Interface Interactions, Wednesday 14.11.2007

Me and Basia started working on the interface design, I on design and information architecture, Basia on metaphors and icons etc. We need closely collaborate.
Tom and Emily are responsible for testing. They have prepared questionnaire and trying to find families for testing.

During the day we managed with Basia to get quite clear idea about the design. We came up with:
Circle - metaphor of family, table, communication
One central computer in the place in the flat where everyone can easily reach it (corridor...)
Merging iGoogle, Facebook, MacOs Dashboard
on the interface:
main circle with family members. When you roll over member image you get thumbs of applications (Basia has list of all possible app we were able to think about to use).
thumbs: 3 types - open ones (everyone can open), thumbs linked to the main dashboard (selected to be visible when you open the dashboard), thumbs you need to log in (communication, sending messages, poke, etc., diaries....)
Dashboard - button which opens page with all app which all members dedicated for it (apps like notepad, weather, cleaning rota, stickers for notes or general messages, callendar etc.)
secondary circle with further family members - (address book) quick link to contact the other members of the family. send a message, chat, call, email. This could have two options to manage the members: alphabetical (all members icons shown) or as a family tree (family icons, when roll over, shows members and connections with other members)

Big Hard drive not needed - driven through internet (galleries stored like on flicker etc.)
tv program Nany - lots of examples how to improve the communication in the family, can be easily supplied by the apps.
Emily came with idea of including fairy tales to the interface - we agree, can be small apps and games, it works with the idea as we think about it now.
advantage - as family grows the apps are changing too, you can add and remove them so you permanently customize the interface.