First web design internship — Week 7 & 8
Note: My internship took place in 2020. Lucidweb shut down in 2021 due to the Covid situation.
These last two weeks were pretty calm. With the departure of the marketing interns and the holiday leave of multiple members of Lucidweb’s team, I didn’t have a lot to do. But it doesn’t mean it was less interesting. If you are not up to date about my adventure during my internship. I invite you to read the beginning of the journey, how I acclimatized to the environment, and how it was going halfway through the journey.
Investors deck with Leen
I continued to work on the investor deck with Leen. The goal was to transform text into a visual deck that is readable and presentable. Leen showed the Google Slide to Lucidweb’s associates and asked me to do some modifications. For example, she asked for more details that make it more obvious that it was from a VR company. I kept close contact with Leen for questions. I modified slide by slide, with no particular order.
It feels a bit long now to do the investor’s deck. It’s hard to stay concentrated on an assignment I’m doing for more than 2 weeks, everyday. I had less and less inspiration for modifications, but in the end, I was kind of proud of myself because if you look at the beginning, it has nothing in common. At some point, Leen even told me that she was impressed by the change and the speed I was going.
UX editor’s controls
I had a meeting with someone on the dev team and he asked me to look at the controls of the player from the research I did a few weeks ago. Now was the time to use the information I’ve gathered. He told me that now that they removed the bugs for the upload on the platform and the implementation of hotspots is taken care of, the next big step is to add adapted controls for 360 videos and 360 images. Since I’m alone on the assignment, nothing would be irrevocable and it will have to be validated by Eliana when she comes back. But I should already start to work on it. The matter is :
« How to provide an UX solution for a player for different devices that combine controls for 360 videos and 360 images ? ».
I began by gathering notes about my research. Every time, I noted the 2 variations: one for 360 videos and one for 360 images, so I could make a better comparison. I made 2 lists of all the features that we can find on a player, good or bad, useful or not. I also made sketches of the players I thought had interesting layouts. Because most of them look like each other, I also made sketches of the ones that stood out and were bold.
Then, I noted each icon that was used by the players. That was useful for the next step, which is the inventory. I brought together all the variations of each pictogram and made a list. With only the variations of the websites I analyzed, I thought it wasn’t thorough enough so I did my own research on an icon web bank and transcribed the ideas to have a wider range of icons on the list. I also added to the list of pictogram, messages such as « VR mode » or « turn your phone ». I think choosing the right pictogram for a platform is an essential part of a good user experience and that’s why I dedicated so much effort to it.
Besides the pictogram inventory, I did some research for a pictogram for AR. That’s something we talked about with Eliana a few weeks ago, there is no clear agreement about the universal icon for AR. There is one for VR, a headset icon and it’s easily understandable but for AR it’s always complicated. So I decided to tackle the subject and get at it. I found a few icons but I think they are not there yet. Either they were too simple and not understandable by the general public (also because AR is not yet popular) or too complicated and not ideal for an icon. I made a spectrum about it and I will discuss it with Eliana when she comes back.
I took again the list of features on players and tried to sort them. I sorted them into 3 columns: only used in 360 video player, only used in 360 image player, and used in both, so I could see clearer what controls are in common. Within these sortings, I separated them into essential, semi-essential, and not essential, because I knew that I could not use all of them. The first sorting was about the players on a mobile device but then I did the same when it’s on a headset and a desktop. Of course, the controls are not the same on different devices and that was what my issue was about. For example, on a desktop, you need a volume button, and on a headset, a lot of features are not useful.
I made my first attempt at a wireframe on paper. I try to do a layout both for video and image. Then I adapt it for mobile, headset, and desktop wireframes. I copied the paper wireframe into Adobe XD. I paid attention to portrait every action like the gear button, the list of views, or the replay button. The only button I didn’t describe is the VR setup because I don’t really understand how it works.
It was the first time I used Adobe XD, usually I use Invision or Figma so I took a little bit of time to get used to it and find the tools. But it’s essentially the same thing. It was nice to finally use a software for prototyping. In the end, it was not that difficult to use Adobe XD. I still believe it’s not the best software in terms of usability. But I guess I’ll have a better judgment after more time using it. The positive side of this situation is that I get to have more than one string to my bow by knowing several softwares and it’s an advantage for later in the professional world.
Conclusion
It was nice to finally change tasks. And even more, I was doing a UX assignment! Because I worked on that a few weeks before, it was easy to get started. It was interesting because it trained me to find a solution to merge 2 different user experiences. Also I can work on paper, and I love that. I don’t know if what I did for the UX editor’s control is good but I guess I’ll know on Monday when I’ll present it to Eliana.
