Hejaz Proverbs is an iOS app that makes it super easy to find proverbs that are local to the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia, using a quick search, and easy to use index. The app is based on a book, which is the product of more than 20 years of research into Hejazi culture and customs by author Fareed Abdulhameed Salamah. Pixel Munch was hired to work on the design of the app, including wireframing, user flows, and user interface design.

Wireframes

Visual Design

A couple of months ago I received a message from a visitor to Pixel Munch, asking about the terminology we’ve used to describe our services. This is the message:

The terminology you use to describe your services is a little specialized, and I always wondered if that was intentional to target a certain type of client. I couldn’t figure out what ‘user experience design and interface’ meant without consulting Google.

We love start-ups

Much of our work comes from local internet start-ups such as Qaym.com. These are websites that are started largely by developers who who have nailed the development of their product, but need awesome user interface and interaction design to go with it. They’re familiar with the terminology and they know the exact services they require. Since this is our main client-base and one that isn’t really being served by anyone else in the market, we’re aiming to get more clients of the same type.

Although the question brings to our attention that perhaps we could be losing out on potential clients due to a language barrier, as a side effect the clients we have been getting were all actively curious about user experience, which gave us a chance not only to render our services, but also help play our part as UX evangelists.

UX for n00bs

User Experience (UX) is the way a person feels and reacts to a product, website, or service. An interaction designer designs the way a user will interact with a website or an application. This covers information architecture, which is the organization of information across the entire website or application and on each page, as well as user interface design which is the design of specific elements on each page including content, buttons, etc.

Development of a website normally includes two types:

• Front-end development is the programming layer that facilitates user interaction with the website or application through a functional user interface
• Back-end development creates the logic that allows the website or application to carry out a user’s instructions

This is the first in a series of tinyDesign posts about the tiny, often overlooked, details that make a great difference in design. The posts will be appropriately tiny and will not exceed 250 words each.

Getting design down to a ‘T’

The uppercase ‘T’ presents designers with a problem when it is in the first line of a paragraph. The arm of the letter causes the first line to appear indented, making the whole paragraph seem visually “off”. To correct this you will have to manually adjust the placement of the first line to align the stem of the ‘T’ to the rest of the paragraph.

This concludes the first post in the tinyDesign series. If you like this post and would like to see more covering a particular area of interest such as UX or web design leave a comment below.

And Now The Shameless Self-Plug

I’m happy to announce the official launch of Pixel Munch, the user experience consultancy that I’ve started with my friend, and now colleague, Menelik Young. We’ve been operating as a team under the Pixel Munch name for some time, and have launched 3aish Jobs and Zen Cute.

The Importance of UX

User Experience is an often-overlooked aspect of web design in our region. Many start-ups fail to realize their full potential due to lack of knowledge of user experience design. At best it is an after-thought, and most of the time it is neglected completely. However, things are looking up, thanks to those passionate professionals who are trying to raise awareness about the matter.

Our Collective

A “work collective” is a type of horizontal collectivism wherein a business functions as a partnership of individual professionals, recognizing them as equals and rewarding them for their expertise.

- Wikipedia: ‘Collective’

As you may know, I’m an interactive design nut with a graphic design background, and the web provides a solid opportunity to exercise both obsessions. Menelik is a skilled developer with a keen business savvy. We’re also looking for other interested professionals to join our collective. That means, there are no office hours, no yearly contracts, and no payroll. We operate on a strictly project-by-project basis, recalling the Pixel Muncher with the required skills when they’re needed.

This keeps us lean, agile, and focused on the project at hand. This means we’re struggling startup-friendly: There’s no overhead, and that means the client does not have to pay through the nose to cover our costs. We use applications such as Basecamp to keep track of our projects and conduct business in a “virtual office space”.

If you’d like to join Pixel Munch send me an email at ‘ ghaida[at]pixelmunch.com ‘ with the subject title ‘collective’. Briefly introduce yourself, list your main skills, and how you’d like to contribute to future Pixel Munch projects.

What is design? That’s the million-dollar question in design circles, and I felt it was time I put my 2 cents in.

What design is not

Before I begin attempting to explain what I think design is I’d like to dispel some common misconceptions about design.

Design is not art

Art is ultimately self-expression. It needn’t be understood by a third party; it is a deeply personal relationship between the artwork and the artist. Design is a part of art, and that is because each work of art is designed by the artist. Design therefore is not art, but art can be considered a form of design.

Design is not decoration

Source

Design is not recklessly adding flourishes and lavish embellishments. A common pitfall that designers fall into is that they go insane with all the available royalty-free resources available. While graphic resource portals such as Vecteezy are useful for adding placeholder graphics or the occasional well-placed decorative element, flourishes and embellishments are not meant to take over the entire design. This is why there are so many cookie-cutter designs cluttering the industry.

Design is not Photoshop

Design is not about being the baddest kid on the block with Adobe Photoshop. In fact it has nothing to do with your tools, and in fact it doesn’t matter if you choose to use Photoshop, Illustrator, your camera, your crayons, or sand drawings. It doesn’t matter. It is however important to excel at your tool of choice, because this improves your ability to communicate clearly and effectively to your audience.

So… What is it?

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
—Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Design is Thoughtful Reduction

Design is the process of clearly presenting the best possible solution to a given problem as simply as possible. Design is therefore the careful blending of creativity, innovation, and scientific certainty.  Here’s a web design example: If i were approached by a client who required a simple blog to be built, one that was easy to read and could be easily and frequently updated. I would need to strike a balance between innovative interaction, usability, and aesthetic appeal.

Design is the development of Systems that achieve Goals

It is easy to lose sight of the goals of a design project, and become distracted by all the embellishments and coolThings™ that we can add to the design. A designer must stay focused on building a maintainable system that achieves the goals of the design. I use the word system here, because any design, is indeed a complex system with many variables and elements that affect the end result.

This does not only apply to interactive or web design, but to any design, including graphic design, packaging, poster design, and what have you. Every design must have goals to achieve and must be systems built from variables, such as the material used, the process, production, programming language, layout, typography, etc.

In the end, the trick is to make all that complexity seem as simple as possible. That, my friends, is design.

Inspired by John Maeda’s excellent Laws of Simplicity. Law 1: Reduce.

The Mystery of the Missing Sock is my final project for one of my classes at SCAD.  It is a simple point-and-click adventure where the puzzles require that the player think outside the confines of the game, using popular social networking websites and other web tools  to unlock clues.

Play game →

Narrative is part of, and oftentimes, a byproduct or after-thought, to gameplay. In the early days of game development games were created as interactive toys rather than a medium of storytelling such as with Pong. Over time game design evolved to creating games that serve as an interactive vehicle for narrative, which is the result of preconceived notions of story telling using literature and cinema. Games have been for the better part of their history just another a medium for narrative.

Game design is evolving past being merely an interactive way of telling stories. Narrative and interactivity are both woven together to create today’s games, and the narratives are largely dependent on the participation of the player, without which the story will not be resolved, or as in the case of RPG’s will not even begin.

Left 4 Dead is an interesting game. In it you play one of 4 characters in an in-game zombie flick. The objective is to escape the horde with all the players alive. Each session lasts about 1-2 hours depending on the size of the map. The game isn’t scripted; instead a context is provided, for example one of the scenarios in Left 4 Dead two is escaping a swampy area through a harsh storm. The beginning of the scenario is constant, but, depending on how many of the survivors reach safety, the end is uncertain. The number, and frequency of zombies is dependent on the difficulty level selected, but where and how you encounter them is different.

Every choice you make within the short play session affects the end outcome; which weapon to choose, whether to take the pills, the defibrillator, or medkit, choose to heal your teammate or save the medkit for yourself. All these choices affect the outcome of the game leading to endless replayability. At the end you can view your stats along with a movie poster showing the surviving players, thus concluding the gaming session.

The narrative in Left 4 Dead is the player’s own. The context alone is meaningless without the players’ participation, and each session is a unique experience.

A game is ultimately composed of interactivity balanced with narrative to create a unique experience distinct from other mediums of story-telling; one cannot effectively exist without the other.

V-RA stands for Virtual Research Assistant. This is a project I did as part of my coursework at SCAD. It’s a helpful companion iPhone/iPod Touch application to quickly reference research options while playing Mass Effect 2.

Visit V-RA →

Iskit List is a project by talented developer and game designer Abdullah Hamed. It provides users with an anonymous way to vent out frustrations. My role was to create wireframes and visual designs, as well as reorganizing the display of information, and front-end development.

Visit Iskit List →

Sketches and Wireframes

3aish Jobs is Pixel Munch‘s first application. 3aish Jobs is a job board for creatives in Jeddah, as well as a budding community. Aimed at creatives, we hope that 3aish Jobs will  foster an creative community in Jeddah.

Visit 3aish Jobs →

Early Sketches and Wireframes