UI & UX Case Study of the process to design a Dinosaur Dictionary App
In The Beginning
As a kid I was obsessed about dinosaurs. My main place for information about dinosaurs was from books. I loved the illustrations in dinosaur books but it bothered me that information required a lot of reading. Lucky for me, I had quality time with my grandmother who would read the information to me. Eventually I got a dinosaur dictionary book with 700 different kinds of dinosaurs and each dinosaur had its own page. A lot of dry information that even now as an adult it’s hard for me to read.
Understanding the problem
As a kid and as a teenager there was a lot of interesting information in dinosaurs books. But it was hard for me to read it all. The pictures and illustrations were fantastic but static and not alive. Maybe today there is a way to bring the dinosaurs back more realisticly then before.
The Persona
This app could be used by a variety of people of different ages and gender. I would like to focus on a teenager boy.
User Journey
Next I mapped out a user experience of my persona by him trying different ways to learn and study about dinosaurs to better understand his needs.
Hero Journey map
User Flowchart
To give me a better understanding of how the Dinosaur Encyclopedia App should be I created a flow chart of the dinosaur app.
Sketches
Helps to visually imagines the app and give a better understanding on how the product will look at the end.
Color Palette
I chose for a big part of this App a dark theme. A dark theme emphasises a visual content and overall emotional appeal. The background of the dinosaurs is a blend of white and gray to enhance the dinosaurs. A major color in this App is green which represents nature and life. Therefore I called the application Dino Life.
Typography
I chose SF PRo Display because I designed this application for iOS. For the logo I also used Asul Font because I like the way it is curved which reminds me of nature and life and it gives a good contrast to the SF Pro Display which is iOS system font.
Icons and Illustrations
Icons are very important. It’s a big part of the design. Icons help the user to understand where he is in the app. There are two sets of icons. They are in the same colour and have a similar design. This helps build consistency. Consistency and understanding where the user is in the app builds the user's trust.
The illustrations are the one of the biggest part of this application. One picture is worth 1000 words. In Dino Life you have 3-D illustrations of hyper realistic dinosaurs where you could see them in VR or AR in your living room or your garden. The other significant part of this application is the ability to have your Smartphone read you the information about the dinosaur.
Final Design
The main goal of this app is to gain information about dinosaurs in an intriguing and interesting way and to bring the dinosaurs back to life in VR with Google cardboard glasses or any other kind of VR glasses or AR in your domain.
This app is a breakthrough in terms of combining information with the use of the senses; sight and sound. The viewer will be enrapt by the combination of the fact that the app brings the dinosaur back to life in VR in life size scale and simultaneously enables one to hear information about the dinosaur. This app brings the museum into your palm.
