My A1 project covers the app, Behance, a social media app for creatives. I investigated the social mobile affordances, the need, and the design learning capabilities that the app can deliver for the creative design community. My analysis comes from a few studies, predominantly one conducted with Higher Education design students using Behance as a tool for learning and the constraints that come with it.
The tools I used to complete this project are Adobe Rush a video editing platform and Adobe Character, an animation platform. I uploaded the video onto Youtube. I hope you enjoy it and please provide feedback if you can.
References
Tan, Y. Y., & Yuen, A. H. (2018, November). Learning Process of Designers: Qualitative Content Analysis of Online Platforms for Art Community. In Proceedings of the 2018 2nd International Conference on Education and E-Learning (pp. 63-67).
Tan, Y. Y., & Yuen, A. H. (2018, October). Understanding the constraints to using social media platform as a tool for design learning in higher education from students’ perspectives. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Education Technology and Computers (pp. 335-340).
Schrock, A. R. (2015). Communicative affordances of mobile media: Portability, availability, locatability, and multimediality. International Journal of Communication, 9, 18.
Thanks for this, Andrea. Béhance had always seemed to me like one of those Adobe “value adds” that doesn’t add value, but this warrants another look. I’m a photography instructor, and I share your interest in a collaborative, gallery-like space for students to display and discuss their work. Getting them to talk about their work is kind of a sneaky way of forcing them to really think about their work, and a comfortable space for that helps.
Hello Sean. It’s a great platform. I was on it before Adobe acquired it but I do understand your sentiments about Adobe creating value where there is no value to be added. They do have a large user base.
2018 stats
—12 million users
—4 billion views
—275 projects have been appreciated with a thumbs up
I really do think they should put up a junior section because students may not be confident putting up your work alongside professionals. But it also pushes them and also gives them the opportunity to see what’s there.
Hi Andrea,
I am also interested in trying this app now! I am new in the design field, but would love to use it for inspiration. I like how the app has individuals explain their thought process while they are giving workshops. To answer your question about how to build confidence in app users, I think it would be helpful to have a ‘drafts’ section, like Andrea and Evelyne mentioned. I am taking a design certificate right now, and lots of new designers were also feeling intimidated about not only posting, but also starting any of the design process. The founder of the program reformatted the beginning course module as ‘do it messy’ to encourage learners to move away from feeling like what they created had to be perfect. Great AI!
Jen
Hello Jen
Im glad you’ll try it out. I go on the website on a daily basis to get inspired and see what live sessions they have. Design is a fun space to be in. I hope you enjoy it. It would be great to have a draft section but I wish Adobe would create one since they have such a large reach in the creative space already. Professionals could access drafts as well to see how they progress thorough a project if they did a draft page.
Hi Andrea,
Your presentation of Behance as learning tool and portfolio was very thorough. I would definitely try it out as a creative.
I wonder though, are there channels or other forms of sorting, so that students could create a separate “Junior” portfolio while ramping up their skills, and have a more polished portfolio for job searches?
Having a community to bounce ideas while developing one’s skill set would be quite engaging!
Thank you for sharing.
I was thinking the same thing about having a junior portfolio version of the site. Even I’m cautious of putting my work up. I have the same fear as the students. Lol. I wonder if one exists. I tried to find one but didn’t find one at all. Maybe I can send that idea over to Adobe – BehanceJR