Week 7
Mar. 15 – Mar.19
Last week we made some changes to our production process, and had the designers push out decisions much earlier. For our version 2, we changed he concept from music record vinyl to DVDs. The record player was changed to a futuristic projector. We also used official fonts and colors of The HistoryMakers.
Part 1 was modified to use drag controls instead of buttons, and included a “playlist” of other HistoryMakers that match the same filters. An introduction was added, as was animation to the projector. Based on client and playtesting feedback on interaction, camera angles were adjusted to allow the video to play larger, the filters were given labels, and the layout of filter values was adjusted to a user could see multiple options for a single filter (i.e. 1920-1950 instead of just 1920).
Part 2 was modified to follow our original inspiration for the part more closely (this website). Instead of organizing by Maker category, the portrait tiles are organized around a large central tile. When transitioning to part 2, the HistoryMaker displayed part 1 shows up as the central tile in part 2. The smaller tiles surrounding it are the “other matches.” And the rest are other HistoryMakers with decreasing relevancy to the filters selected in part 1. We also included a simplified version of the filters from part 1.
Playtesting
Still compiling info.
ETC Halves Presentation
The ETC has presentations halfway through the semester where the rest of the ETC faculty can learn about our project goals and progress, as well as ask questions and provide feedback. From our feedback, it is clear there is still a lot of work to do in order to deliver a polished cross-platform experience. The two parts seem to overlap too much and it was not clear how our solution directly addressed the design pain points and client needs.
Client Meeting
We had our client meeting this week without our instructors. The client generally liked the interaction changes we made, but we still had a problem with missing some details that took some time out of our meeting.
Additionally, the client was still pushing for a more robust search and filter functionality, and we struggled to make it clear that our solution leaves that out by design (based on our playtesting and user research, our demographic is overwhelmed when presented with too many unfamiliar choices). The client was also unclear about how our deliverable would be integrated with The HistoryMakers website/digital archive, and the team was unsure if we had misunderstood the problem from the very beginning, or if the client had forgotten some agreements we came to earlier. Our faculty advisor helped clear things up over email afterward.
Lessons Learned and Next Steps
From our most recent client meeting, it was clear that we have not effectively communicated our approach to addressing their problem thus far. We’ve decided to have a brief written document of our design and direction to make sure everyone is on the same page, and does not forget the outcome of previous discussions (for both client and team). In addition, we are considering including a recap of last week’s meeting and prototype, so we understand what is relevant to discuss this week.
Our big challenge ahead of us is finding a strong concept for the second part and developing striking visuals for the first part. Because of how much time we have left, these must be done quickly, we must continue development on our current product while coming up with significant design changes that don’t require changing the technical infrastructure.
More specific areas of work ahead include:
- Beginning work on non-placeholder art assets
- More iteration on interactive elements
- Playtesting and design of the mobile experience
- More detailed and thoughtful design of part 2
- Incorporation of data visualization aspects into part 2