Gdes2000 Blog

Monday, 16 May 2011

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]

Monday, 21 March 2011

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?

Sunday, 20 March 2011

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.

Monday, 7 March 2011

GDES2000: Ask the Clients Area

Please post your questions for any of the clients here and we'll try to get the clients to look and answer them as and when they're able/free.

Please add your questions in the following format:

[Your name] and [Working on which brief] and [Your question]

If you have a Blogger account then you can log in via that or you should be able to click on the 'comments' link at the foot of this post and put up a comment [your question] as an 'anonymous' commenter.

If in doubt - ask!

Selected Web Based Multimedia Examples [From Week 2]

Here are the examples we looked at in week 2 during the session. There's a wide cross section of web based multimedia - geared here to give you examples and inspiration for your own web based multimedia ideas.

Children's Linear Multimedia Storytelling:

CBeebies Balamory Weather Story [Linear]

CBeebies Blue Cow Story [Linear]

Virtual Tour Examples

Virtual Dartmoor [Map Based Interface]

Virtual Tour of the Cabinet War Rooms [Map based interface].

Audio Slideshows

Audio Slideshow [Linear Picture Story]

Animated Audio Slideshow [Linear Picture Story]

Weird & Wonderful Multimedia Examples

Here's a selection of the weird and wonderful multimedia that we looked at in week 01. Although these aren't directly linked to your multimedia solutions for the 3x examples on the brief, they do give an idea of the wide range of media that still comes within the title.

Weird and Wonderful Multimedia/Interactivity

Jeff Hann

Microsoft Surface Computing

Optitrack Motion Capture Showreel

Siggraph 2010 Technology/Interactivity Showreel

HONDA Asimo Robot

Interactive Artwork: 10+5= God

Interactive Artwork: Philip Worthington: Shadow Monsters

Max/MSP/Jitter Multimedia Sensor Interaction

Web Based Multimedia: