Research

Inspiration

Image from juiceanalytics.com

Image from 4shared.com

I liked the idea of having the ratings going across the meter like in the first image but I did not want to do a normal looking gauge, I wanted colourful bars like in the second image. Doing it like this made it feel more like an info graph which is what I was intending.

Image from bubblews.com

To make sure that the user will understand how the meter works I wanted some sort of image to indicate Success and failure. This image gave me an idea to include arrows, the image itself is a sign but since success is normally associated with moving up I decided to put in arrows, one pointing up for success and one pointing down for failure.

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Colour choice

I decided to go with an analogous colour scheme, this was because it kept things colourful but wouldn’t be as of putting as a complimentary. If it was too dull it would not grab anyone’s attention and if it was too bright it would look like it was aimed at kids.

For the colours I actually chose I used colour association. I started with green for success because this is the colour most associated with success as well as being happy (if you are successful you’re normally happy). I didn’t want to go for the usual red for failure so I instead went with a light blue as it fitted with the colour scheme and it has associations with sadness as well as calm (this was useful as I didn’t want an aggressive colour because that would put some people of). The green I use for the background is very neutral, this is to balance with the colours used on the meter, this is so that it does not take anything away from the meter.

I use white for every thing else as it stands out (which is good for the text and arrows) as well as enhancing the other colours (which is good for the meter itself).

Image from defiantwellness.com

Success-ometer

User- Aged between-15-25

Colour palette- Nothing to bright as that we be aimed at children, nothing to dull as people would lose interest, so I will be looking at a colour palette that is colourful but not so bright that it will be of putting. I will probably go for a analogous colour scheme as it will contain varied colours but they will not contrast each other.

Typography- I will probably use a font that is not to complex yet still looks aesthetically pleasing.

Layout- I will be going with a simple layout that is easy to navigate, I want it to look like a chart/info graphic.

Hyper local media

Concept- The concept of hyper local is detailing news and information about events in your local area/community.

“Hyperlocal connotes information oriented around a well defined community with its primary focus directed toward the concerns of its residents. The term can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term (e.g. news).”

From :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal

Content

The types of things that would be mentioned would be local news, local weather, local places of interest, pretty much any sort of information that would be useful for a certain community rather than the masses. Recently hyper local media has been evolving in ways such as including GPS which can be very useful because then it will be easier for people to get info about there local area a lot faster than usual. Other things that could be mentioned is local sports scores whether it be football or rugby, professional or amateur. There could even be live updates from council meetings.

Info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal and http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/here_and_now_uk_hyperlocal_media_today.pdf

Emergence

There are many reasons for the emergence of hyper local media such as, the internet connecting communities, local reporting is fading fast and there is a gap to fill, it is a lot easier to create content, there are multiple devices that will be able to get the content now such as mobile devices and tablets, big businesses have noticed the importance of local content and any type of local occurrences and issues will always matter to people.

http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/here_and_now_uk_hyperlocal_media_today.pdf

Local content development and publishing

One of the leaders in distributing hyper local media is Facebook and it will be very difficult for any other service to outdo Facebook as it is so popular. There are other websites that specialized in hyper local media such as Nextdoor and nOtice but there is still a long way to go until there is a definitive leader in this specialized market.

Social Enterprise

Hyper local can be useful for social entrepreneurs as they can use this to communicate with the local community. It is sometimes referred as an online notice board, it can do great things for small businesses like giving them cheap advertising and it will appeal to people near the area where the business is located.

Info from http://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2011/mar/15/future-hyper-local-social-entrepreneur

Relevance 

This subject is very relevant to this project as much of the services offered by hyper local media will be used in the app and there are things to consider to include in the app. Such things that could be used would be GPS (to locate nearby college campuses), local news (any news to do with the college or surrounding area which will be useful for students), local events info, college info (room changes, lunch menu, timetables and any other sort of useful info), etc.