Whilst on my trip outside the country, I still had my focus and development of University projects within my mind, especially during this project. My biggest hinderance was that I never had any form of internet connecting for a full week. Despite this, I thought it would be best to take in anything I may find useful.
Following this, conveniently, in my cabin, when thinking about what type of micro-interactions to design and create, I really liked the idea of travel. For reference, I had the TV dashboard within my room that I thought would be both fun and an amazing opportunity to retune or reference for future ideas.
Using the image below, specifically looking at the icons, there is no interaction on the actual dashboard in any shape or form and I feel like this will give me the best opportunity to pick from. One idea I had in mind was to have;
for the globe icon, On hover, have the globe move (giving the illusion that the boat/ plane is moving around the globe) and on click have the plane/ boat, move away just before opening the new page for the user.
Upon returning home, I began making a couple of sketches, based on some of the icons on the image above. In hopes they could possible be used as micro-interactions, in a meaningful and a entertaining way. I looked at two sections in particular, the ‘Where are we?’ and ‘Ship Map’. Of course, I only plan on using the image as a reference, and I want to make my own icons if possible, I started this by just sketching what came to mind.
For the purpose of this, I only aim to create one interactive button as part of this project, and have two different types of micro-interactions for my other two, this will help provide diversity in terms of content.
This was the first sketch I completed, the first side was using the icon that was featured on the ships screen, the other was my own. I wanted to add a little ‘playfulness’, as the picture I took was off the passenger dashboard, more for the likes of families, etc.
I really like the idea of the planet spinning, but I feel like there could still be some more ‘Ship’ type of element added, to make it more relatable.
This was the next sketch I completed. This interaction would cover the ‘Ship map’. On the real dashboard, once clicked it would literally show just a map of the ship and nothing more. I wanted to play it around about more and sort’ve used it as a different version of the ‘Where are we?’ button.
Another sketch I came up with that I personally like is making a literal ship-map. On Idle, it would just appear as a normal ship icon from birds-eye-view. Following this, upon the users cursor entering, it would show waves as if it were moving. Finally, once clicked, the ship would split down the middle, in an ancient style map just before then opening the next page for the user.