I enjoyed animating with Lottie in this week’s class, particularly going beyond what was taught and adding effects like changing colour and adding a squash and stretch effect to make the movement feel more real. I found it interesting to find the balance between enough exaggeration in movement to give personality and genuineness to the animation rather than exaggerating too much, and breaking the immersion. In my opinion these subtle animations in a digital product help to add personality to the brand, integrating the values into the product, as well as increasing the professionalism, due to increased function and depth of the prototype.
This week I also created a design system in preparation for beginning work on my prototype. I created some button components which I will be able to easily add to my prototype, and some auto layout settings, as well as the previously established brand colours. In my opinion it is important to make a design system when prototyping a product with several screens so that changes to the design can be easily made, and it also helps keep consistency throughout the product. Another clear benefit is speeding up the initial process of crafting the prototype, as each component does not need to be finely tuned as they are added, and can simply be taken from the library.