Website Design - Vastu Vidya
Overview:
My introduction to professional UI/UX design was through this project: to design the front page for a hypothetical museum. I wanted to have a museum for Indian architecture, but since the scope was too large, I narrowed it down and settled on traditional residential architecture in the state of Kerala.
Timeline:
Sept – Dec 2021
Tools:
Figma, Adobe Photoshop.
My introduction to professional UI/UX design was through this project: to design the front page for a hypothetical museum. I wanted to have a museum for Indian architecture, but since the scope was too large, I narrowed it down and settled on traditional residential architecture in the state of Kerala.
Timeline:
Sept – Dec 2021
Tools:
Figma, Adobe Photoshop.
Design Process:
Since the museum this website for was fake, my first step was to create the museum. I decided on a gallery, one that would be available both digitally and as a brick-and-mortar gallery so as to reach the widest possible audience. The point of the gallery itself was to highlight the advantages of traditional architecture and to preserve it.
The concept and audience were inspired by family members of mine. Specifically, my uncles – both of whom are in their 60s and are art and culture enthusiasts. I decided then to challenge myself, and decide for an older audience, and perhaps one that may be unused to a digital gallery.
As this project was occurring during the pandemic, I decided to stay away from interviews (COVID safety for the elderly) and instead created a few personas to connect myself to my target audience.
Since the museum this website for was fake, my first step was to create the museum. I decided on a gallery, one that would be available both digitally and as a brick-and-mortar gallery so as to reach the widest possible audience. The point of the gallery itself was to highlight the advantages of traditional architecture and to preserve it.
The concept and audience were inspired by family members of mine. Specifically, my uncles – both of whom are in their 60s and are art and culture enthusiasts. I decided then to challenge myself, and decide for an older audience, and perhaps one that may be unused to a digital gallery.
As this project was occurring during the pandemic, I decided to stay away from interviews (COVID safety for the elderly) and instead created a few personas to connect myself to my target audience.
I wanted the design to be familiar, and easy to use. I thus
used newspapers as my inspiration, with a focus on ease of use and access. This
meant that my copy was to be self-explanatory, with clear controls. For
familiarity, I decided to have the website be very modern, and instead be
reminiscent of Indian newspapers.
As I worked on the design, problems made themselves clear – newspapers were great inspiration, but they could look dated. Iteration after iteration, it kept looking dated. After reviews, I realized that I needed to make the look purposeful and deliberate, and that is when I was able to fully explore the possibilities. I also referenced other websites to find good accessibility features, which I then incorporated into my designs (mainly for readability).
I am satisfied with the end result, given that it was my first foray into UI/UX design. Any further improvements would be in regard to accessibility, as the “readability” button is not intuitive. (The button is supposed to provide contrast options and options for fonts and text size).
As I worked on the design, problems made themselves clear – newspapers were great inspiration, but they could look dated. Iteration after iteration, it kept looking dated. After reviews, I realized that I needed to make the look purposeful and deliberate, and that is when I was able to fully explore the possibilities. I also referenced other websites to find good accessibility features, which I then incorporated into my designs (mainly for readability).
I am satisfied with the end result, given that it was my first foray into UI/UX design. Any further improvements would be in regard to accessibility, as the “readability” button is not intuitive. (The button is supposed to provide contrast options and options for fonts and text size).