Archive for Uncategorized

Project Report - Azeem Ahmad

{ January 10, 2008 @ 5:04 pm } · { Azeem Ahmad, RSS, Web 2.0 }
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My project will be live and online from tomorrow (11/01) at www.fleetbuzz.com (it will be at the bottom) - I chose this website as I did my work experience there, and I am on personal terms with the admins there, so they kindly agreed to host my project for me at short notice.

My final project is not what I originally intended as I had planned to host it myself on my own website, but other circumstances have led to having me change my project and its location in order to meet the deadline on time. I have still managed to amalgamate the four websites RSS codes into one through manipulation of them, one by one. The unique source code that I made is still available however, and will be part of this project.

User Testing, and Accessibility

I managed to get the product tested by the administrator of the website, who found the concept good, and said that it was easy to use. He did say however, that once he was re-directed to the ‘holding’ website, HitRSS, that it became a bit difficult to use. I overcame this by making the link to the news websites more prominent on the RSS Blog, therefore making it easier for the user(s) to access the news they were originally after.

Ideally, as mentioned earlier,I would have liked for the product to be hosted on my own website. I do feel however, that it is easy to access on the FleetBuzz website, as it is placed with all of the other external links. If I had more time to do this project, or to do it again, I would invest more time in advertising and promotion of my product, in an attempt to compete with its bigger competitors.

Skills and Development

When I started this project, I had a very basic knowledge of RSS. I knew what RSS did, but I never understood how it worked. During the course of this project I now feel that I have an excellent knowledge of RSS and its capabilities, and how RSS itself works. I am now able to de-construct an RSS reader, explain what part of the reader has what function. I also understand RSS as a language, and I have demonstrated during this project that I have achieved skills which will make me more employable in the new media industry, but also as an online journalist too. I have skills which enable me to become an online journalist, or to work in the new media industry.

Ideas for development

This project could easily be developed into something much more bigger given more time. It could easily be developed into a website of its own, even created using Flash or JavaScript language, making it more contemporary.

It could also offer users the chance to subscribe to the site, and offer their own websites and links for RSS amalgamation.

The site could also become ‘wiki’ style, giving users the chance to log on and edit parts of the website themselves, making each user a personalised home page. Each of these technologies embrace the web 2.o ethos, and have scope for potential future development.

Experiences and skills that make me employable

{ January 9, 2008 @ 8:19 pm } · { Kylie Gammans, Uncategorized }
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I set myself a challenge which I knew would test my abilities in Flash in order to make me more employable. The game I produced has done just this as I have improved on previous skills and also gained more, I have also enhanced on my creativity skills.  

I have taken a lot of consideration into the design of this game to make it look professional and appealing to children. I produced all of my images in Photoshop and then imported them into Flash, some are royalty free clip art images from the internet and some designed from scratch. I have added specific designs which show my flair and that my creativeness has improved such as lunchboxes, a border, rainbow and an interesting style in text. See the link below for an example of the design: 

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee91/kylie_g27/mainscreencopy.jpg  

I have achieved to improve on the main technical objectives I proposed to do. In this game I have successfully been able to understand how to assign random x and y co-ordinates to movie clips, to further this I have understood how to do this in one function which relates to all the separate movie clips when they are each called upon. A function saves me writing up the same code for each separate movie clip. As well as this I have applied a number of hit tests to the game and a scoring system. The above elements took me a long time to grasp hold of but I feel I have had a great experience through understanding more into ActionScript. I have logged the processes that I went through to complete this game; this is only available in a word format.

I aimed to add many more elements to this game in the time given but as time went on I realised this was not possible. These aims can be seen in this Gantt chart: 

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee91/kylie_g27/GanttChart.jpg  

I then set myself objectives that could be achieved. I have learnt from this mistake that I need to plan correctly, set reasonable aims and manage my time appropriately.

Testing, Usability and Accessiblity

{ January 9, 2008 @ 12:23 pm } · { Kylie Gammans, Uncategorized }
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It is now only a few days away from the deadline and I am still overcoming problems in producing my game, therefore I do not yet have a full working prototype. For that reason I have been unable to test this game to the target audience as it would be inappropriate to do so.

If I was to have a full working prototype, I would test the game to 10 children and ask them a series of questions. As I could not do this, I asked these to myself and looked at the game from a child’s perspective as I have been throughout. The questions would be as follows:

·        Did you find it easy to understand what you were meant to do in this game and was it easy play?

The game is informative through its instructions and easy to play as I have made it clear what the child should press on by making rollovers by either enlarging something or changing the colour. I only included key press options to start with but after thinking about this I thought it would be useful for me to add buttons, I did this to provide more options for the child.

·        Were you happy with the selection of lunchboxes you could choose from?

Out of the three lunchboxes I designed, I think at least one would appeal to a child as I created one stereotypically for girls, one for boys and one that I felt could appeal to both.

 ·        Was this game fun to play and did you like the design?

There are elements I would have liked to add if I had the time which I will explain later.

·        Did you understand what this game was trying to educate to you?

I think this is quite clear, however if I had more time I would have improved on this which I will again explain later.

I included aspects to make this game available to those children who have a disability, they are:

·        Keyboard access

·        Adding accessibility tags to the images and movie clips.

·        Designing the game carefully by being colour wise and including the text Maiandra GD which is not difficult to read.

Further Project Development

{ January 9, 2008 @ 12:00 pm } · { Flash, Michelle Field, Uncategorized }
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Now that my litter game is complete I can reflect on what I think would improve my project further.  

As mentioned in a previous blog I think my game would benefit from having more levels or extended levels. This would probably be more entertaining and challenging for students and would encourage them to play the game more than once to see how far they can get and to beat their previous score.

Although I added a countdown feature to my game I noticed that the seconds count down very quickly. I would have liked to have figured out how to slow this counter down so that the time is more realistic.

I could have also included more interactive features to engage users further such as an ‘enter your name’ option before the game starts. If I had had more time I would have also liked to have included the score board which I set out to do in my proposal. This would have also contributed to the overall game’s interactivity. It would also be beneficial for me to further my skills by learning a program such as PHP as this would also be appealing to future potential employers.

Overall I was pleased with the design of my game. I aimed for it to be more professional looking than my last project. I think I achieved this, however the overall appearance and style is very simple. This is because I drew everything myself in Flash. Perhaps if I had used copyright free images or photographs from else where the overall finish would have been better.  To make my game even more user friendly and accessible I could have used sound for when each button is clicked on.

Accessibility

{ January 9, 2008 @ 11:29 am } · { Flash, Michelle Field, Uncategorized }
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When creating my game I have considered accessibility issues throughout. For example I have: 

  • Used keyboard control alternatives (e.g. Play = “P”, Next = “N”).
  • Considered the colour blind. This was achieved using etre’s Colour Blindness Simulator (found at:  http://www.etre.com/tools/colourblindsimulator/). I took a screen shot of each of my Flash pages and saved them as JPEGS. I then used the simulator to test how these images appear to users with a variety of colour blindness conditions (protanopia, dueteranopia and tritanopia).
  • Used clear large text (Pump Demi Bold LET and Ariel Black).
  • Used the Flash accessibility feature on all movie clips, buttons etc.

Usability Testing

{ January 9, 2008 @ 10:23 am } · { Flash, Michelle Field, Uncategorized }
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I have now reached the final stages of the production process. After the projects completion I tested my product on the target audience, which is students, this could refer to a number of ages, however I have decided to focus on teenagers. I selected 5 members of this user category and asked them to perform the following tasks: 

1)     Locate the litter fact’s page.

2)     Locate the game’s instructions page.

3)     Play the game.

4)     Find out how well you did in terms of your overall score.

5)     After playing the game return to the main menu. 

In addition to the above tasks they were also asked to comment on their experience in terms of how easy it was to locate things and navigate through the product as well as their thoughts about the overall design and layout. It was also important for me to recognise if the participants came across any mistakes in terms of the way in which the product has been technically constructed. In addition I wanted to know whether my product was suitable for their age range, if they enjoyed the experience, if it would make them think about littering issues and whether they would recommend a friend to use my product.  

Usability testing is beneficial as it allows me to make any final improvements. The following are some of the alterations I made as a result of my testing: 

  • I originally only had a ‘next’ button on the litter facts section meaning that users had to go to the last page of this section to go back to the main menu. This seemed to have a negative impact on navigation. Therefore I have now added a ‘back’ button on each page as well as a ‘main menu’ button at the end (http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/michelle_field/litter%20game/litterfactscopy.jpg).
  • Some of the buttons contained a different colour text to others which seemed to confuse people with what was buttons and what was not. I have now made all the buttons the same colour and style and altered the rollover effect to make it even clearer for users.
  • It also seemed that there was not enough time (count down) for participants to finish the game. The time has now been extended.

 Overall people thought the colour scheme and design worked well and was suitable for their age group. But after a couple of goes they believe they would get bored. As I will later discuss, if I had more time I would have added more levels, which would have become harder as you progress through them. 

Testing On a Pocket PC: Accessibility

{ January 6, 2008 @ 6:25 pm } · { Flash, Marie Williams, Uncategorized }
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I have made my prototype accessible by:

§         Making sure I have used the accessibility control panel in Flash.

§         I have attempted to make buttons clear and easy to use.

§         I haven’t been able to make the buttons have a different key press as all users will most probably be using their interactive pen to click.

§         I know that flash cannot be read my screen readers and so have made sure that I have labeled every buttons and frame.

My Project So Far….

{ January 5, 2008 @ 2:24 pm } · { Flash, Marie Williams, Uncategorized }
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Well, it’s now a week until our project will all be handed in, and I’ve hit that panic stage…After weeks of researching into making my mobile application for Sony Ericsson W810i I have had to come to a stand still with this idea, I have reached a point in my development where I have no kind of previous experience and have left myself short of time to research into making each button and link accessible through using different key presses. I also went to test my idea using the phone and realised my Dad had no service connection to the Internet through his mobile, therefore I have put my contingency plan into action.

Through out my research process I have always thought about making the application for a pocket pc, not only will this give me more space to work with, but will also enable me to use testers on the Internet, some of which I found through my research.

With only a week to go, I have changed my prototype to be based mainly on the pocket pc, this will enable to user to use the touch screen pad and click on the links using the interactive pen provided with the pocket pc. I know it seems a risk to take, but I would prefer to be able to test a few pages, then to have a completed prototype for the Sony Ericsson W810i which had no space for testing.

More detail of what i need to complete for my project

{ November 29, 2007 @ 4:45 pm } · { Kylie Gammans, Uncategorized }
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I aim to stick to my Gannt chart in order to complete my project within the givin time. However i am going to list below in more deatail what needs to be done to my project:

  • Design more images of healthy and unhealthy foods so that i can start to make more of them fall randomly from the top of the screen along the x axis, then drop them down along the y axis.
  • Work out how to make the food disappear when it hits the bottom of the screen or lunchbox by using collision detecting.
  • Once i have figured the above section out i can add a scoring system so that everytime the healthy foods falls into the lunchbox, it will incease the users score by 5 and everytime the unhealthy foods falls into the lunchbox their score will detuct by 5, however the score will go no lower than 0.
  • I will neeed to make an introduction screen and also a final screen. I am however leaving these till the end as the above points are more important for me to complete at the moment. They will allow me to understand how i put one level of the game together which will then help me when making more levels.
  • As well as this, through the project i wish to try and make my design of the game look more professional.
  • If i have enough time nearer to the end of the project i aim to put a better background on each of the levels, and also maybe include some sound and a volume controller; which would hopefully have a slider so the user can decide how loud they want the sound to be.

Plagarism and understanding code

{ November 26, 2007 @ 11:36 am } · { Flash, Jess Garland, Uncategorized }
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Plagarism has been spoken about a great deal by teachers and lecturers extremely seriously since school, through college and in university. It is obvious that it is an extremely hot problem. Plagarism can be a tricky domain in web design as you learn from looking at other peoples codes and developing their ideas- what counts as plagarism in thihs subject? There is a simple answer to this, anyone can copy code; we need to understand the ideas and principles behind it, if we understand it we can develop a new code that does a similar thing using several different sources to produce what we want. I have found several useful pieces of code and here I am deconstructing it to understand what it means and whit it is doing: -
Skew-
Function skewObj(obj object y scale ,mcW movie clip width , mcH movie clip height P+O, pt1, pt2 refrence points
Function distance (pt1,pt2){
Var dy variable distance= pt2.y – pt1.y; The distance when you change movie clip y
Var dy = pt2.x – pt1.x; The distance when you change movie clip x
Var side variable side = math sqrt square root (dy*dy+dx *dx)
Return side;
}
This code is basically telling the images to follow Pythagoras’ theorem- when you change one side, the other sides change proportionally with it so that when the cube changes the images on it skew appropriately. So the 2D images are in proportion and turn with the ‘cube’ to make it appear 3D

The theorem applied to my project is basically saying *obj._yscale (which never changes) of object at the time divided by obj.mc(movie clip) ._xscale xscale + yscale relative to how its been rotated- changes as to how the ‘cube’ is rotated.

This shows that I understand the code I am using.
Plagiarism is passing off someone else’s code as your own. I need to take the principles behind the code and make a code that works in a similar way, understanding the principles behind the idea and code I use.
I will keep a record of resources I use and reference anything I use in my assignment by keeping a logbook of code with annotations to show I understand code I am using and researching.

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