Redesigning Apps for the Past
First of all, if you haven’t read the manifesto for my 100 App Redesigns project, please read it. It will make sense of this and the following articles to come. If you did read it, thank you. Also, it may help with context if you look at the designs first.
The first week of App Redesigns really forced me to kind of figure out what exactly this project is. The theme for this week was In The Past. This, which I thought was going to be a pretty open-ended and easy transition into doing these, actually ended up being very research driven. I figured out that if I ask a series of questions about the app and answer them right before I go to bed with real historical value, then I could sleep on the idea and when I woke up in the morning, I would have a decent idea to go off of. But it certainly didn’t start off like that.
Day 1 — Travel/Vacation App in the Past
I approached the first app, James Cook’s Personal Exploration App, with an arrogance that quickly dissolved. I thought “How hard could coming up with a travel app for the past be? Change it from planes to carriage or boat and make the font a old-timey serif. It should take 20–30 minutes tops.” Two hours later, as I sat with a pretty poor layout and little historical data, I decided to just Google an explorer, make something simple, and call Day 1 a learning experience.
It definitely was a learning experience. I learned that if I’m not prepared going in, I’m just going to stare at a screen for a couple hours. And I also learned that my high school history education wasn’t as firmly placed in my mind as I had thought. I wouldn’t say I was upset with this design, though. The map and font are a little corny, and texting natives was a bit of a cop-out. But I liked the direction I was going with “Select Crew Members.” It was just beyond the point of “Yeah, obviously.” And that’s where I wanted to go for Day 2.
Day 2 — Dating App in the Past
With Calling Card App, I started with these questions.
- When in the past?
- Who dated?
- Why did they date?
- Where did they go on dates?
- How often did they date?
- How did the dating process get started?
- What was a date like?
After deciding upon the late 19th-early 20th centuries because of their closeness to our current ways filled with almost funny innocence, I quickly mocked up the first version. It was easy. I had all I needed to know, from an example of calling card to details about what a certain folded corner meant. I finished this redesign in a quarter of the time, and I was happy with it. I felt as though I had successfully transformed something physical to digital.
Looking back, however, I realize that in trying to convey the essence of a calling card, all I did was make an identical version of it. My use of skeuomorphism, which I had initially thought to be clever and nostalgic, provided myself with a challenge to avoid simply translating one medium to the other and using the medium to promote the idea, instead.
Day 3 — Ride-Sharing App in the Past
With The L-L Stagecoach, I dropped the “App” part because I wanted to create a sense of identity for the apps, not just “How can I take this old thing and make it fit on an app?” I also took my first stab at designing something very specific: the ratings page of a 17th Century Stagecoach App. This allowed me to focus more on an interaction instead of trying to just explain what the hell was going on.
I explain this more on my blog, but the basic premise is that someone would be too biased one way or another at the end of a 10-day trip to give an accurate representation of what the ride was really like. Therefore, this app allows you to give both positive and negative votes throughout the trip that would average out in the end.
This interaction was my first step toward where I actually wanted to go with this project. I want to discover new interactions and uses for apps, not just tell stories that have already been told. I finally knew what I was going for, so naturally, Day 4 didn't work out as planned.
Day 4 — Food-Delivery App in the Past
After what I deemed as a successful Day 3 design, I really wanted to hone in on the specificity of the interaction for Day 4, which I did. Thermopolium of Asellina is a food-delivery service for an Ancient Roman brothel. How much more specific could I get? In doing research, I found that a brothel actually sat atop the best preserved thermopolium known today, Thermopolium of Asellina, so I wanted to create an app specifically for that. (A thermopolium, by the way, is just an Ancient Roman version of street food.)
However, in trying to be extremely specific, I spent too much time on minor details, like the names of different currencies (which I still don’t think I got right.) I didn’t spend enough time on the interaction itself. The idea was that the food was delivered ASAP or at a specific time, but literally a minute after you push a button. I wanted the user to be able to have his food instantly, without any possibility of interruption during his… activities.
The interaction I came up with was a kind of interesting slider that would “complete the receipt” at the top, but I think it could have been better. Less time on the fonts and the colors, more on the interaction, itself.
Day 5 — Social Media App in the Past
I overcompensated a bit with Avviso, but I really wanted to focus on what the app did, and not what it looked like. Avvisos were handwritten news letters from 16th Century Venice that were either distributed publicly or directly (secret) if they had controversial information that could get the author in trouble. This app was about managing one of those newsletters as the author.
The design itself vaguely reminds me of Medium and is sharp but kind of boring. The part that I was most interested in, though, which made me actually very excited for this redesign, was the Punishment Scale. This insinuated that an app could actually read a handwritten letter, analyze it culturally, and give numeric feedback to the author.
This could be a very interesting tool in today’s world, which is where I want to go with these redesigns. I want to give myself new ideas by looking at things in different ways. Now, I would have no idea how to build this, but it’s the fact that a design helped me articulate and give context to an idea that I’ve never articulated before. Kinda sick.
Day 6 — Money-Sending App in the Past
For BarterPal, I wanted to contrast the all words, black and white interface of Avviso with a completely imagery-based layout. Pre-written language bartering seemed like the perfect opportunity.
These screenshots would be on the requester’s side. An individual would choose what he or she wants, then they would choose what they were willing to give for it from their inventory. The other side of the app, which I didn’t show but would happen between the two screens. would be the owner of the desired item either requesting or denying the transaction.
The main issue with designing this was that I kept finding myself trying to focus the app back into a money-sending app like PayPal or Venmo, instead of a store or purchasing app, which was where it kept going. I realized, though, that without currency as a middle man, there was no difference between the two. Currency and goods are the same thing at their purest form. (And I didn’t want it to be just a chicken-sending app.)
Day 7 — Messaging App in the Past
With YAM, I wanted to return to the use of both colors and text, but this time I wanted to make it seem modern. I wanted to show how an app may look today if 13th Century Mongolian postage routes were still being used in the same way they were 800 years ago.
Yam was the postage route by which Mongolian rulers, merchants, etc. sent mail. However these messages took days or weeks to be delivered, versus our seconds. I wanted the app to show the process that the messages go through, instead of the messages themselves, which would have been handwritten letters. This exploration became a combination between a messaging and tracking app.
The interaction in this is passive, in that you get live updates of your message on the way to its sender. I am not against passivity in general, but this app fails to do anything unique interaction wise. I do like the idea of a log of physical interactions, though. Compared to the Calling Card App, though, I think this is more successful in translating physical messages to digital form because it captures some aspect of the information being sent, instead of trying to capture the thing in its entirety.
Overview
Week 1 had ups and downs design-wise and concept-wise, but I think this week was about figuring out the process and defining exactly what I want out of this project. I want this to be an exercise to better my design sense and abilities, of course. However, deeper than that, I want to use this project as a stepping stone toward thinking differently and outside of the box.
I’m a person who does not like showing work that I’m not happy with, but I think that is a part of this because Day 1’s mistake of being unprepared allowed me to figure out how I should approach each day. And Day 4’s mistake of being overprepared taught me to allow ideas and overarching concepts control the direction of the designs, instead of minute details.
I want this whole project to be a learning experience, both about design and about myself. I’m already starting to think of ideas for Week 2: In An Animated World.
All images that aren’t mine in the designs are cited on the respective blog posts.
