Final Choice of Brief - Tell Us More..

You've all had chance to go to one or more of the client meetings/discussions associated with this year's briefs. We'd like you to tell us a little more about your final chosen brief. To do so please answer these following questions:

1. What brief did you finally choose and did you go to the client meet for this?

2. Tell us two reasons why you thought this the best choice for you [for example it might be 'I thought it the most challenging or inspiring' etc].

3. In your initial thinking or research have you found an example of a similar site that you think is effective? If 'yes' then what site is this?

Please answer as a 'comment' below this post. If you've already got a Google ID then you can log in as that and put down the comment or you can put your comments as 'anonymous' in the drop-down menu below the comment box.

Please prefix your answers just the once with [your name] and [which tutor]

Questions For Clients [Either Gdes2000 Brief]

This is a post that we'll keep up and visible for the duration of the module. It can be a platform to try and pose questions about the way you personally will tackle your chosen brief. When posing a question here please do so in the following format:

1. Your name and [your tutor's name]


2. The title of the brief the question relates to.


3. Your question[s].

We'll try to get the various clients to keep pace with any questions that are then raised here.

Visits for Brief Handover & Q+A: Museum + Beeline

The Beeline Storytelling brief was explained on Tuesday 1st Nov by the Project Manager Steve Boffy. Steve went on to explain the nature of the festival, who the audience were and their likely wants as well as trends in the area of children's literature that may have a bearing on your initial ideas.

An MP3 of the discussion is available [here].
[May take a while to display in browser or download - large file: 48Mb]

Worcester City Museum on Foregate St in the City on tues 25th Oct. Tours and brief talk-throughs were undertaken by the Museum's David Nash and Garston Phillips who also took questions about the brief based at the museum. It was clear that what you can see upstairs in the Museum was only a fraction of the amazing things that the facility has in it's stores..

Students looking over the Bredon Roman coin hoard.

Stephen examines the William Morris textiles

Jesse and Nik look over Art Nouveau furniture

Examples of how the museum focuses on the human story of artifacts.

Albert the [Famous] Albatross!

Garton in the stores - a real Aladdin's cave..

Students hear David discuss the items on the stores

Some of the delicate butterfly and moth collections kept in storage

For your consideration...

Above the door of the former Post Office Research station at Dollis Hill North London is written:

"RESEARCH IS THE DOOR TO TOMORROW"

Visual trends come and go but the need for good research underpinning good and clever solutions will never wain. Please don't think any solutions for our briefs are just about 'eye candy' - they need to be a rounded solution which are well understood and thought-out for the audience[s].

Dollis Hill was where the world's first semi-programmable electronic computer was designed and built in WW2 [Colossus] by a British team including bricklayer's son Tommy Flowers. A world first.

Task 04: GDES2000 Brief Choice and Comments

Task 04 Decision and notes on brief choice

Now you've been given the chance to look over both briefs, we want you to have made a provisional decision on which brief you're choosing by Monday 24th Oct [next monday]. This may or may not be your final choice and even if you've noted your thoughts here about one then you can still come [if you wish] to both client meetings associated with the briefs [see timetable for details].

Please comment [click 'comments' below] as follows:

1. Write [Your Name] and [Which tutor you have].

2. Write at least one sentence for the following questions about your brief:

• Q. Which brief have you chosen - give two reasons reasons for your choice?

• Q. What initial research or considerations might you start with?

Please make sure that you have undertaken this by end of play monday 24th October. Your tutor[s] will then check to see who has achieved the task effectively and record this for their records.

Gdes2000: Final Prototype Student Designs

Second year student prototype designs for both the Hurd Library site re-build and the annual Children's Storytelling Festival at the University of Worcester.

Tuesday Morning Group

[Click on images to view the linked site on test]

Student reflections from final reports:

Student 01

"... I now have the knowledge and understanding of [Dreamweaver's] design elements, coding methods and style sheets; something I feel gives me a great basis to build upon in the near future."

Student 02

"... I am happy with what I have learned as this module progressed over time, and with a bit more experience, would be confident in creating more websites."

Student 03
"Overall over the 2 semesters I feel I learned about the importance of usability in a website. No matter how good looking a website is, the website must transmit information to the audience easily."

Student 04
“ I learnt a lot of things through out this module… The main thing… that you need to change the simplicity of the website for different audiences.”

Student 05

"This project has challenged my capabilities as a web designer… The additional time spent learning how to implement this within a content management system will be invaluable to my integrative approach to web design in the future.”

Student 06
“Although I feel I am still far from a professional level of web design, I believe that my skills have come a long way from knowing nothing at the beginning of the module.”

Student 07 
“Dreamweaver was completely new software to master… but once I’d got the idea clear in my head it made it easier to use and everything  slotted into place…”

Maria Bayley

 Ollie Cambridge

 Will Carey

Israt Choudhury

Luke Fisher

David Gurnsey

Claire Hatch

Laura Henn

Andi Matyas

Arran North

Matt Parker

Vishnu Parmar

Rhys Paul

Ida Pettersen

Gareth Rumming

James Smith

Thursday Evening Group

[Examples coming soon]

Student Ongoing Multimedia Developments - Pre Prototypes

It's important to keep your thinking clear and staged. In order to make sure that we're all clear on each other's broad thinking ongoing and considerations we're going to get you to put your answers here to the following Q's [as comments]:

Firstly INDIVIDUALLY answer the following Q’s on the GDES2000 blog for 15-20 mins [do not rush - think]:

Format: [Your name] and [Your Chosen Brief]

1. What are [your] final ideas for the 3x Multimedia elements on your chosen brief + why are these good idea[s] or treatments?

2. Name & demonstrate [add links if able] 2x pieces of research undertaken [web or multimedia or video examples etc] that have been deciding factors in your ideas devts.

3. What sound/audio considerations have you included, how might you create or aquire these and why are these a good idea? Again, to help explain you could also put ref links here..

4. What animation or interactive considerations are you including and why?

5. One of the requirements of this module is that both your web pages and the multimedia elements are user tested in some way. How might you go about testing to see if your ideas & solutions are appropriate to the various audiences you’re aware of?

Further Examples of Multimedia Planning Ongoing..

David

Rather than showing specifically what would occur within each room, I chose to show examples of what might occur as the user navigates from the start screen to the rooms.

I wanted to show the modular approach to the design and how it would be possible to navigate between rooms, either using the floorplan (buttons) or by selecting the arrow icon at doorways.
The use of coloured icons represent hotspots than can be clicked for further information, in the form of images, text, audio or video.

Apart from the 360 degree panning motion, animation is fairly subtle, mostly relying on tweening between different states, such as size, alpha and colour. So for example, by using movie clips as (or in) buttons, a smooth transition from one colour state to another can be tweened.

[Andy Comments]
I think you're doing some really in depth research and devt here David.. I particularly like the way that you've found some great refs and that these have helped you visualise your own version of a virtual tour.. Clear too that you're thinking of the audience and how they might use / interact with your virtual tour too.


Matt

Key idea’s- Although my visuals are very rough at this stage, I have aimed to simplify the content of the Bishops of Worcester story by use of a timeline. The points on the timeline represent key events in the story, which when selected, lead onto a short animation. The other important aspect is that the user has some control over the amount of information they wish to view.

Colours- Though these may yet be changed, the basic colours on show separate the various interactive elements. The use of yellow around the clickable items represents the glow of the hover-over state of the buttons.

Transitions & Animations- I visualise the navigation of the timeline to move with the cursor from left to right. When either the date or a point on the timeline is clicked, the user will be taken directly onto the short, linear animation. Once this animation has finished, the user will then be returned to the next most recent date on the timeline.

Access- The user has full control during the timeline stage to choose how much information they wish to access. By making their own personal choice to select a date, they are opting to view the linear animation containing the further information. I see this as a crucial element in the story as the viewer can find out what they like, when they want it.


[Andy Comments]
Again, some nice ideas Matt and clear that you've put much thought into how these will look and be used. As mentioned - the more that you work through in your layout pads/roughs then the more resolved things will be when you get to working through in Flash etc.