The Design Process consists of 4 main 'categories' (couldn't think of a better word)
- Discovering;
This would be the initial thoughts process, getting the inspiration, getting ideas through research, your own previous projects or other ideas past or present, gaining an insight into the brief and considering all options for something you could/would want to develop further as a final design. Any possible solutions for problems that you could develop, analyzing research and users and seeing what a user would be interested in or would enjoy. This is the first process into developing what you want to develop and you cant really develop anything without having the idea, and an idea doesn't just appear.
- Developing;
This is the next step, once the idea has been finalized you then develop that idea, plan exactly how you want it to be used, grow on the initial idea until you are happy with it and then develop concepts and prototypes to see if it works.
- Defining;
This is the Validation stage, once you have developed the design then there's the acceptance test, show it to users and ask them to give feedback on the design, see if they can use it and if they are actually interested. Once feedback is gained then further development may be needed, refine the design until the user is happy.
- Delivering;
Once the design is finished then there is the evaluation, show the design to the users and look at the effectiveness and the impact it has on them. Any final testing that may be needed before any official 'launch' of the Design. Once any feedback has been covered and the final approvals have been done then the design will be ready for official viewing.
The design process for my interactive narrative began as soon as we got the brief;
"produce an interactive narrative using still images in flash, using a branching structure that forces the user to make a number of decisions as they progress through the narrative"
we were told that narrative was the primary concern in the piece, meaning the interactive piece had to follow some form of story it couldn't just be a random set of images that have no relation with each-other, there had to be some sort of sequential structure which would allow the user to follow the narrative and take part interactively.
I had previously had no experience within flash but i have obviously gone through design processes for graphic design, and i studied film and media studies and within film studies, we created a short film, and that also required going through a design process.
within writing this process, i am going to explain my design process, but for both of my interactive pieces, as i did complete 2 very different interactive narrative's, i would like to share exactly how i went from start to finish with both of these, as they are very different and the thought processes were quite different for both, even if they are both using pretty much the same interactive options.
To make this easier, i will colour code.
"The Car" will be in blue.
"Meet my Flatmates" will be in grey.
I began the process, as i said, when first got the brief, we were asked to jot down some initial ideas and we had around an hour in the lesson to think of something. Because we only had an hour, and they probably weren't going to be the final ideas, this was just a thinking process to get our minds working and to see what we could think of, and if we could think of anything in that hour, then it shouldn't be hard to think of even better ideas later on.
The way i initially think of ideas is to just look at what is around me and expand on a particular product, but only as an initial thought, with that in mind, the first thing i noticed was my mobile phone, and so straight away i thought of how my phone could be used within an interactive narrative, and the idea of dismantling my phone and putting it back together came to mind, and i thought of an interactive piece where the user would have several options to construct a phone and put it back to its original state, and get it working. I think subconsciously i wanted the user to learn how to get something to work, the same way i have to learn how to put something together in flash for the first time, make the user feel my pain.
That was my first idea, and nothing grew past stage 1, I didn't develop that idea past the initial thought process.
Discovering
Once i went home, I was inspired for another idea, pretty much as soon as i walked into my room...
yes i do have a love for cars, and so that was the next major idea i thought of, having lots of car posters in my room, and on my desktop, i was inspired to do something related to cars, and 1 thing i love about cars is the customization of them, and i always like to design things that i personally enjoy, so i thought why not make an interactive piece about customizing a car to suit your own style, i knew i would enjoy that.
For the flat mates flash, i simply thought about a way of introducing my flat mates to people. I'm always with them so the idea just came to mind about a way of using them in my narrative. It just grew from pictures of them > open their doors interactively > see them all in the same pose with a possibility of something interactive in their room.
Developing
I had seen the way car companies do their own versions of the car customizing feature on their websites, so the basic idea was already out their, i just had to make mine my own version and my own layout without copying them. The idea was originally to create a car that has changeable features, the only way i knew how to make each image work was to create every possibility of the car customized through photoshop, so i created a black car with 7 different wheels, then red etc. all together there are 70 different variations of the car, this took a long time but was worth it at the end. I then imported these to Flash and through development i created an initial prototype just to see how it would work and after trial and error i eventually got the first version working.
This only needed 13 images, 12 of which were photographs and 1 was the start page with the graphic doors. So after choosing how i wanted everyone to stand and where to position the laptop (which would be the interactive feature within their rooms) i imported these images to Flash, and created the start page on photoshop. Since I had done the car, it was a lot easier to produce this one as i had got the hang of it and it was basically using the same code.
Defining
After the first prototype and seeing that it worked, i then created the full version with the full interactive capabilities, being able to change the wheels and the colors individually and being able to mix and match. Then once that was working, making the layout a bit nicer, having individual bubbles of colour across the bottom in order to change the colour of the car, and clicking either wheel to change the wheels. At this point i was happy and with positive feedback from some people i felt it was completed.
Because i had done the car, I did this one without a prototype, i literally just made it straight from scratch to finish and considering i completed in within a day, including photo taking, i felt quite proud of this. I also included the laptop's interactive feature, this meaning you can click the screen and go to another page with a description of that person. Again after good feedback from my flat-mates, i felt this was ready for the 3 week deadline.
Delivering
I Posted both of the interactive narratives within a few days of each-other, and both received good feedback, especially considering the short deadline worked under. I do feel like the car could be improved by adding separate buttons for the wheels so you can choose exactly which wheel you want, but i feel the Flat-mates flash needs more work as it looks a bit rushed, I want to include more functions and possibly include a better layout, out of the 2 i would say I'm happier with the car flash.
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