with the site content as well as speaks to the user then
the website won’t get noticed. If the website doesn’t speak to the
user then when they access the site, it is likely that the website
won’t be revisited or remembered. The site doesn’t connect to
them.

For this reason it’s important to create a site design that works
and has the most chance of speaking and connecting with its
users. To help understand how users are reacting to certain site
design elements and designs I have conducted research into a
wide arrange of sites to try and understand just how they’re inter-
acting and reacting to a variety of sites with a variety of designs.