| Final Report | Status:� | |
�
| Index Minutes Draft Proposal First Prototype Revised Proposal Final Prototype Final Report Final Evaluation Module Feedback |
To view the individual evaluation reports of Sachin, Hasan, Nic, or Reena just click on their names.� Contents 1. Project statement 2. Technical Summar 3. Market Analysis & Rationa 4. Individual Market Analysis Section 5. Phase by Phase Technical Proposal 6. Roles and Responsibility 7. Breakdown of work & Project Planning 8. Pricing 9. Project Management 10. Financial Management & Accounting 11. Communicating with Client 12. Monitoring of Progress 13. Report Writing 14. Dissemination of Results 15. Prototype Development 16. Virtual Metaphors 17. Copyright Issue 18. Project Evaluation 19. Appendices 1. Project statement This is a tender to the European Commission outlining Switchblade Designs latest multimedia production "Theatreland On-line". The consortium consists of four people:
We have relevant skills and the latest technology to carry out such a project. Our mission statement is: "To be the most innovative, exciting and successful Virtual Theatre Guide on-line, continually embracing new exciting technologies in our field" Our proposal is to:
We aim to:
The consortium has calculated as an approximation, a sum of ECU 32,368 will be required for our tender to proceed. This tender will be valid for a period of six months beginning 15 January 1999. 2. Technical Summary Switchblade Designs sets out to undertake and develop a Virtual Theatre Guide. The virtual theatre will provide information for the selected market about theatre shows in London, where they are, prices, and how they can book etc. The consortium aim to deliver this information via the Internet. The business sector of the Internet is rapidly growing and has created a new space in which to do business. People that have access to the Internet can easily find out about theatres in London and can explore many different shows by navigating their way through the web site. Our web site will incorporate pictures, images, graphics, animation, sound, text and virtual reality. Our site will be fun, exciting and informative. It will also be easy to use, encouraging the use of Internet technology. We have conducted market analysis and have come to the conclusion that Switchblade Designs have an innovative idea that would be a viable multimedia production. We have defined our target market and have summarised a technical proposal for our Theatreland On-line production. 3. Market Analysis & Rational 3.1 Industry Analysis The online theatre guide industry has experienced a rapid growth over the past 30 months as more businesses and established theatre guides have realised the benefits of the Internet as another marketing medium. The popularity of the Internet is growing exponentially. Those who are familiar with the information superhighway are well aware of how fun, addictive and relaxing surfing the Net can be. Due to extensive competition, new online theatre guides must look for ways to differentiate their place of business from others in order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Switchblade Designs realise this need for differentiation, which is why our site will be unique from all those on the web at the moment. Our site will be a truly interactive multimedia experience that aim�s to immerse the user in a virtual Theatreland, and control every aspect of their experience to choosing a show to watch. The consortium realises the need for differentiation. We strongly believe that a truly interactive theatre guide where the customer doesn�t feel as if he / she is dealing with their computer, but rather feeling immersed in an "experience" is the key to success. The fact that the current batch of online theatre guides are just extensions of founded theatre guides presents Switchblade Designs with a chance to enter the window of opportunity and enter into a profitable "niche" market - niche because what we are trying to do has not been done before. The current batch of online theatre guides is more like brochures than any multimedia experience. 3.2 Industry Participants Our industry participants can be broken down in to three groups: Customers, Clients (London Borough of Westminster, who own Theatreland and the European Commission), and Advertisers. Customers would visit our site, and use it free of charge. Advertisers would use our site to "sell" their product, via the use of banners. This would involve us holding their banner image on our site for a fixed monthly rate. This proposal should make sufficient impact to ensure that after its completion of the proposal we are not simply looking at yet another �Theatre Site�. However, we must make the point that, a large proportion of these sites will have referential information relating to the theatre. Very few of them are likely to give the "Virtual Theatre Tour". After selecting three theatre sites currently on the internet at random, the following conclusions have been made, both in terms of the content of these sites and the actual design features. http://www.murdermyst.com Design Issues:
Content Issues:
Market Issues:
http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/ Design Issues:
Content Issues:
Market Issues:
http://www.slowdrag.co.uk/slowdrag/home.htm Design Issues:
Content Issues:
Market Issues:
3.3 Directional Management: From the review of these sites it is quite clear that the essence of the virtual theatre has not yet been fully captured. To look into this a little further, we must consider what the virtual theatre experience actually comprises of. When people go to the theatre they have a mixture of emotions; often these can be described as fear, anticipation, anxiety, and the expectation of not knowing what to expect. Our web-site should attempt to be able to capture these emotions. It needs to be inviting to the user, giving them a sense of actually being there, and not simply reading something that they could pick up from any newsagent in central London. No matter where they are in the world, they should, as a result of coming to our site, feel as though they are standing in the foyer of the Cambridge theatre in Covent Garden and waiting to see the Grease musical. We need to capture the essence that will make people want to go further, not knowing what they will expect, yet making it easily navigable, and direct. The achievement of these key ingredients will be our critical success factor. 3.4 Customer Profiling Market�s are very impersonal things, they do not help the designer figure out who he / she should really aim the potential of the site to. The designers need to know about the real people who will be using their site: who they are, what they like, what are their hobbies, etc. Therefore, we need adequate profiling of our customer base. This is usually achieved by listening to the current customer base, or to send out questionnaires. It is usually best call a market-research firm and ask how we can work together to profile the customers for the site. 3.5 Market Research After carrying out extensive market research we have identified a market for our service. We surveyed and gave out questionnaires to people in London and students in around and the London area about their thoughts and ideas of our proposed multimedia production. A high percentage of potential users said that they thought our idea was good and they would use our service when deciding to go to the theatre to find out about what's on and where. Research shows that there is demand for our Virtual Theatre Site. There are currently many sites on the Internet that provide similar services that Switchblade will offer, however we feel that our proposed production will be successful because of its virtualisation. The various sites that we reviewed all lacked true range of multimedia technology. To make our site unique and interesting we aim to incorporate sound, animation, movement, high quality content and sense of actually being at the theatre. Market research has allowed us to segment and target our market and determine who our most likely users will be. We have also been able to determine our advertising and promotion techniques. 3.4 Market Segmentation The most appropriate method of segmenting our market will be according to demographics, which is segmenting the market according to:
3.5 Target Market Our target audience is anyone that has access to the Internet and those people that love going to the theatre. The size of our market will be very wide, as the site will be accessible by anyone in the world with access to the Internet. However the majority of users will be people living in and around London, tourists and students. 3.6 Product Promotion We have decided to use a variety of methods to conduct the promotion of our service to ensure that we gain high visibility. A high portion of our users will be made up of Internet users therefore using Internet web page advertisements will be our main form of promotion. This would mean the designing of a web page banner advertisement, which could then be sent to appropriate web sites for inclusion on their site. Such sites could include search engines and sites of other related services. By placing a banner on search engines such as Yahoo, Alta-Vista, Excite, Time Out, MSN Home, AOL Home and Webcrawler to name a few, and by advertising on the online Yellow pages, Theatre On-line hope to capture a great number of people who use the web. The reason for using search engines to advertise is due to the millions of people who use search engines to help them find their way around the web. We can ensure our site banner will be brought up each time a person uses anyone of the search engines to navigate around the web. We also aim to advertising our site/service by producing leaflets and posters, which can be displayed at tourist information offices, theatres, cinema, libraries, universities etc. Promotion will also take place in the form of special offers, which will be advertised, on the site. An example of a special offers could be a theatre discounts for users that visit our site. Switchblade Design expect that this will incentive to users using our service will come back on a regular basis. 3.7 Market Leader To become the market leader in this field by providing excellent service through high quality web pages. Assuming the tender is accepted Switchblade Designs can maintain the site by using the latest technologies available. We also aim to monitor competitors site in order to retain a good market share and continue to capture wide range of users. 4. Individual Market Analysis Section The following sections are the individual components for this modules assessment. Please click on the links to view their individual assignment 5. Phase by Phase Technical Proposal There are five main phases that we intend to adhere to during the development of the Theatreland on-line. These are:
A breakdown of each phase is detailed below. 5.1 Phase 1: Analysis We shall be acting as consultants and liasing with our clients to determine client requirements. This phase will allow us to build a relationship with the client and set out plans for the proposed idea. During this phase, we will be analysing the current market and conducting marketing research into the need for our product. 5.2 Phase 2: Design The design phase is the precursor that sets everything up so that the web designers can apply their maximum potential to the finished product. Various inputs are fed into the production phase so that the designers can get a feel of how the site should be. The initial starting point would be the storyboarding session. During this session we would immerse ourselves in the culture of the customer: who is the customer, what image do they posses, and asking the questions "If I were a Theatreland web site, what would I look like? What would I say?" During this phase we create plenty of sketches, thumbnails of images, and any designs which would seem appropriate. As soon as the first set of designs has been agreed upon by the team and approved by the client, the next phase can begin. Many site designers do get carried away with creating cute icons used for navigation, and do end up spending a lot of time creating and coding them. However, we will try to keep the navigation simple for the user to flow around the site. During the alpha stage we would create the entire site in a text-based format, and then from there decide the necessary structure to be used for the navigational scheme. 5.3 Phase 3: Prototyping The alpha version of the site will be in the form of a prototype. This is where all our ideas from our design phase are developed. This prototype shall be the proof of concept, and not the full version of our final product. It shall be the basis for the client to see the concept of our plans, designs and ideas. 5.4 Phase 4: Development After the client is happy with the proof of concept, development of the full working product can now commence. This phase only happens if the prototyping phase goes well, and is all about developing the full version and putting the finishing touches to the site. The details that will need attention are:
5.5 Phase 5: Testing and Implementation On completion of the developed product, the site shall go through a period of extensive testing. At this stage we shall test the product across all platforms for complete functionality. Once both the client and we are satisfied that the product conforms to quality and to the requirements the next stage is to implement our site and go live. 5.6 Phase 6: Evaluation and Hand over This is the final stage of the development and is where we shall document all the previous phases and hand over to the client our final report.
6. Roles and Responsibility The Switchblade consortium for this project consists of four experienced, skilled personnel. All members are experienced in Information Systems, multimedia and have project management skills. The team has previously worked successfully on several other projects and forms this consortium for the Theatreland On-line project. Below are how the team is organised and a brief description of their skills and experience.
6.1 Mr. Nilesh Parmar � Project Director Nilesh has managed numerous projects over the last 8 years, has specialised skills and experience in Business and Project Management. Has held various executive positions throughout his career and had many years� of world-wide project expertise with the Microsoft Corporation where he was responsible for Commercial Technology Development, Publishing and Multimedia activities and Information Strategy. Have excellent project management skills and a good team motivator. Has brilliant organisational skills and is able to get the best out of those that work with him. Effective time management and prioritisation of tasks is his key feature in achieving exceptional standards. Nilesh Parmar now has aspirations of promoting switchblade into the multinational arena. 6.2 Mr. Hasan Nurmohamed - Financial Director Role duties: IT, Financing, Risk Analysis, Design Management, Human Computer Interaction, Web Database Management, Company Strategy Analysis. Background: Mr Nurmohamed has been a consultant primarily concerned with the financial aspects of Internet based firms. His approach is to investigate the introduction of new technologies within the field of IT in particular those relating to the Internet. It is within this role that he has been able to investigate the probable impact of these technologies, both in terms of financial constraints as well as those pertaining to the technological benefits, for many of the industries largest company�s. His input has also been very much required in the financial accounts of these firms. Along with dealing with financial considerations, he has also been at the forefront of looking at both back and front end processing issues concerned with the Internet. Furthermore, his vast research background makes him a perfect candidate for roles that require taking into account current social, demographic and technological trends in the market, and providing these insights into design issues relating to the interaction between end users and the final product. Perhaps, his greatest strength is looking into the corporate strategy within firms, and making decisions on the best course of action to enable stability and to provide a basis for a more forward thinking operation. Previous experience: Previously worked for Coopers & Lybrand and then for PricewaterhouseCoopers, within each of the above-mentioned fields individually. Also worked as a corporate strategy analyst for British Airways, and as a design manager for a leading international magazine. All in all, a useful person to have on board, as he adds an additional dimension, through divergence thinking, to what can often become a �single track� thinking design team. 6.3 Ms. Reena Shah - Marketing Director Reena Shah has graduated from Kingston University with BSc (Hon's) degree in Information Systems Design and a MSc in IT and Marketing. Reena has spent 3 years working for British Airways in the Im Marketing Department. At BA she has spent much of her time developing and maintaining BA's web sites for both Internet and Intranet exposure. She has an in depth understanding of development of Web pages with the use of HTML and is also able to implement increased functionality and interactivity on the pages designed through the use of Dynamic HTML, JavaScript, Macromedia Flash and VRML. Prior to joining BA Reena worked in the retail industry as the marketing manager for Debenhams where she was responsible for the marketing strategy for Women's Wear. Reena is highly motivated and enthusiastic individual with a great ambition to succeed in anything she does. She has excellent design and information technology skills and is well aware of the different marketing strategies and how a business operates. Reena has also managed various projects and has excellent organisational and project management skills. 6.4 Mr. Sachin Shah - Technical Director Background A keen interest of the Internet has led me to concentrate on learning all available Internet-based technologies. These include:
The Internet, in essence, is another form of publication (albeit one which has a greater level of user interactivity). This basic ideology has led me to develop my skills in several key design areas. As well of extensive knowledge of the major industry leading packages (listed above), I have managed to "condition" myself towards creating highly visual, yet innovative web-sites � be they for an Intranet or the Internet. I have moved from creating and designing web-sites, which look like a high school student created them towards a more professional level. I like to feel that over the past few years I have managed to hone my design skills towards a highly creative state. Experience I managed to truly hone my skills as a result of spending time working on initial designs for my own personal web page. However, as time went on, my skill level rose to a level such that my cousin (who owns his own internet-based company) hired me to work on several of his projects for his clients. This allowed me to work with real clients for the first time. Initially, this was quite a daunting experience. However, under the direct tutelage of my cousin, I was able to successfully implement creative web-sites for his client. I never worked alone, as this would have been quite a risk for my cousin to take: I would always work within a team. I started out as an assistant, but over time started to create and design storyboards and web-sites on my own as a team member in my own right. During the course of my industrial placement year, my department at British Airways put forth a plan to implement an Intranet site as a means of advertising their products to a wider audience. I immediately jumped at the chance to steer-head the entire project. These involved not only creating and designing the site, but to also manage the project myself. This meant holding various meeting with department members to find out what they would like the site to do, as well as finding out every service that the department hoped to offer. By the end of the project, I had managed to create a successful branding strategy for the department, using the Intranet as the ideal medium to sell their product. The department had already several brand names for some of their core products, but I was able to develop a much more visual branding strategy, rather than the then-used brand name strategy. Role Involved My main role within this team would be the web master. This would mean consulting with the team about design issues and the structure of the site amongst other issues. However, my past experience leads me to believe that I would also be instrumental in creating a suitable market plan as to how we would be able to "sell" the product as effectively as possible. I would be able to create a suitable branding strategy that would be productive. 7. Breakdown of work & Project Planning The Theatreland On-line project is the responsibility of the four members of Switchblade Designs. The project has been broken down into various phases as mentioned earlier. Below is an outline of how long each phase will take to complete.
Total 71 Man Days (13 weeks) *Man Days are defined as working: 7 hours a day, based on a 5 day week (Mon � Fri). In order to achieve the targets of this project careful project management and planning is required making sure that every part of the deliverable is completed on time, within budget and to the required specification and quality. The Switchblade team has various skills and expertise within this project and the work involved in this project has been broken down into smaller manageable tasks. Careful planning for when each of these deliverables should be completed can be shown below. The consortium members have jointly discussed each section as a team and the breakdown below shows who has been responsible for documenting each task.
The above breakdown of tasks is how we as a group have separated our tasks to produce the deliverable:
The tasks for the project proposal have been allocated according to the team member�s relevant skills. However, once the tasks have been completed, as a group we review whether the tasks have been completed correctly and meet the requirements of the project. The project manager chairs this process of control with input from the rest of the team. Once this draft has been approved it shall be revised as necessary before and the next deliverables are developed:
The following is a plan of how the rest of the project shall be developed, showing the milestones of the project and dates by when things should be completed.
[a] Complete prototype & collate report [b] Hand in Final Report [c] Peer review 8. Pricing We must make the distinction of what we mean by pricing, whether it is in terms of the pricing that could be associated with generating revenues from the final delivered product, or whether we determine pricing to be our charge for developing this product. Our proposal is two tiered; firstly we will charge a price for the producing the proposed product, and secondly to maintain it. Our financial plan shows preliminary investigations into both of these, and gives an approximation of what we would expect our final figures to be. Clearly, this proposal outlines that in terms of the final product, we do foresee any key areas from which there is the potential to generate any kind of revenues. (Although the inherent possibility to advertise � via our proposed web site, is vast) and of course, the decision for revenues to be generated from this proposal is down to the discretion of the European commission, whether they decide to keep us on for site maintenance. Our initial price for developing this product is based on a simple cost-plus pricing method, which will disclose after further investigation into our financial plan. All the financial information relating to this proposal is clearly outlined in the financial plan that will follow. � Ecu Phase 1: Analysis 10 Man Days* 3,000 4,260 Phase 2: Design 12 Man Days 3,600 5,112 Phase 3: Prototyping 14 Man Days 4,200 5,964 Phase 4: Development 21 Man Days 6,300 8,946 Phase 5: Testing 9 Man Days 2,700 3,834 Phase 6: Documentation 5 Man Days 1,500 2,130 21, 300 30,246
Other Costs: Consumables: Stationary 100 142 Printing 200 284 Telephone 250 355 Media 250 355
Sundries: Meetings (inc 720 1,022 Venue, lunch, Travel, acc. etc) TOTAL COSTS �22,700 ECU 32,368 9. Project Management There are various factors that make a project a success and good project management is always one of them. The members within our consortium have had good exposure of project management within the various projects and careers that each individual has been involved in. As with previous projects, this project shall not focus on any one particular methodology for project management. Throughout our team there is expert knowledge and specialist skills in applying various techniques such as SSADM, Prince2, DSDM and Soft systems analysis. No project uses only one specific methodology from start to finish so we shall be using elements of all the above where we feel appropriate and also we have benefited from using parts of different methodologies successfully in previous projects. Our consortium consists of 4 members all of whom have a specialist qualifications and knowledge, outlined in our project team roles section of this report. All members shall be responsible for management this project but overall project management shall be the responsibility of the project manager, who shall be responsible for the day to day running and ensuring the project is delivered on time, to cost and required scope and quality. We have agreed to have a formal weekly meeting as a group to discuss the project and evaluate what each members has produced and go through as a group what should be done or if any changes are to be made to reports. If the team feel it is necessary to discuss or bring up any related issues within the week we arrange to meet up before the weekly meeting to discuss the issues. Minutes are taken at all meetings and are documented with each report handed in. 10. Financial Management & Accounting Our consortium have a specialist Financial Director that looks after all financial aspects of projects and controls all the incoming and out goings to the consortium and makes sure that our accounts are kept under control. As with all Switchblade projects client payments are required at various stages throughout the project broken down as follows:
11. Communicating with Client Communication is the key to the success of our proposal. We have been issued with the brief of a potential for market exploitation within the Internet, relating to Theatre. We must ensure that at all times we are in keeping with the overall objectives of the client and that we conforming to their requirements. Our communication with the client will be on going, and we have a strong reputation for in building strong relationships with our clients. They will be consulted at constant intervals throughout the design and development processes. The passing of information between us and the client will be as follows: E-mail: - The transfer of electronic mail will be a vital role in our communication, e-mail will allow for information to be sent from us to the client rapidly, and since it is considered to be the �virtual piece of paper�, we feel the transfer of electronic information to be the equivalent to the transfer of information via the postal service. Meetings: - We understand our clients will have other issues to deal with aside from this proposal and of course their time along with ours costs money. Meetings will be held when the proposal reaches critical stages, where directional input is required and / or to review current progress. We shall consider setting a few milestones, where the client will be briefed on current progress. We can see the great importance that we place on the transfer of electronic mail, the justification for its use is, that it is quick and reliable. Since our proposal is looking at an Internet solution for a market, we must remember that the Internet is a highly volatile area to break into, a potential market one-day may cease to exist the following day. �Time is of the essence�, therefore, we need to work quickly. 12. Monitoring of Progress The monitoring of progress for the project is looked after by the project manager, who ensures the project is under control, running smoothly, according to plan, and meets client requirements. As a consortium we have regular checkpoints and meetings to discuss the development of the various stages. All these meetings have full minutes documented and can be found in the appendices of this report (See Appendix A). 13. Report Writing The format for all reports that are documented are as follows:
All documents to be created in Microsoft Word 7.0 format. 14. Dissemination of Results On completion of all projects, Switchblade will document all of the project in the form of a Final Project Report to be handed to the client and shall also be available electronically on our web site. 15. Prototype Development This section of the report is a detailed description of our prototype and describes design issues that we have taken into consideration in creating our web site. For our prototype of our website site Theatreland on-line we have concentrated on only one show, the musical Grease, to portray the features of our final full website. 15.1 Storyboarding The storyboarding allowed us to create site structure diagrams and organisation of our site, to gather our thoughts and ideas and to visualise the flow of movement through the site without coding a single HTML document. (See appendix B for storyboards). The development of our prototype has been based on the ideas and structure of the storyboards that we had already created however the exact content, look and feel of the final version differed as we were able to develop our ideas further whilst actually developing the prototype. 15.2 Design Issues In the development of our prototype, we took into consideration the ease of use, content and quality that have been incorporated in our prototype. Below are features that we have taken into consideration. Consistency It is important that the image of our site is consistent. Throughout our site we have preserved the sites look and feel by making sure that all pages are similar and consistent in terms of the colour, styles and layouts schemes. To establish an appropriate layout for our site we have identified the design parameters and chosen a site metaphor � The Virtual Theatre Experience. This has lead to a presentation style which we have used consistently throughout our site making effective use of visual themes. As mentioned before, we are only concentrating on one show for our prototype. When creating the full site to include all other shows the same presentation style will be used keeping the whole site consistent. Navigation The design and structure of our site includes good visual design techniques, which are pleasing to the eye and make it easy for our users to use. We have used a consistent placement of elements to help the users know where they are in the hierarchy and make it easy for them to navigate to other sections of the site. We have also kept the number of navigational links on our site to a minimum, which will avoid our users getting lost. We have also limited the amount of scrolling that is needed to view our pages. Content We have aimed to keep the content on our pages as clear and concise as possible and not overloading the user with vast amounts of information. We have used language that is familiar to and comfortable for our users, ensuring the information is conversational in its tone. It was decided prior to the prototyping that we should pay more attention to the use of good design and feel rather that the information itself. 15.3 Enhancement of Content Our content of our web pages have been integrated with various modes of hypermedia in order to make our site interactive, to enhance the visual presentation and to create a greater theatre experience for the users. Below are the types of hypermedia that can be found on our site in order to create the virtual theatre experience. Sound We have incorporated sound on our web pages where we feel appropriate. The use of sound has allowed us to take advantage of human senses (i.e. hearing). It will help the user become more comfortable and part of the site adding the element of fun and entertainment. Graphics Most of the graphics on our site have been design by us using various graphics packages. We have kept our graphics as small and uncomplicated as possible using compressed formats such as .GIF and. JPEG. Images Images can be found throughout our web pages on the various sections on the theatre theme and plays. As with graphics we have tried to keep images as small as possible as graphics and images take a long time to download and are often irritating for that reason alone. Animation We have also incorporated the use of animation in the production of our pages to bring in the element of movement, enhancing visual content and to keep the user interested in our site. Our animation has been created using technology such as flash. Hypermedia The above types of hypermedia are used in most web sites to add to the quality and design of sites. We have incorporated the types mentioned above throughout the design of our site. However due to the nature of this site being based on entertainment and the theatre theme, we have got a whole section on �media types� relating to the plays that can be found on at the theatre. For the prototype we have concentrated on the Grease musical. The media types section incorporates various hypermedia representing the particular play i.e. movie clips, soundtracks, pictures, photos, images etc. Throughout the design of our prototype we feel we have made good design judgements in terms of using contrasting colours and attractive layout taking into consideration the amount of white space. There is also a balance in terms the different media used, not going overboard with of the amount of textual and hypermedia content. 15.4 Interactivity & HCI Once a user visits a web-site, how can we be sure that they will stay at the site and/or even return to the site again? This section looks at aspects of interactivity to keep a user interested and involved, and aspects of HCI, which makes the contact between the user, and the screen that they see before them a more fulfilling experience. Interactivity, whilst using the virtual theatre metaphor on a web-site has been captured quite well in the design process. The topology that the site uses provides the user with an on-screen front-end which facilitates their navigation through the experience of touring a 2D theatre. The metaphorical design enables the user to tour the theatre, much as you would in real life, i.e. by focusing on the stage to see the show, or by focusing on the ticket booth in order to view information relating to prices. Using the metaphorical design and in real life these would be true. In addition, by using a standard template throughout the web-site, we feel that issues relating to difficulties of navigation will be over-come. As many of the hyperlinks will be in the form of iconic representations (and since pictures represent a thousand words) the user should always know what area he/she is entering, as well as having text to aid them on their way. The template will aid the user by providing a set of standards within the site, so that when they have visited one section and go to another, they will be interacting with a similar type of "screen feel" but with different content. As discussed earlier, hypermedia, such as text, sound, images, video etc. will provide interactivity to perform the above function, but then, all web-sites use these so how can ours provided a higher level of interactivity? To increase interactivity we may look to include some of the following components into our web-site:
The above are just a few examples of how to improve the sites over-all user interactivity in-order to make it feel more personal to the user. As a suggestion for future opportunities, to further increase user interactivity (amongst other things) we have suggested that we could provide the user with a 3D world rather than our current 2D world. This would lead us away from the general �POINT and CLICK� method of HCI that is generally associated with the Internet. 16. Virtual Metaphors "Virtual reality" has as many definitions as the term "multimedia" has, all of which are right and wrong at the same time. With the current trend in every aspect of web technologies advancing every quarter, a large many of these advancements don�t make for compelling surfing. During the design phase of our web site, it was deemed strategically important if our site offered the user a virtual experience, placing them in Theatreland so that they may enjoy their experience more. To this end, we must evaluate both the technical and the design issues to see how we are to achieve this goal. One of the few technologies that do offer a genuine walk through experience is the aptly named Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML), which is as old as the web itself. This technology has always offered the user the ability to go through walkthroughs and interact with objects, and web pages to become "web spaces". However, this technology is quite "bulky", as download times can be quite long. For the user to truly enjoy a site that is enhanced using VRML, they must have a cable modem or better. To this effect, we will not be using VRML technology to make our site virtual. Therefore we need to look at the other alternatives. Apple�s QuickTime (http://quicktime.apple.com/) has been through many changes since its conception to its current version. One of the new products to come out of QuickTime is called QuickTime VR (QTVR). This extends QuickTime�s usability by transforming the linear video or picture to become a "loop of film". QTVR stitches together pictures to create a virtual world, which the user can either view through a first-person role as if he or she was swivelling a camera around in a 360° arc. The user can also view the scene through a second-person view and walk all the way around the object. In a QTVR clip, it is also possible to add hot-zones, so that the visitor can click through and go somewhere else, either another QTVR clip or an HTML page. However, the developer tools required to create the QTVR files is quite costly, and unfortunately no one in our design company has the knowledge to create and design QTVR files. Another technology quite similar to QuickTime VR is Ipix (formerly known as Photobubble). Ipix is a plug-in that allows you to see full spherical representations from one point of view. Ipix takes 2 back-to-back photographs shot with a fish-eye lens and stitches them together seamlessly. This lets the viewer look all around from one point. The level of user interactivity in this technology is quite limited, and therefore we will not be using this in the creation of our site. On-line Interactive Virtual Reality (OliVR) came from OliVR Corporation, which was recently acquired by Live Picture Inc (http://www.olivr.com/). OliVR is a new image format that goes beyond QTVR to deliver a streaming server-based experience. OliVR features progressive rendering from a special server. When encountering an OliVR image, the user can click anywhere in the image to zoom in and pan around the image, and the server will send the information. However, to make use of this technology, we need to purchase and install the required server, and this is quite costly. As has been shown, to create a virtual experience for the user, current technology is not the answer: it can aid the experience, but if one is to rely on technology alone one will not be able to create a virtual reality experience alone. Therefore we have to look at the design issues involved. Good sites are designed either using a theme or a metaphor. A thematic site is one that uses a consistent theme throughout the web site. Themes can be visual or conceptual. Examples of themes: art deco, typographic, futuristic, etc. A good thematic site is one that is subtle, consistent, and displays good information design. Unfortunately, the concepts behind thematic design make it very hard to create a web-site that gives a virtual experience for the user. The concepts give more emphasis to the creation of a site that pleases the senses while serving the business needs, not to immerse the user in a virtual place. Our site will take some on the concepts of thematic design: the site will need to be consistent throughout, and will need to display good information design, but the design of the site will not incorporate any of the visual or conceptual aspects of thematic design. A metaphorical site pulls in visitors and makes them feel at home whilst giving them something and somewhere to explore. Metaphors are familiar and consistent. Examples of metaphors are museums, environments, comic books, etc. Some sites on the web make good use of their metaphor (e.g. http://www.finemagazine.com), yet others can get so caught up in their use of their metaphor that they forget about their content (e.g. http://www.kidstown.com, http://www.planetoasis.com). A good metaphor places items where the user expects them to be. For example, a good metaphor puts the light switch where you expect to find it, and bad one makes you learn a new set of commands to enter. Some sites use a metaphorical design on their web page, but tend to rely of flash 3d graphics. These designs work well on CD-ROM�s and at high bandwidth, but not with modems. For a metaphor to be effective it needs to be light and effective. To this end, imagery needs to be of a good resolution but at the same time be small in file size. Our site will use a theatre metaphor. Users will be able to find out information about plays by "travelling" to "theatres" by using their "map". The theatre metaphor will translate onto our site by making each "play" web page having the look and feel of a theatre. In the "play" pages, the user will be able to view the following pieces on information about a play:
As the user views specific information on the play the user will see the information in front of him / her in the form of the metaphor (e.g. to view the seating plan the user will see the seating plan as they would at a theatre), but will also see smaller faded icons of the other areas within the theatre they will be able to visit. However, these icons will not just sit on the screen, but will be positioned as if the user has moved towards the seating plan. Everything that was on the left of the seating plan will stay on the left, and the same with everything that was one the right of the seating plan. By using the theatre metaphor, we can create a virtual experience for the user, without having to use any extra fancy and expensive new technology. We have used HTML and Macromedia Flash for the development of our prototype. To create a good virtual reality web-site relies more on design than technology. 17. Copyright Issue As with all of Switchblade projects we bring to our clients attention the legal issues involved in designing such a product. The legal problems raised by the development and use of computers and computer software need to be satisfactorily addressed, providing an equitable framework within which we operate fairly and efficiently. As its name suggests copyright protects works from being copied with out permission. However, copyright goes beyond mere copying and extends to other activities such as making an adaptation of the work in question, performing or showing the work in public, broadcasting work and dealing with copies of work We have to mention the Copyright law in particular, as we have made sure that all our information and details on our designed site is not breaching the Copyright, Designs And Patents Act 1989. We ensure that we have the permission of the owners of rights in the any of the material found on our site that is not a Switchblade copyright. The Theatreland online site is a Trade Mark of Switchblade designs who also own the copyright of the site. No part of this document or details on our Theatreland site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanically photocopying or otherwise without the written permission of SwitchBlade Designs. 18. Project Evaluation The purpose of planning projects is to make sure that they are delivered on time, within budget and of a high quality. Project management and planning are important factors in ensuring that targets and deadlines are met within constraints. Careful planning, organisation and control are vital in carrying out a project like this and Switchblade feel that on the whole we have adhered to the above points and have been successful in producing the deliverables required. In order to achieve the above points the Switchblade consortium for the Theatre On-line project has been managed using various project management methodologies that the group members have had experience in their previous work. We organised ourselves with various roles and responsibilities at the outset of the project. The project manager, who was responsible for the overall project, ensured that everyone involved in the project were aware of where the project is going, what steps were needed to get there and who was to do what ensuring that all objectives and targets were being met. However, each member in the group were also responsible for the their individual contributions and to the way the project should be carried out with the freedom to express their views and opinions on what they thought should be done. All good ideas and suggestions were democratically agreed upon as a group and actions taken accordingly. As a team we worked effectively to make sure that this project was a success and everyone contributed with maximum effort. As with all group work, we did come across a few conflicts and heated discussions. This was mainly due to the differences in opinion of what each individual thought should be done. These were resolved by further in-depth discussions with everyone concerned to put their views forward - the final decisions being jointly made as a group on what the final outcome should be. Meetings were arranged on a regular basis, according to a time and place that suited every member in the group. Meetings were held not only to discuss who does what, but it enabled us to monitor and review smooth progress of the project and making sure that group deadlines and targets were met. This also involved Sachin acting as host at his home where some meetings were held. Meeting minutes were taken at all meetings and can be found in the appendices of this report. The team has worked well together and this is evident in the deliverables produced. We feel our proposal is well thought out and of a high standard and our prototype portrays the virtual experience without the use of VRML. We would like to point out that should more time have been available to us we would have liked to develop our site in much more depth with more shows and theatre experiences to improve our site further. However, the aim of the prototype was to portray that we can use the tools and technologies available to us and that we can apply the things we have learnt in Multimedia - something we feel we have done. Concepts that we have focused on, which we feel support the virtual metaphor include; Bill � The virtual theatre guide. He is the cyber counterpart to the escort that you may find within a �real� theatre. Using a standard template throughout the web site allows us to portray a virtual experience to the end user. The template is based around a �real� theatre concept. For example, you enter via the lobby, and then it is up to you! The end user can either chose to go to the auditorium or to the booking office. The visitor would have the choice of where to go in a real theatre and this method ensures that they have the choice in the virtual theatre. We have looked very closely at the �real-life� theatre experience and tried, wherever possible to find a virtual complement to replicate the experience. Examples here include the use of characters to depict the punters / reviewers of the shows. The typography used, looks away from a modern scheme and focuses on a more classical approach that is generally associated with the theatre. Theatre often induces feelings of mystery, navigation throughout the site helps to portray this. There is no clear cut / visible menu system, however, the menu system is disguised in the form of the template, which allows the user to follow his / her nose. The use of the above has helped us to achieve one of our primary objectives, of making our site, fun, exciting and at the same time informative. In conclusion we feel we have acted in a professional manner in producing a good quality proposal and sample prototype with everyone critically reviewing and contributing as much as each other. All members of the group were equally responsible for the whole project, and therefore feel that marks on this group project should be allocated evenly. 19. Appendices Appendix A - Meeting Minutes Appendix B - Storyboards Appendix C � Sample Screen Shots [Please view documentation] |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
