Introduction Questions

  1. I’m Arielle (she/her), I’m a sophomore majoring in architecture and minoring in CS and HCI.
  2. So far on the HCI path I’ve only taken Visual Principles for the Screen, but I’ve done a bit of web design before on no-code platforms like Wix. I’ve also taken a few CS classes now but haven’t learned HTML/CSS. I’ve always wanted to learn HTML/CSS because it would allow me to do so much more in design, and I think it’s so cool that it’s a direct application of coding where all progress is visual and immediate (yay for easy debugging!)
  3. No, guess I got ahead of this question!
  4. I hope to learn how to implement interactive elements in a site, maybe even incorporating algorithms like search, sort, or filter I have no idea how complicated this is to achieve so it may be way out of my league for this semester though.
  5. I’m actually more used to designing for a screen than for paper, but from my past experience, the biggest difference is probably in how colors and text size appear. For these reasons, I think designing for a screen is actually easier, because you see elements exactly as they will appear to the user.
  6. Baggu’s website is simple and intuitive, but still memorable and fun. I feel like it effectively encapsulates the ethos of the company, advertises their products, and appeals to their target audience. The consistency across branding elements is immaculate — from the photography, to typefaces, to layouts, to copy, to interactive elements, everything is cohesive and encapsulates the designs of their products. Baggu website
  7. Kounkey Design Initiative is an interdisciplinary architecture, planning, and design firm with a conscience. The website is very clear and succinct in its communication, making the firm’s complex mission and approach to design very accessible and approachable. Just from a few bits of well-crafted text on the homepage, visitors can learn exactly what KDI is and does, and then navigating to the “about” page reveals a well-organized set of pages that provide information in much greater detail. KDI website
  8. I feel like the most obvious thing I have to point out about Pinterest is that its search function just works so much better than Google’s for certain types of searches — if I’m looking for a recipe, design ideas, or creative solutions, I know I’m going to find it on Pinterest, and I’m going to find many options. I may only find a couple on Google and besides, the results are manipulated by ads/SEO. Pinterest’s algorithm of tailoring results to my search history works so well that at this point, I don’t really need to search for anything anymore, it just comes up on my feed. And of course it’s very convenient and easy to save images, unlike with Google. Pinterest website