M2 Explain the Fundamental Principles Which Have Been Implemented Into Your Designs

In my HCI designs I have been careful to try and implement as any different features as I could to try and make the interfaces as user friendly as possible. To do this I looked at the fundamental principles of HCI and looked at what I could include to try and make my interfaces more user friendly than what I had originally intended. Database Interfaces On my input interface, which was the Customer Information forms, I chose to use an easy to read font, which was Calibri. I chose this because it is a very easy to read font which is more accessible for people with reading problems and dyslexia. I put the font at a reasonable size so it wasn’t too small but it didn’t take up too much of the screen. The font is white for all of the text, and this is easily distinguishable on the background, which are two different colours. The header colour is tan, and the rest of the form is beige. These colours were chosen because it is easy to see the difference between the colours, so you can clearly understand where the form information should be and where the title is. The buttons to skip through existing records are clearly visible and have universal labels on them so people of any culture can look at the form and understand what the buttons are for. I also added a label next to the ‘Customer Date of birth’ text box, which tells you how the date of birth should be entered into the form to keep up validity. The label with this information on is orange, so as to show it is an item of importance within the form and the user should take note of it. I have also used a grid system to organise my form, this way I have managed to ensure that the form is easy to understand and there are no problems with things looking too muddled up and users getting lost and missing out any fields. On my output device… Website Interfaces On both of my website interfaces I have used a consistent house style, so by describing one I can also describe most of the properties of the second, other than the body of the page, with relative ease. For the header and navigation of my website I have used opposite colours, the background of the entire website is white, and all of the text is black. This is so it is very easy to read. The title is large and bold, and at 55px and in the font Helvetica it is a good size to understand exactly what the website is for. Just below this is the navigation bar which is in italics so you can see there is a difference between this and the title of the website. These buttons are also much smaller, though they are not too small that you aren’t able to read them. The navigation bar follows the house style of Helvetica and the colour black to differentiate from the background. Below these buttons is a large black line so you can see that this is the end of the header and anything below is the body of the website. On the far left I have added a feature which will allow people to inflate the text in the body if they are having trouble reading it, though it is also in black so there are no problems with it leaking into the background. On my output page I follow the same house style, though there is a title of this page which says ‘Gallery.’ This is a large block of text which clearly lets the user understand which page they are on, and below it is the interactive gallery. This is a few columns of tiles of images which the tattoo studio has taken of their work. Once the mouse hovers over one of these images the image will blow up to a larger size so it is easier to see by the user. It is quite intuitive because there is a large empty space to the left of the tiles which has a border around it, so the user knows that it is there to have the images projected into it.