Software Research and Analysis - Progress Challenge 02

30533a – Progress Challenge 02

Software assessment and selection

By Colleen Sedgwick

This progress challenge requires you to reflect on the evaluation and selection process you observed to choose which of the three software technologies you wanted to investigate further.

This report should include the following:

1. An analysis describing at least three different types of real world projects that each of the three software technologies can be used for and what industries or organisations can benefit from these types of projects.

2. An analysis describing the weaknesses and limitations that each of the three software technologies has and how this may affect designers using these tools.

An analysis explaining which among the three technologies you investigated would best suit your practice and want to learn and experiment with, and why this is so.

TIP: Navigate to the student forum to engage in the discussion with your peers

Answers

I have chosen Illustrator this time, and decided to compare it to Google drawings and Inkscape.

Part 1

Google Draw uses for all three software applications:

1.      Creating diagrams and charts – much like Visio in Microsoft

2.      Create vector graphics – an alternative to Illustrator

3.      Mind mapping

Google Draw can also be used for:

4.      Educational activities - presentations

5.      Collaboration and sharing – online via Google Docs (all you need is a Google account)

Illustrator is the industry standard for graphic design and I would expect most kinds of industries to use it when there is a call for illustration.

I have only used Google Draw once, for a mood board (or is it a mind map) – however, I thought it would do for creating simple graphics until I become familiar with Illustrator.  I read it is good for educational purposes (to be used with Google Docs) and for basic illustrations and graphics[1].

I have not used Inkscape yet, but it sounds like a really cool program to use.  And some experts have used it, including one of my friends.

Part 2

One of the drawbacks of Illustrator is that like most programs with Creative Cloud, it is costly.  Another is that it can be quite time consuming to learn because there are so many different things.

I have yet to discover the drawbacks of either Google Draw or Inkscape, since I’ve only used the former once, and the latter, not at all.

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[1] Google Drawings for Graphic Organizers https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SCRsgF-3Su8DYYgzXqwCGCg_Xylq-LrZ5_jcSPbPRW0/edit#; viewed Sunday, 27 March 2016 at 10:47 PM

Stars Mood Board c/o Google Draw