LUCY: Flash MP3, Banner and Photos

If you click on the photo, you'll be able to see the latest design ideas I have for Lucy's website.

The MP3 player was entirely made by myself using photoshop and flash with action script.

I've created a DIV with a background image which includes the pins, and then created a DIV inside that with the Flash content, making it look as though it's a single image. I've also done this with the "Lucy Ward" title banner.

By using action script 3, I've been able to create a simple music player that can player up to 4 external songs, with skip feature, play/pause and volume control.

Where the photographs are on the right hand side, it is infact a flash banner, where the user rolls over each photo and some information is displayed about Lucy herself.

Future design ideas:
I want to create another box above or below the main content text area in the centre to include either a regular twitter feed or her latest video news. This may be an area where I can include my PHP database.

Dan Saffer: 'Interaction design is an applied art' August 13, 2008

http://www.designinterviews.com/interviews/interaction-design-is-an-applied-art

Reading this interview with Dan Saffer was really interesting to see how someone who works as an Interactive Designer thinks and uses his time.

What I thought was just as interesting is how similar Dan Saffer is to myself. I found myself agreeing with almost everything he said. On comments I hadn't thought about on my own, I read what he had to say and found myself understanding and wanting to know more about what he had to say. For example,

"What are the core elements of an interaction that web designers measure during the creating process?

Usefulness, usability, and desirability. If your design fills a need in people's lives, works well, and looks beautiful, you've got design gold. There are lots of secondary characteristics that fall under these headings, like efficiency and balance and trustworthiness and a whole host of other traits, most of which can only be fuzzily measured but are important nonetheless."

This was really interesting for me as its gives you 3 main aspects to try and work towards when designing for interaction and general application of creative skill. Usefulness, usability and desirability are the essence of design within the industry and can be applied to almost any interactive content. Even on something such as an electric hand dryer. Usefulness as the user has wet hands and doesn't need to press the button. Usability is simple as the user only has to place their hands under the dry and desirability is there too as it's novel and makes us feel ever so slightly more technically advanced, life's simple pleasures comes to mind.

I also found Dan Saffer quite inspiring in terms of his principles he follows in his work,

'The Way you know is not The Way.' –Tao Te Ching

'A body in motion tends to stay in motion.' Newton's First Law

'If it was easy, then everyone would do it.'

Reading these three really struck a cord with me. Recently in my personal life the first of the three has been quite a prominent feature and something I will have to work on to change, so it was refreshing to see it written by someone else completely unrelated. Also, I think that all 3 of the statements are very true. At the end of the day, if you're working hard and pushing yourself continually with the ability to critically analyse yourself, you're going to go far and develop as a designer and that's why were at University, to learn, change and advance.

Latest Showcase Render

The video shows my latest render of my New York City street.

The camera zooms down right to the end of the street and looks up slightly. My avatar will walk down the street and wave, until a user clicks on him or clicks on a window to load another interactive object.

My box - With button!

My Box - With button by ~sammarshall20 on deviantART

Look at my sexy box! lol! I've managed to create the box, with a working button! To say I had never used flash before I started at NTU, I think I'm doing incredibly well!

My Box - Flash Creation

Flash Box by ~sammarshall20 on deviantART

Here is the beginning of my flash box. My next step is to learn how to create a button so the box opens, only when you click the handle (which i also need to create!)

But this is just so show the simple idea I have so far.

As you can see, I took the same sort of design of the box I found on google in the post below, but I've built this box entirely myself in Photoshop and implemented it into flash. I prefer to frontal view and I think it will help me a lot when it comes to putting virtual objects inside it.

Essay Hell

Well it has to be said that I hate writting essays with an absolute passion and the one we've been set is no different.

Usually, I generally know what I can write about for my essays and can wack one out pretty quickly. However, this time I had absolutly no idea what was require from the essay question and no idea about how to find out, I was stuck and lost in a world of words and phrases I had never come accross before.

After swapping various emails with one of our lecturers, and getting a book out at the library, researching a few practitioners, I'm finally getting my head around the question.

I'm setting this week, 1st - 7th December, aside to research for my essay, and next week, 8th - 14th December, to write my essay. This gives me one week to have as a cusion incase anything goes horribly wrong.

On top of my essay, I have to actually think about our current project on Interactive Narratives AND produce a presentation of my best work, it's going to be one heck of a busy few weeks! I just hope there's no work set over Christmas!

Nokia - The Morph Concept (300 - 500 Word Essay)

Nokia Research Centre have been working with the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre to create and invest into Nanoscience technologies.

The Morph Concept technologies could take the mobile phone and increase it's usability and functionality with various new ideas including flexible and transparent materials which will bend and shape enabling to wear your phone like a watch or wristband. Other technologies include the ability to self-clean, self preserve, and even charge the battery through absorbing solar power to charge smaller and long lasting batteries. The concept's technologies also hope to include various sensors which will tell us about the environment and enables us to make more informed decisions about our diets and what the weather is like for example.

All of these new technologies are going to let us communicate in more exciting ways, in a smaller space by enhancing the usability of such a small device. By stretching the phone, the user can create various shapes like having a more square design for a music player, rectangle for the phone or even bend then phone back on itself to wear as a wristband.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Morph Concept is it's ability to sense the surroundings, a good example could be taking an apple and eating it, but the phone will alert you that the fruit requires washing before consumption.

A similar project that Nokia are working on is the Aeon concept. These phones aren't as aspirational as the Morph Concept but I see it as bridging the gap between the two, and one day in the future, our phones will no doubt be just like the Morph Concept. Not much is known about the Aeon concept other than the phone is touch screen and possibly splittable into two parts. Nokia labs are experimenting with the technology and design so there's no definitive answer.

The impact these two concepts has on the industry, mobile or not, could be incredible. The ability for electronic devices, especially portable ones, to be able to guide us in our every day lives could prove essential in the future as we become a nation cautious about health and well being.

I believe the impact the phones will have on the market could be massive. The iPhone has rocketed in success and that only offers the ability to surf the Internet where ever you are and includes touch screen capabilities. The Morph Concept offers so much more than that, and if this is the way technology is going, over the next 10 years, we could have computers telling us who to be friends with by analysing our phone calls and face to face conversations, the possibilities are tremendous.

Sources:
Nokia: http://www.nokia.com/A4852062
YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-gTobCJHs
Ubergizmo: http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/05/nokia_aeon_concept_goes_live.html
Mobile Whack: http://www.mobilewhack.com/nokia-aeon-concept-phone/
Engadget Mobile: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/10/08/nokias-aeon-full-surface-screen-cellphone-concept/