Example Video Assignment 3

415.708 Assignment Two

Multimedia Application Design and Specifications

Worth:

8% of final mark

Due:

11am Monday 21st March

• Learn how to design multimedia application.
• Learn how to segment the project and allocate work within a group.
• Write a design specification document.

• Carefully read all of this document first. It is your group's responsibility to see that you meet the requirements of this assignment. Not following directions is probably the quickest way to loose marks.
• Familiarise yourselves with the capabilities of Director by looking at Director's help file information or manuals. Several copies of (older versions of) Director manuals are be available for short term day loan from the HMU (Room 567).
• Look at the books on Director programming and design available on desk copy at the library.
  • Director 8 and Lingo authorized by Phil Gross.
  • Special edition using Macromedia Director 8 by Gary Rosenzweig.
  • Flash Web Design : the art of motion graphics by Hillman Curtis.
• The book Macromedia Director MX2004 for Windows and Macintosh is available for short term loan from Chris. This has tutorial style lessons on using the latest version of Director.
• Look at the example design document on the 708 web page www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/compsci708s1c/resources/War_of_the_Worlds.pdf Remember that this document is just a guide of the minimum you should do.
• Look at the example Director project Mike Loder - Live At The Covert to see how an application can be put together. Save the file onto your hard drive before viewing (the file has been modified to disable the CD player function.) You will need to download the accompanying video to view it. Put it in the same folder that you save the previous director file first.
• Surf the Net or ask at the HMU for good project examples and ideas. A number of commercial CDs are available for short term loan. Student projects from previous years are also available from the HMU. Groups who look at these examples invariably end up with better projects.
• Choose a topic for your project from the list below:
  • Produce a computer simulation, illustrating a concept. See www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/compsci708s1c/resources/marine_reserve_simulator.html for an example.
  • Produce a multimedia CD on a topic (Animals, Health, Sports, etc).
  • Produce a multimedia CD about an artist (Musician, painter, photographer, director, etc).
  • Produce a foreign language learning CD. Warning: This is an extremely hard project topic to do well.
  • Any other topic you think of, which has been discussed with Chris and approved by Jennifer.

Note:

Groups are welcome to make use of sampled video in their project, where appropriate. The HMU is able to capture short segments of video (totaling no more than 20 minutes). This will processed and made available in in Quicktime format. This requires a group to be very organised as we can't just drop everything to capture video a couple of hours before the project is due in.

You should treat these assignments as though you were designing and supplying the project for a client. In industry you would have to meet with a client (many times) before agreeing on and writing the design specification documents. In this assignment you have the luxury of being your own clients - with executive approval by Jennifer and Chris. You also have the advantage that you do not need to seek anyone else's approval to change your design specifications at a later date if the situation requires, so don't feel locked in to producing the exact project you describe in this assignment. You will be required to justify changes you have made in assignment 4.

Your project and design document must conform to the following specifications:

1. You project and all its associated files must not be more than 60 MB is size.
2. All your Director movie files must be 800x600 pixels in size. A screen size of 640x480 pixels is also acceptable, as long as all Director movie files use the same screen size.
3. Video is not the major point of the project. Just throwing more digital video at the project doesn't make it better. In fact, your project should be initially designed without using any video first. Even in the topic is a movie, simply showing bits of the movie is not necessarily informative. If users just want to watch the movie, they can rent the DVD.
4. Video media should be saved in Quicktime format wherever possible. Use the Sorenson codec, not ones which might only work on some platforms. AVI and MPEG movies can also be used with care.
5. Gather your media from a number of sources, not just one.
6. Images sourced from the web will not generally be of sufficient quality for a Director project. Low resolution or obviously GIFed or JPEGed images are not acceptable here. Be prepared to scan some originals instead.
7. Sourcing everything from the web and just throwing it together in Director is inappropriate. Think about what you can do that couldn't all ready be done with a web site. You have more computer resources available (space, speed, etc).
8. At least one help screen should be available and obviously marked as a help screen. Context sensitive help is more preferable.
9. Your project must have a credits screen, where you can say who did what and make any other acknowledgments required. Keep a bibliography-style list of the sources of all the material you use.
10. The volume control must be consistent from section to section and retain its settings. It should also control the volume of digital video. The volume control should be visible and obvious as to what it is.
11. Scroll bars should work like every other scroll bar users have experienced, not something weird you have devised. Page-turn buttons are acceptable if they fit in with your design metaphor, but are less desirable.
12. All buttons should indicate they are clickable, either by having the cursor change or (preferably) highlighting the buttons somehow when the cursor moves over them.
13. All buttons should indicate when they have been clicked, either visually, aurally or (preferably) both. This indication should be given before the action of the button is taken, so that if there is a delay, the users knows that something is happening.
14. The project must always indicate what section (and subsection) the user is in, so they don't get lost.
15. Your project must run correctly on both PC and Mac platforms.

The following are not requirements but would be nice to have anyway.

• A "site layout" screen is a nice idea for users to navigate around with.
• Keep your Paradigms and metaphors consistent. Putting a photo of a television in your project to play videos on may not be in keeping with your style. Be consistent.
• Unless you have a major theme to your project, keep the screen graphics as simple as possible. Well designed plain images are better than fussy, badly created images.

Method:

• Talk through your ideas within your group. Two lectures will be allocated for you to do this with Jennifer and Chris available for advice. Don't be too ambitious with your designs. You can always add things later if you find you have the time.
  Remember: Everything takes longer and costs more (than you thought it would).
• Examine the example project and documents. These are available online.
• Read the Specifications carefully. Make sure you project will address all these requirements.
• Write the design document of your application (including layout and structure). Your design document must include:
  1. A title/topic for your project (eg. Fish Sanctuary Simulator - your group), and a list of all your group member's full names and UPIs (preferred names should indicated).
  2. A brief (half an A4 page) description of what application your group is going to build for this project.
  3. A one paragraph description of what will make your application "unique" and difference from all the other multimedia applications out there.
  4. A one paragraph description of what sort of navigation and design metaphor you will use eg. linear navigation like a book, hierarchical menu based, immersive exploratory navigation like "Myst", etc.
  5. A one paragraph description of your user considerations and expectations of the audience are. eg. What is the expected age group? What previous computer knowledge should they have? What level of computer literacy is needed?
  6. Diagrams clearly showing the structure of the application and indicating (or referencing) all its navigational links.
  7. A list of project jobs and tasks that have been allocated each group member. This will be used for accountability during marking.
  8. A project timeline indicating the dates you expect to have key jobs and tasks of your projects completed. Just listing the assignment hand-in dated is unacceptable.
  9. A list breaking down the storage space you will allocate to the application files, images/graphics, sounds, movies and any other media. Your final application should be absolutely no more than 60MB in total size. This is plenty of space. If your project can't fit easily within this size then you might doing something wrong.
  10. Examples of the screen templates your group will use for and the expected screen layout. If every screen will look the exactly same (unlikely and inadvisable), then one template is sufficient. If several screens will be used, then put in a diagram for each type.
  
  
• Each of the design document requirements above not completed will result in the loss of half a mark.
• Collect any basic information that you will require (text, images, CDs, etc). Organise movie capture with Chris now if you require it. The HMU is able to capture up to 20 minutes of video from PAL VHS video, or DVD for each group if video clips are needed.
• Plan the division of work within your group, allocate everyone tasks and dates to have them completed by.
• Familiarise yourself with the capabilities of Director at this design stage. If there are tricky things you want to do, check that they are feasible now.
• One person from your group must submit your design specifications using the Dropbox https://adb.ec.auckland.ac.nz/, or by handing in a printed copy. If submitted electronically, this document must be either a Word DOC, RTF or PDF file.

Assessment Criteria:

• Fulfillment of all the requirements.
• "Good" design (as covered in class).
• Clear and easily understandable design documents.
• Consistency and clarity of ideas.
• Innovative use of your chosen development medium.
• Consistency.
• How well your project matches your target audience.
• Adherence to "usability first" principles.

Retrieved 11/29/05: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/compsci708s1c/assignments/708assignment2_2005.html