During week 7, we had a critique class where we got a chance to look at all of the class’s dashboards and how they took the brief of the AV project. This class was also vital as we were able to get peer feedback on our products and feedback from the lecturer.
During this critique, I got valuable information on what I could change within my dashboard to make it more accessible and user-friendly. The first change was to slow down the onboarding designs as they were too fast and not easy to read, which will help the overall look of accessibility of the journey. I made the animation speed increase from 1000 to 3000ms, which made the animation more seamless and easy to read. For the inside car dashboard, I changed the map to be bigger as it is a main part of this section the users will want to see where they are and the direction they are going, so I added an arrow and a highlighted line to make sure that the users know what direction they are going in. I think that this was a very good idea as I would want it if I was using this autonomous vehicle I also wanted to add the arrival time in the corner and how many minutes the user had left on the journey.
During the critique it was suggested that i created a name and a brand for my app. so i came up with the name Cruze and created a logo. which was based of the fast movement of cars which i foreshadowed with lines coming out of the Cruze. I stuck with the same colours as they orange and black colour scheme which I thought looked very professional. i wanted to add a extra onboarding page with the name Cruze on it so i added it to both the different screen areas of the car and the street.
Screen Recording 2025-01-03 at 16.32.15.mov
The second critique suggestion that was given was to add a start journey button that allows the user to select when they start and are ready to start the journey. So i added in a button that allows them to do this after all of the onboarding screens. i wanted to have the screen plain with only the button so it was easy for the user to start the journey but it was also easy to see.
Another suggestion was for the customise your ride screen which was suggested that i remove the lights and that as most of the cars wont have that option and it is not a necessary feature of the Av vehicle. so i changed this to an air conditioning feature and the wind speed of this feature i also added the exact degrees of the car and the amount of minutes till the car arrived on this page as it is useful to have.
During the critique it was suggested that i removed the titles from inside the box to the outside as they would disappear as the user types which reduces the accessibility of the sign in page so i added them above them improving the accessibly of the sign in making it easier to complete the sign in.
Overall i think that having a critique class is very vital as we are able to see what we could change and what we could. getting a different view on what we have been designing is vital as the small details is what makes the design perfect. it was also really interesting to see everybody else's dashboards and giving them feedback on what they could improve or what was working really well with their designs.
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I find critique classes really helpful for improving usability and accessibility. Based on feedback, I slowed down the onboarding animations, enlarged the map with a direction arrow, added arrival time, and added a "Start Journey" button for ease of use. I also replaced the lights feature with air conditioning and moved sign-in titles above the input fields for better accessibility. These changes made the dashboard more intuitive and user-friendly.
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