In order to get a better idea of the scale of my project and what it would involve time-wise I have started to break it down into separate stages. In no particular order here are some of the steps involved in the creation of the Flash portion app portion of my project.
- Work out layout from mock-up.
- In Flash create layout or various sections and frames etc.
- Work on navigation between different content sections.
- Create buttons, apply rollovers.
- Create introduction + transition animations.
- Work out and create borders for content pane.
- Possibly look at some kind of magnification tool for gallery portion to enlarge either all or individual portions of a selected image.
- Convert the video files (music videos, vlogs etc.) into the various different formats.
- Prepare any flash-based video files.
- Create links to social-networking + external sites (for those using the DVD in an Internet connected environment.
Beta Testing
After creating a prototype of my project I will need to test this to make sure that it works as expected so that I can iron out any problems for the final release. In order to do this I will utilise user testing in order to obtain feedback on the success or otherwise of the beta version of the project.
I will ideally test representatives of my target audience. This however may prove to be problematic as one of my groups of end-users will be music industry professionals, so it may be difficult to obtain a sufficient number of them for my testing. The second group however that my product is aimed at is music lovers and specifically existing fans of my client. I could however for this test use a sample of people who like music of a similar genre.
Testing Plan:
Methods of testing: This will vary slightly for the different elements of the DVD. For the Flash application I will mainly be using observation (personally making notes of peoples individual interactions with the product). As testing will take place on a single, or couple of computers in one location using a screen-capture application may also be of benefit. It could provide as source for statistical analysis providing figures such as how much time is spent on individual sections of the portfolio application.
Standalone DVD player use: Possibility of using questions more than observations as I send DVDs out to people on my clients mailing list either with a paper questionnaire, or a link to a web based questionnaire to obtain my feedback. Alternatively I could set-up a couple of DVD players in a location and ask a representative sample of people to perform certain task whilst I observe them. This strategy may yield more useful information that just a questionnaire, however it means that you won’t get the feedback of existing fans. I may combine multiple forms of testing in this case.
Either in questionnaire testing or observation there are a few tasks that I would like all participants to try carry out, to give me an idea of how the end-user would experience the DVD.
Questions to consider:
- Find out the the email address of the client.
- View a music video.
- Find out what the clients musical influences are.
- What are the lyrics for a certain song.
Next Week-
For next week I am going to try and follow some of my objectives as set out in my project outline. By doing this I hope to produce a working prototype of at least some of my project.
