Type

How can we streamline the process of exploring and discovering typography?

Design inspirations can come anytime, anywhere during the day. While there are a lot of different platforms to seek out visual and typography inspirations, there is no one repository dedicated to exploring, identifying, and experimenting with digital typography.

Type was designed while focusing on three core goals:

1. Identify typefaces from physical and digital sources such as posters and websites
2. Expand knowledge about digital typography
3. Discover new typography and font pairing recommendations

A mixed methods research survey was conducted on reddit.com/r/design. The survey consisted of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, and aimed to gather data on prospective users' sources of inspiration and ideation. The goal was to identify their habits and workflows when collecting typography inspiration.

From the research we learned that younger respondents gravitate towards image-based online platforms, while senior respondents use more balanced mix of between online, offline, graphics, and text-based content.

Nevertheless, we also discovered that many users, regardless of age, appreciate a balance of both graphic and text-based content in their explorations.

To deliver a seamless and comprehensive interaction experience to multifaceted users, Type studied the precedents of image-based mobile platforms such as Pinterest and Behance as well as text-based platforms such as Medium and other article-based websites.

However, we noticed that inspiration-focused platforms rarely combine graphics and text-based content, limiting the flexibility of the search. To address this gap, our team designed Type with a goal to allow more comprehensive and flexible exploring journey.

A journey map was used to understand the steps taken by font enthusiasts in gathering inspiration. This helped the team identify potential pain points and pleasure points.

User testing was conducted after creating mockups of all interactions. Overall, there were no major usability errors while participants navigated through the app to complete the given tasks. They liked how Type differentiates from existing resources by focusing on typography.

Participants found that seeing design trends, styles and font pairings is a helpful source of inspiration as, real-life typography inspirations come at any time of the day. Type's ease of use streamlines the steps of discovery and rapid prototyping.

Minor changes were made in the interface and content after the user test, filter and inconsistent vocabulary were adjusted according to the test findings from the original mockups.

Type offers five core features: Home / Catalog / Scan / Prototype / You (personalization).

The main obstacle in developing Type was narrowing down the scope of functionality while filtering the essential needs from the users’ interests. Type’s offerings were simplified by referring to the initial intention and core values while staying open-minded in the making. If more time was allowed, conducting user tests of more participants with a wider age range and cultural backgrounds could strengthen the usability of Type with a broader spectrum.