Friday, March 27, 2009

Final Project Conclusion

While constructing this project I was able to realize how much work there is in the pre-production phase of creating a project. My project through the quarter took some changes do to the way I was constructing my video viewer. This was a challenging project because I was using Actionscript 3.0 and the Flex Builder for the very first time to build this project. It was something different and exciting at the same time to learn something new and powerful.

The project was all dynamic and there was no use of Flash or timeline animation, all the functionality was constructed with pure code, which I was very proud of myself. The final look of the project looks the same in a way but altered due to the scope of my project.


USER TESTING

I tested this video viewer with some of my fellow WDIMers and also people that I know. Thanks to their feedback on the project I was able to rethink certain ways that I could have constructed my code and later on vamp out the UI. One of the more interesting critiques I got was why is there no control bar and no status bar, so that is one of the elements that I will be adding to my project in the future thanks to the critiques


Final Thoughts of the Class:
I thought this was a very interesting class because it was a diverse class of all levels and interest. It has given me a better understanding on people get entertained by the media that is out there today. I hope that my video cast was great for all to...I tried to put in there the whole entertainment aspect by me being a bit goofy. Thanks Sharon again for the great class!


The video can be seen here:

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Project Thoughts...

The video viewer that I mocked up has taken some changes due to technical specifications for my project. I am constructing a simple video viewer that will display video work. The reason why I am making a more simplistic viewer is because I am coding the player in Flex Builder using XML and AS3, meaning loading all of my content dynamically. This has been a huge challenge but a great learning experience and still is. Flex is a great development tool and has sparked an interest in me to start developing in the builder. Right now I am building the classes for the viewer. It is crunch time for sure!


Monday, March 2, 2009

Persona Research/Persona


This week I researched user personas on a couple sites thatgave out some really great steps on how to develop personas. One site broke down user personas into ten steps and can be seen in the diagram below.


Here are ten steps:
step:1 Finding the User
step:2 Building a Hypothesis
step:3 Verification
step:4 Find Patterns
step:5 Constructing Personas
-Body
-Psyche
-Background
-Emotions and Attitudes
-Personal Traits
step:6 Defining Situations
step:7 Validation and Buy In
step:8 Dissemination of Knowledge
step:9 Creating Scenarios
step: 10 Ongoing Development

visit the sites:

Work Cited for this link:
Dr.Lene Nielson. "Ten Steps to User Persona." HCI Vistas. 2007. 2 Mar. 2009 .

Head, Allison. "Personas: Setting the Stage for Building Usable Information Sites."2003. Information Today. 2 Mar. 2009

User Persona:


  • Gender: Male
  • Age:23
  • Is involved in the video/film industry, is web savvy, has knowledge of video production and web.
  • Activities:
    • Active Vimeo viewer
    • Avid movie and video production viewer
    • Enjoys flash websites
    • Enjoys great production skills
    • Likes to edit video or film
    • Reads the magazine Filmmakers
    • Uses Final Cut Pro

Site Requirements

Technologies Used:

  • Adobe Flex Builder
  • Adobe Flash and Photoshop CS4
  • Actionscript 3.0, XML
  • CSS,HTML

Technical Needs and Requirements:

  • Research sites that have similar functionality
  • Research Papervision for Navigation
  • Research AS3 Programming
  • Video Compression Bit Rate+Download time

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

FINAL PROJECT MOCK UPS::

NAVIGATION FOR PORTFOLIO SITE:

This will be the interactive video section where users can click and scroll through the interface to view my video work.

VISIT TO EXPLORATORIUM::SAN FRANCISCO

The Exploratorium was a great way to gain inspiration for this upcoming project. While going to the exploratorium I felt like a little kid again, and realized how great it is to get in touch with not caring about what other people think, but to appreciate the simple facinations that a kid should have. There were great exhibits exploring the human brain to the very simplicity of a hologram.
I really enjoyed this trip to the exploratorium and was a great eye opener for ideas.



This was one of inspirations for my project to put multiple videos or images on one page of my project. The exhibit shown is showing all the emotions of different faces.
Here is a great video that I recorded of an exhibit that used motion to display video.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

EXTRA! EXTRA! Interaction Design for Entertainment Website launched!

Here is the design of my interaction design for entertainment website where I will be posting all my exercises and final project for the class. The blog will still be running with my thought process of all my projects for this class and others.

Week5-Project Proposal

Project Proposal

This weeks assignment was to come up with a project proposal for the final project. So I chose to to start constructing my final portfolio and to display my Video, Web, and Motion work in a very entertaining way and it will also be a great way to get in contact with potential clients and employers. Please see my homework site and click on week4 to see more of a description.


cheers,
Neil