Thesis reflection – March 5, 2018

So for this past week, I have been ironing out the major functionalities of my website. It has been helpful as I’ve been working with an awesome tutor (Tuba, MFDT) through the New School Learning Center. Together, and on my own time, I got dynamically changing 3×3 matrix.

As always when focusing solely on functionality, I am coming to terms that the UX is suffering, therefore my overarching concept is beginning to feel lost. Aside from the overwhelming feeling of always needing to optimize/fix more of the functionality, I now need to take several steps back and focus on better articulating my concept. Simply judging by the current interface, I understand why my recent user-testers have been feeling quite lost:

My concept, simply put, is to connect the changing numeric values with the changing image. Luckily, there is an existing attempt (Explained Visually) at demonstrating this specific image processing concept:

My problem with this, although it is interactive, is still relies on paragraphs on text that explain the interactivity. To communicate this idea with more connections between the image/numbers and less text, is a great challenge I’ve been neglecting but must, must, MUST pursue. Then, it will be right back to functionality.

The site is still ran locally, which I am predicting will not be a problem since I already have a hosted platform ready-to-go. Maybe this sounds scary, but I am planning on working in development mode up until the final moments before the exhibit installation process begins.