Desktop Multimedia

Course: 35-2717

Instructor: Andrea Polli

Hours: Wednesdays, 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm Room 423

Telephone Number: (312) 836-5464 Email: apolli@rmcil.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, students will learn effective interaction design using Macromedia Director, a state of the art multimedia authoring program. Students will design and present flow charts using a variety of interface metaphors, and produce two projects that will incorporate the skills learned in this class. Project one will incorporate text, graphics, and interactivity and be deliverable over the web as a shockwave movie. Project two will be a stand alone executable that will be designed for a CD-ROM application. Additional exercises will be required incorporating video and audio into multimedia. Students will be required to show finished work and work in progress in a group critique setting.

TEXTBOOKS AND OTHER INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS: Director 6.0 Demystified A sketchbook for storyboards and flow charts will be required

COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCE MATERIALS:

COMPUTERS AS THEATRE Laurel, Brenda.

THE HUMAN FIGURE IN MOTION and ANIMALS IN MOTION Muybridge, Eduard

DYNAMICS IN DOCUMENT DESIGN Shriver, Karen A.

THE ICON BOOK Horton, William

ARAMIS, THE LOVE OF TECHNOLOGY Latour, Bruno

ART IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION Benjamin, Walter

SYMBOL SOURCEBOOK Dreyfuss, Henry

THE COMPLETE TYPOGRAPHER Perforct, Christopher and Jeremy Austen

ABOUT FACE Cooper, Alan

HYPERTEXT Landow, George P.

QUICKSTART GUIDE TO MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR Persodsky, Andre

INSIDE DIRECTOR Allis, Leo et. al.

COURSE OUTLINE These are suggested topics and are subject to change

WEEKS TOPIC

1 Research: Introduction to the Interactive Design Process Through reading, discussion, and on-line research, students will gain an understanding of the basic design principles of interaction design.

Reading: excerpts from Computers as Theatre

2 Exercise 1: In small groups, students will present examples of interaction design in a variety of formats (CD-roms, kiosks, on-line and/or other formats) available to the public. They will present a user analysis of the effectiveness of this product through a detailed description of their interactive experience.

Technical Demo: The basic Director interface: the stage, score, text, paint, and cast windows. Setting the stage size.

3 Research: Models of Human/Computer Interaction Students will explore a variety of models of human/computer interaction

Reading: Excerpts from About Face

Exercise 2: Students will write a short narrative of an interactive experience based on a singular model of human computer interaction. This narrative will then be re-written based on another model.

Technical Demo: Cast member and score scripts: Controlling Navigation via pause and go to the frame.

4 Research: Interface Metaphors/ Stylistic unity Students will gain an understanding of the method used to structure most effective interactive design, the interface metaphor.

Exercise 3: Students will develop and present a series of interface metaphors for an interactive design project of their choice. Their presentation will include a definition of the goals and description of the audience of the project as well as initial design ideas in the form of sketches.

Technical Demo: Sprite Scripts

5 Research: Navigational Structure Students will break down the content of their interactive design project and begin developing a navigational structure for their project on paper.

Exercise 4: Students will: list all content categories, group things by topic, refine the topic groups, and arrange the groups into a structure. This structure will be presented in the form of a flow chart.

Technical Demo: Rollover buttons

6 Research: Symbology: Buttons and other controls

Reading: excerpts from The Icon Book

Exercise 5: Each student will present a symbol system in use today and discuss its form and effectiveness

Technical Demo: Realistic Buttons, puppeting sound

7 Exercise 6: Each student will present a series of icon, button, symbol, page, and cursor design ideas in the form of finished sketches

Technical Demo: Moveable Sprites, editable fields, intersecting sprites

8 Project #1: Students will create a 'teaser' for their interactive application to be delivered over the web via shockwave

Technical Demo: Shockwave animation

9 Continued work on Project #1

10 Project #1 Critique

Technical Demo: Using quicktime video

11 Project #2: Student will create a stand alone of their interactive application which will be prepared for CD-ROM

Technical Demo: Writing event handlers

12 Continued work on Project #2

Technical Demo: Custom Menus

13 Continued work on Project #2

Technical Demo: Preparing work for CD-ROM

14 Critique Project #2

15 Burn!!

Grading Policy: Projects 60% Participation 20% Final Presentation 20%