Only studio visit

Having Only come and talk about their work proved useful as digital design is an unknown area for me. They are a strategy design company made up of just Matt and Greg. They started off by explaining the misconceptions to digital design which was an effective way to set the tone and to open myself up to on screen design. With such accessibility and the constant stream of new information that comes with having the internet, the saturation of websites made me regard UI and UX design as "temporary". The main aspects were that there are so many possibilities with digital design, you don't need to code and its here to stay. 

In digital design there's a slightly different process of progressing through the brief. Instead of going from Research - Design - Practical Experiements - Print, it goes from Research - Wireframing - Design - FrontEnd. With the advantage of being digital design being almost instant, experimentation can be done at every stage of the process and having actual users use their designs are the feedback they receive. 

This digital aspect is also taken into how they give their brand guidelines to the client. Instead of pdf, they opt for a website which is easier to navigate, quick to access and easy to update. Giving the client their guidelines also reduces the work needed to complete the entire website. When asked about how they design for large amounts of webpages, they replied by saying they create at most 7-8 templates for their digital solutions. From there the client can take over and have a form of creative control. Furthermore, digital design is becoming a growing desire from clients as brands and companies move to a more digital outlook. 

When asked about what they adhere to or aim towards to when creating their solutions, it was clear that for an positive user experience, legibility has to be communicated through the user interface. This means creating a standard experience across all the platforms they design for, seeing whether the webpages retain clarity on large and smaller scales. Extending on this when designing for multiple platforms, it is necessary to identify the main screen size the target audience uses. As an example they provided, Little Mix's website design had to be influenced by the way we use smartphones as it took 80% of the target users. Another aim is to create designs that are accessible to everyone because of how wide the internet's audience is. These aims will be useful to adhere to when design the on screen solution for OUGD504 Studio Brief 02.