Student Discussion

Initial Concept REVIEW

• Final Project: Image/Video Gallery for Brooklyn is Watching
• Class Project Wiki (Forum and Second Life Project): Review brainstorming research  (ideas, images, URLs) about online and SL art galleries, presentation, possible technology and applications to realize the project.
• The wiki will contain the final Design Document:
  • Project Goals
  • User Experience
  • Content and Functionality
  • Project/Site Structure
  • Visual/Concept Design

Refine Concept

Information Architecture & Interaction Design

• Content Inventory
  • Understanding your Content (slideshow). One way to do this is review and categorize all the content that is going to be used in your interactive project. Some Information Architects (IA) create genres, taxonomies or “keywords” that the user might use to navigate the content. This helps with the next step “organizing the content.”
  • BiW Project: images and video of SL art. These are found here on Flickr. What data/tags are available here? How could this content be organized?
• Sitemap
  • Organizing Your Content. Once you have an understanding of the types of content you are going to be working with, you can begin to create a visual map – “chunking” or dividing the content into categories. This map provide the framework upon which to base project navigation.
  • BiW Project: organize the information structure and categories in order to navigate the images and video.
• User Personas
  • Personas act as stand-ins for real users. They are based on real data from interviews and research and help the interaction designer determine who the potential users of the product will be and what they will expect.
  • BiW Project: Read the BiW blog comments. Who are the artists and visitors to the blog. Find out a little bit about their background- why do they visit the site?
• User Journeys (Use Case)
  • Narrative. User Journeys are narratives that examine the user’s needs and the content they are seeking in a time-based progression. User Journeys need a beginning, middle, and end, just like a story.
  • BiW Project: Interview SL artists or visitors to the BiW sim or extrapolate based on blog comments and posts. Create user journeys. For example: Imagine what an SL artist would be looking for in the BiW image/video archive vs. a viewer.
• Technology Selection
  • After organizing the content, understanding the users and how they will move through the information to get what they need, we can clarify the technology we will use to communicate.
  • BiW Project:Determine if the project will be web-based, use Flickr or some other image database, or if the collection of images will be housed in SL.
• Interaction Flow
  • This is a series of diagrams that explain the interaction between a user and a chosen system’s processes.
  • BiW Project:Determine how the user will move through the site or space. Create a diagram on paper.
• Wireframes
  • Convey the general structure and content requirements for the interface. Wireframes are blue prints. They do not convey design – e.g. colors, graphics, or fonts.
  • BiW Project:Create a wireframe drawing of the structure of the interface, whether it’s web-based or 3D.

Lab

Guest Lecturer: Prof. David Smith will demonstrate some SL building techniques.

Homework

Divide up the Information Architecture Deliverables and Diagrams discussed above. Use this reference for specific information about each type of design process tool. This TUTORIAL is also a good place for structuring your final Design Document.

Next week you should have created the following:

• 1 Content Inventory
• 3 User Personas (Profiles )
• 3 User Journeys (Use Case)
• 1 Sitemap
• 1 Wireframe

NOTE: Review Spencer Museum of Art Second Life juried art show A Prim Life: Photographs from the Virtual World.(PDF) The deadline for entry is May 1, 2009 and show dates run mid-May through mid-June on the Spencer Art Museum Island. Each student will submit 3 photographs of locations in SL.