Interviews with National Library Board Singapore / Idean

For this app re-design, we started off by trying to make the library relevant to the current digital natives. What are they looking out for and what do they desire? We hope to bring these values to make the library appealing to them.

To build the library of tomorrow digitally.

Constant improvements and building upon the new desires of the digital natives.

It took a few months of thoughts and conceptualising to come up with the next draw factor to revamp the app.

Inspired by the touch and romance of physical books it brings upon to readers, we hope to bring about the liveliness yet keeping the quaint experience one feels in the library today.

This design is designed for a client of ours, and it is solely catered towards their audiences today.

as a team, we gave each other inspirations and feedback to help improve and influence the design of the work.

We are targeting the hobbyists, learners, students, gig economy workers, elderly, children and thier caregivers, basically, everyone.

This design targets specifically to our client's target audience. With rounds of testing and interviews done with their audiences, we ensure their needs are covered and their experience is enriched.

Various prototyping tools such as Invision, Sketch for designing the screens, Adobe suite to do edits, etc.

definitely the sexiest part of this design is the experiential way-finding feature.

One of our designer specializes in building new technologies to inspire and to create new ways to change the current mannerism of how tech is being used in the existing app.

Definitely, our designs are influenced with research data we have conducted right at the start of the project. We did guerilla research at the physical library, went to observe how audiences browse at bookstores, interview users who are on the extreme ends of our target audiences, understand the need of apps to exist on one's mobile and thereafter, analysing and coming up with insights to drive our design inspiration.

We feel that this design fits the bill of being a good design.

We come from various background and not all of us are trained from a design education. It ranges from specializing in web to having a psychology and communications background.

Idean is a strategic design agency. We challenge what’s possible to re-imagine new products, services & businesses.

The visual outlook or the process itself to produce a visually appealing output.

We love all kinds of challenges, ranging from various industries as it allows us to learn with every project. A general favourite though, we attempt designs that have a large user base and burning issues to solve with passionate stakeholders.

As a design team, the first thing we designed for a company is a health and fitness application.

Being in the digital and technology industry, we love anything digital, web base, cross-interfacing technologies such as AR, IOT and motion/voice tracking.

We are team of morning creatures, we work best in the morning after a nice cup of coffee and tea.

1. Aesthetic appeal

2. layout flows and functionality (legibility, clarity, etc).

2. Is my design solving a pain points the best way?

3. How can I simplify processes with my design?

4. How can technology enable a better experience?

5. How usable is the design?

6. Is there a new and better way to design this?

The enjoyment, fun, attentiveness and some procrastination - a process all of us go through

The sense of satisfaction that not only is it being realized but the response that turned out better than expected, the level of happiness rises to estatic.

The adoption rate of the design and stickiness, clarity of use and raving reviews.

"Pretty first, then balance and visual weightage on a page/space, followed by visual flow and hierarchy." Adib

"I consider the following: 1) Is the design solving the biggest customer’s pain point?, 2) What value does this design add?, 3) How usable is the design?, and 4) How does the customer feel after using the product with the new design?, 5) How different is this design?" Gigi

We moved from graphics to encompassing the entire customer’s experience goes beyond different interfaces (mobile, voice etc.). With rapid advances in technology and varied learning curves, the future of design is to facilitate users’ interaction without a steep learning curve – i.e. user feels comfortable with the new way of interacting and working with the product.

Not forgetting, design these days have to be an “inclusive design”, fro example, where an appealing design for any normal person can also be just as appealing for the visually impaired person.

"My iPhone, Apple thunderbolt display, ATH M50 headphones, Razer mousepad, collapsible standing wall-desk." Adib

"Start by practicing to mimic styles from your favourite designers. After each design, important to have design critique and it sometimes take fresh restarts with different approaches to get it right." Adib

1. Follow a few good references and see how they stand out from other similar takes/designs.

2. Always ask “How does this value add to the user’s experience?”

Our mantra in our team: Take breaks when necessary and always critique your own design efforts.

We definitely work as a team, but not forgetting that individual efforts are required to make a team effort successful.