Author:

Yuqian (Bruce) Zhang yzhan475

Lisa Hou qhou4

UI Design Reflection:

We recognize and value the thoughtful considerations made in altering the user interface's color scheme to a soothing blue tone. Transitioning away from the starkness of black to a lighter hue aims to foster a more comfortable and welcoming user experience, aligning well with best practices in UI design. Ensuring coherence between the app's color style and its template demonstrates a commitment to visual consistency, which is paramount for user engagement. Furthermore, harmonizing button images with the background color enhances the overall aesthetic appeal and reinforces a sense of unity throughout the interface. The addition of two arrows on the 'convert time' button enhances its intuitiveness, facilitating more seamless user interaction and improving the overall user experience. We think that these adjustments not only prioritize user comfort but also uphold the app's aesthetic integrity, ultimately contributing to a more satisfying user journey without compromising functionality or navigation. For all the buttons, we use image button and set the background to transparent so that the button will not have a background color.

Design:

I think having two activities for the app makes sense considering that the app's main purpose is to convert time from a selected time zone to the user's home time zone. As the user probably would not be changing his/her home location frequently, differentiating that function into a secondary setting page is a reasonable design. A design suggestion is to use other names to title the time displays. The "original time" and "converted time" can be not intuitive for the user to realize that the original time is the time in the current time zone and the converted time is the time at their home location.

Even though it was not specified in the requirement, a design feature we implemented was to let the 11pm-7am alert disappeared if the user change the home time zone to the same time zone as the current time zone as it does not make sense to let the alert be visible in this case.

Test the app:

To ensure the accuracy and reliability of the app's results across various scenarios, comprehensive testing methodologies were employed. We conducted rigorous testing using a range of devices within emulators, scrutinizing both functional and design elements to verify their performance and consistency. Additionally, a thorough examination of edge cases was prioritized, encompassing scenarios that could potentially trigger warnings or errors. By systematically testing across multiple platforms and meticulously examining diverse use cases, we aimed to validate the app's functionality and ensure its ability to deliver accurate results under varying conditions.

Most Challenging:

The most challenging aspect of this assignment is navigating the complexities of UI design without experience in HCI principles. Without a clear understanding of optimal styles for a user-friendly interface, such as selecting the most suitable colors and fonts, the design process becomes more challenging. Additionally, incorporating shared preferences for the first time presents a steep learning curve, as it requires us to ensure seamless integration of functional and design elements while adhering to best practices. Another challenge is in debugging as we have minimal experience in coding using Android Studio. When encountering errors in our program, there are initial challenges in tracking the problems and debugging. Despite these challenges, the opportunity to explore new areas of development are valuable learning experience that we enjoy.