Question 2:
Aesthetic consistency is usually the most attractive form of this design strategy. It’s intended to create a sense of beauty within the product or design. By using the same fonts, shapes and graphics we are able to create something that stands out and that is easy recognizable from the crowd of other products (Lidwell, Holden & Butler, 2003). A good example of this is the Coca-Cola branding. Although they sometimes change up their colors for different types of products, eg. black for coke zero, the graphics, logos and fonts always stay the same (Lawrence, 2007). This means, no matter what, when you see their logo you have no doubt about what this product is and you know exactly what to expect from them.
Functional consistency is found in products of the same type which means they use similar ways to communicate their meanings. This is found a lot in our day to day surroundings (outside of advertising). An example of this would be traffic lights. They are functionally consistent because we know that they lights will go from green, to orange, to red and back to green (Nielsen, 2000). This communication through design helps us navigate the world safely.
Internal consistency usually relates to a specific area of design types. For example the road signs across the U.K. are going to be the same across the country and everyone will understand their meanings, but if you came to Australia their signs representing the same actions might look different. Consistency in this instance helps us understand the things within our own personal environment. No where in England are you going to see a Kangaroo Crossing sign, in Australia however it is quite commonplace.
External consistency is the concept of something being recognizable across many different platforms over various places. For example, as we spoke about above, a Kangaroo Crossing sign would not be recognized in another country easily as it is an internal consistency design. However, a design that is created with external consistency, such as the play, pause and rewind buttons, will be easily interpreted and universally recognized over different medias all over the world.
Consistency is important to use and consider when creating any type of content.
References:
Lawrence, D. (2007). Balanced website design : Optimising aesthetics, usability and
purpose. London: Springer.
Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2003). Aesthetic‐Usability Effect. In Universal
Principles of Design (pp. 46). Massachusetts: Rockport.
Nielsen, J. (2000). Designing web usability. Indianapolis, Ind.: New Riders.
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