Design Skills

Definition

Design skills in TCID are proficiency in making products user-friendly and aesthetically attractive to users so that users will favor using the product more. This competency requires skills in communication, creativity, technology, and critical thinking.

Project: Delivery Pamphlet

Purpose:

To improve use/traffic of the client’s delivery service, I made a flyer to inform potential customers of the service and its features.

Skills Used:

  • Creativity
  • Critical thinking
  • Communication

Process:

I had a week to do this. I could not control what information needed to be in the pamphlet or the audience of the pamphlet, and I did not have access to photos of this service. I started by determining which features would go well together and what the critical information was that needed to be on the cover of the pamphlet.

To communicate the service’s purpose, the first page lists the title with the clear clip art of a moving, covered tray of food. The title is bold and clear while the clip art is iconic with food delivery service for people who have trouble reading English. On the second page, the service’s purpose is outright stated at the top in bold: “You can order any quantity of groceries, supplies, and sundries through Shopping Express.”

To attract users, I creatively wrote phrases that describe situations in which they might use this service: “Maybe you are finding it difficult to make regular shopping trips to the food store — what do you do?” I was warned to not use many colors since some of the users of the flyer may be colorblind, so I made sure to use only pictures that would help advertise the service and would still be appealing in black and white.

Given that I had no control over the information that the client wanted in the flyer, I used critical-thinking skills to organize the information in order of what users most want to least want. I bolded important details and added color to make the different information stand out. On the front page, users want the phone number, operational hours, and where the delivery will end up, so these are the facts that are emphasized with bolded colored text.

Reflection:

From this project, I showed abilities including effective communication with users, creativity in text and picture selection, and critical thinking in organization of information. The ability that was missing was skill using different programs and technology. The main reason for this was lack of time, but I could still have used a design program other than Word and pictures other tShan basic clipart to make the flyer more detailed and aesthetically pleasing. In the future, I intend to use more of the technology available to me to make projects more visually attractive, functionally effective, and more distinctive from other projects.

Final Result:

A full three-page pamphlet that allows users to find out about this service and order from it.