Digital Platforms Design Report

The concept or idea for the website is to develop a tool for students or anyone interested in graphic design and/or art to be able to view and receive information about the pieces and designers, specifically from the 1950s-1960. This period was chosen as many designers feel that it was around the 1950s when graphic Design really came into its own as a visual communication tool. The approach to this website was instead of it being more like a Wikipedia article, that the pieces will be organised by the year that they were produced and then formatting those onto a visual timeline.

My goal for this project was to try to help educate those who seek an education in design from the past through the use of an easy to navigate timeline documenting the specific ears of these pieces. The way I achieved this was by my goal for social media on platforms such as Mastodon and Instagram was to reach 50 followers by the end of the semester. Unfortunately I was not able to fulfill my goal on the front; however, the experience that I got while creating various posts and stories on both platforms will help set me up for future endeavors. If I were to do this again, I would try to post more frequently and consistently. According to Kim, Y., Wang, Y., & Oh, J. (2016), social media provides a platform that helps in interacting with others especially when it comes to a common or collective interest. Throughout this course, the readings and modulus have highlighted how important and widespread these digital platforms are and even though I didn’t reach my goal for the social media platforms, I still felt that I learned new skills.

The Visual communication and design of the site was key as the approach of the site whereby a timeline was incorporated, needed to be very clear visually. One way to achieve this was by using a built-in tool within WordPress where you can create a timeline. Using that as a base, the appropriate images were added for each year as well as the necessary information about the pieces. The colour choice was key as well as I wanted the whole site to feel slightly older, with one easy way to achieve this was by using the exact same 3 colours that I used for the profile picture as well as a header from the Instagram and Mastodon accounts that were created early on. Joel Marsh wrote in his 2015 book, “UX for Beginners” that “Beauty is not irrelevant in UX. It is easy and fast to decide that you like the way something looks. That can lead to quick downloads, instant trust, and more persuasive designs. Beauty cannot make something more usable, but it can make users feel like it is more usable, and that is important, too.” this is could not agree more with as websites are as much of a visual medium as they are an information based one so doing a small thing like selecting a colour pallet for the website is good as it creates both a restriction so there isn’t too much information to your eyes, as well as creating harmony with diverse elements on the site pages.
 

Similar to the visual communication and design, the user interface was critical as the initial intent for the site was to create pages which were simple and to the point; such as the timeline being the main focus for the whole site. How to execute the idea of the timeline well was the challenge because the initial thinking was to use several “About” or “About Me” headers or blocks within WordPress as these already have the look overall that I had in mind. After using and exploring WordPress for a day, the site already had a built in timeline block which was great news as this can be customised and have images and essentially all other tools/blocks. The typeface, colours, and lay-out was kept simple as it can be easy for there be too many elements going on which will only confuse the intended users. According to Joel Marsh. (2015), “Many UX designers treat images as if they are not functional, but images can lead the user’s eyes, so you should think about them.” I believe this wholeheartedly as the user should instantly know what the intent of the website is, and where you should direct your attention too. Author Jeff Johnson states in his book “Designing with the Mind in Mind” (2020) that “Given how easily system one can be biased and even fooled, it goes almost without saying that how an interactive system presents information influences the decisions and behavior of users at least as strongly as what information it presents.” and this is the key mindset of keeping the elements within the pages simple as possible as how these systems and information is seen as important as the actual content.

Image created by author

In addition to this WordPress website which is the central hub of the brand, an Instagram account was created and this was a good start as sites like Instagram and Pinterest are popular among art and design oriented people due to the platform being a visual medium primarily. As well as the Instagram account, similarly an account on Mastodon was created. The same content was posted on both accounts however, the 2 different platforms tend to have different audiences such as Instagram being more diverse and worldwide active users. Through Instagram and Mastodon, several key elements or aspects were carried over to this website in order to ensure that the brand is connected and consistent. Using the exact same colour pallet as the profile picture and Mastodon header was the first idea to visually connect all 3 digital platforms. In terms of content, even though the social media posts on Instagram and Mastodon are slightly more social media oriented in approach, the posts and website content are all about graphic design of the past with some in class work on the Instagram and Mastodon platforms. In a study by Sani, Z.A., Setiawan, A. and Nuryanto (2023), the researchers emphasize user centered design which takes into account typical human behavior and the overall functionality alongside the visual aspect of the design. As this relates to these digital platforms, the ease of information alongside an engaging experience is key to help broaden the appeal across a diverse collective.

As discussed previously, the target audience is anyone who enjoys or is interested in graphic design from the past and this resulted in a clear direction to take both the posts as well as how to execute the idea on this website. Through using various hashtags as well as keeping the text simple, I was able to gain more and more followers + views with 111 viewers from the past month as well as gaining 14 followers on Instagram and 21 followers on Mastodon. Most of these views are from non-followers which means that the challenge is to keep those same users engaged with the content, whilst also trying to increase the audience or user pool. Most of the context that was posted was seen by non followers however, most of the stories that were posted were seen by followers. In recent years, many of these social media companies have changed the algorithm to an AI based on the previous hashtag based on so that means that being very consistent and frequency with the posting of stories and posts is key.

Images by author via Instagram insights

Throughout this course, I have learned that digital platforms require almost all disciples of design, analytics, user experience, etc. and looking back I feel that I have touched upon each of these to a certain extent however, due to the nature of a university course, being able to spend the most time that you think you need is easier said than done so if I were to complete this assignment again, I would give myself more time to really refine the user experience of the site so there is more than sufficient information about the topic of graphic design as well as potentially doubling down on the look of the website in order to make it not feel like another website. Getting a better understanding of the way these website development tools such as WordPress would go a long way to be able to fully realise my idea. Technical issues such as me not being able to properly embed social media posts and accounts is a slight drawback as well; however, these did not inhibit the user experience of the site as much as other elements. I still fully believe that going with a timeline approach to specific eras of graphic design was a good choice as this is a more specific idea however, what could have been done instead would be to be able to select more than one period range to explore on the site such as the 20s-30s, 40s-50, 50-60s, etc. This would unfortunately require much more time which we regrettably did not have. The search function that was planned didn’t end up being present on the page due to the technical limitations however, ensuring that every page has a way to return to the homepage was critical.

References

Kim, Y., Wang, Y., & Oh, J. (2016). Digital media use and social engagement: How social media and smartphone use influence social activities of college students. Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking, 19(4), 264–269. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2015.0408 [Accessed 14 Jun. 2026].

Marsh, J. (2016). UX for Beginners. [online] Beijing: O’reilly, p.71. Available at: https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/ux-for-beginners/9781491912676/?sso_link=yes&sso_link_from=adelaide-edu [Accessed 14 Jun. 2026].

Johnson, J. (2014). Designing with the mind in mind : simple guide to understanding user interface design rules. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers/Elsevier. [Accessed 14 Jun. 2026].

Sani, Z.A., Setiawan, A. and Nuryanto (2023). User interface design and user experience academic applications with user centered design method. AIP Conference Proceedings, [online] 2730, p.020220. doi:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0120213.%5BAccessed 14 Jun. 2026].