The only English WWF app I could find was the WWF News app. Whilst very functional and in keeping with the black and white WWF logo, it isn't particularly attractive, something I find strange given how contemporary most of their web pages look. That said, keeping it minimal means it runs really quickly as it keeps data usage down, which is an important trade off against having a fancy design.
National WWF Apps
There were also a few WWF apps from different countries, such as the ones below. I was expecting them to be the same app but in different languages. To my surprise I found a ridiculous lack of consistency between them. The Polish app uses full screen images with text overlaid in boxes, a very contemporary sort of design. Even the menu options fade in colour gently using greyscale with a bit of colour dropping. The Indian and Hong Kong apps don't really work as apps as such, they just work as a list of links to web articles, the only difference being that the Hong Kong app gives a choice to open the app in English. Like the WWF News app, they stick to a simple colour scheme, but by using an off-white instead of white the app doesn't look quite as clean-cut as the WWF News app. The German app is the strangest of them all. It gives instructions of how to use it in English, only to find that the content of the app are WWF reports and documents in German that function like PDF's. It seems like there's been a real like of thought put into these apps, with the possible exception of the Polish app, but I don't know Polish so I can't really comment on its content.
 |
| Polish WWF App - WWF Poradnik |
 |
| Indian WWF App - WWF-India |
 |
| Hong Kong WWF App - WWF HK |
 |
| German WWF App - WWF Wissen |
Norwegian Fishing App (Fiskguiden)
I also found this app in Norwegian which seems to be a guide to sustainable fishing and fish that are endangered because of overfishing. Like the Polish app it has elements of contemporary design styles such as large amounts of block colours, white text and wiggly lines. It resembles work done by Scandinavian design studios such as Bleed, Knox, and Nordenswan & Siirila in it's use of colour and minimal content in its layout. Not only is this app designed in a contemporary style, but it's also got much more content.
Conclusion
I think that some sort of Scandinavian style design is going to be very appropriate for the menus loading screens, as a contemporary style of design is necessary somewhere to assure the users that the app is modern and up-do date, which makes it reliable in the eye of the user. This is important because if it's going to get parents to donate money, it needs to feel reliable, and if the illustration style of the game itself is going to look somewhat illustrative or pixelated like the games I looked at yesterday, there's no way that that part of the app can look contemporary.
No comments:
Post a Comment