Date
May 09
My role
visual design
Designed at
POP
Describing three dimensions over the phone
Why isn't this like the wireframes?
As a part of a team that included an information architect, art director, account manager, and Flash developer, I helped brainstorm initial concepts for a redesign of Target’s corporate timeline. We presented concepts as wireframes, and the clients chose ‘the Slinky’, a stack of cards detailing each event and stretching out like a Slinky to fit them.
Visual design proved more challenging; the Slinky required each card to slide out and over the stack, and the cards blocked each other when laid on the diagonal. I solved the problem by rearranging the stack to form a sort of half-carousel, allowing for simpler card motion and visible edges.
The clients weren’t pleased that the concept had changed, but it was difficult to explain the spatial challenges over the phone. To help bring them along, I created several intermediate designs, starting with the Slinky and ending with the Half Carousel, that included bird’s-eye views of the cards’ arrangement. When we discussed this new document, they understood what we had been trying to describe and agreed with our solution. The project continued with their enthusiastic support and was ultimately quite successful.
See also
Target Timeline