Assessment 2 – Head Above Water: Squidward's Ocean Adventure

The start scene has an attractive background with some nice objects that catches the user’s attention. The main object of the scene is also shown which gives a hint to what the application is about. Text is used to give the app a title, that also gives the user an idea about what the app is about, which is good UX. In the middle the screen there is a start button, which gives visual present feedback when it is clicked. It also gives future feedback with the text, which tells the user what to expect when the button is pressed. The buttons could have been more inviting by using another font, colours or an icon, but it keeps the cognitive load minimal by keeping it simple.

The choose menu scene is missing ☹

The Squidward scene keeps the same background and buttons, which ensures visual consistency. The background creates a nice atmosphere and Squidward in the middle of the screen attracts the user’s attention, and it is clear to see that this object is the main focus of the scene. The objects in the scene are well made and shows a good understanding of ProBuilder. The buttons have the same feedback as in the previous scene, but should be bigger, to be easily interactable on a phone. The movement buttons are easy to understand because they are showing future feedback with the help of icons. They are located together in the bottom right side of the screen, which is good UX since they are easily accessible and have similar functionality. The head can rotate with a slider and has a small text describing the functionality which is good UX. In both sides of the screen there is a reset button. One is resetting the rotation and one is resetting the controls. This is a bit confusing at first since reset usually means resetting the entire object, and therefore there is a bit of cognitive friction. When this has been learned it does make sense because of the location of the buttons. The return/close button is located at the top left corner which is usually where it is located, and that make the cognitive load minimal. The head cannot grow or shrink, but the application has made sure that the object cannot be moved out of the screen which is a nice feature.

Overall, a very good application with some well-made objects and good UX principles applied. Some small changes should be made to make the app more user friendly on the phone, and the buttons could use some more graphics to make them more attractive. The app is easy to understand and use and uses text to describe and guide the user. 

Welcome scene: Nice squidward and cool with the effects in the water. Makes it look much more real. Instead of writing ’start’ you could have used a ‘play’ button and thereby introducing icons to your project as well. Good with feedback on the interactive button.

Menu scene: You don’t have a menu scene.

Andre’s scene: Good idea using a slider for the rotation, I really like that! Unfortunately it is not possible to rotate the head 360 degrees. It good that you’ve used icons for the movement controls as they are intuitive easy to understand, but I don’t see any option to scale the object. Concerning the reset buttons, maybe combine them instead of having 2 separate reset buttons? I can see the idea in having a reset for the different functions (rotate, grow, etc), but when the controls are so few, then it would be fine to just combine the reset, I think. For the return button I’d suggest using an arrow (<—) instead of an exit/close-icon, and thereby sticking to the conventions. I know you could argue that you open up another window, and therefore you can close it, but given that the group develops in landscape mode for a mobile, I think the return button makes more sense than an exit/close-button. However, the placement of the button is very good, as that follows the general convention.