Uses of the home button in UX design

I really enjoyed this article, I thought it raised some interesting questions about the way websites are designed and whether technology has moved on.

http://uxmag.com/articles/are-you-putting-the-home-button-to-good-use?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=ArticleShare&utm_tone=sf

SEO assignment

As part of an assignment for another class, I created this blog:

http://creative-multimedia-programming.blogspot.ie/

Please check it out!

Sound editing for Flash

One of the disadvantages of working with Flash is that its sound editing controls are very basic. You can change the volume of each channel, allow the sound to come from left or right, but not very much else. I had a lot of sounds that I wanted to clip for specific parts of my animation, so I brought them into Adobe Audition and did it there. It's a nice user friendly piece of software. As I had already worked with sound editing software, it was quite easy to get used to Audition. It allowed me to create sound clips to fit to specific parts of my animation, and then in Flash I adjusted the volume levels where needed. I used lynda.com tutorials to fill any gaps in my knowledge with regard to the controls and the interface. The sound made the finished film much better.

iPad eLearning assignment

Working in a group with Michelle, Keith and Christina, we came up with an elearning app for an iPad to demonstrate to children between 5 and 7 how to use colour using a dynamic iPad interface. We did some research on children of this age group to create personas. This helped us to target our app and to develop with this research in mind. Below are the personas:

We wanted the kids to be able to have fun while being creative, so the app involves mixing colours and adding them to a scene. As the child gets more confident, their skill level progresses and they are given more options - they are told to figure out how to mix the colours they need, and eventually they progress to creating whole scenes on their own. We focused on friendly sprites (including a logo of a blob of paint called Splodgy) and fun in learning. The opening interface allows a child to choose their skill level and then the next screen allows them to get creative.

It was a great experience to develop and research this project up to the prototype stage. It was also a valuable experience of working in a team; we delegated various parts of the project (I had responsibility for writing up the specification, Christina handled the personas, Michelle designed the interface and Keith did the navigation and logo) and it was a good opportunity to get to know how we work together. Our team got on very well together and listened to the suggestions of others - effort was made from the start to make the project work.

Moodboard - Flash Animation

I wanted bright colours and cartoon-style design for my Flash Animation Project, because the primary audience for this nursery rhyme animation is young children. I wanted bright colours to keep their attention and simple cartoon sprites. This is the moodboard I created to get the feel of the project on paper:

I took inspiration from previous representation of the story as well and contemporary cartoons that get the point across. I'm mostly drawn to cute little animal drawings and that's what I tried to recreate in my own characters.

Flash animation - Pop goes the weasel

Scenery, characters and the first scene of my Flash Animation, Pop Goes the Weasel.

 

Storyboards

Unfortunately the scans of these images are a bit light. It was really useful to go through the storyboarding process. It helped me visualize the project and come up with ideas as to how to get the story to work as an animation. It was really a problem-solving exercise in that respect, resolving the problem of how to translate the story in my head to something that would be interesting, education and fun for the end users, ie. children learning nursery rhymes. I'm looking forward to getting this working in Flash.