09.27.07
making site 2
it never ceases to surprise and puzzle me as to where time goes… i spent an entire day on the computer, doing nothing – no reading, no anime, no going out, no… well, i can’t say no internet, but still – nothing other than trying to work on website, which incidentally is due in a week…. but i haven’t seem to have done much considering the amount of time i put into it….
but i did manage to finish my CSS from yesterday – tha’s one of the harder parts done – and i did spend all yesterday photoshopping some screen shots for the “revised design”…. today i put all these together to make the ‘features’ page of my website. i didn’t really need to change the main page, so that’s there to stay… the concept page i think i might need to change or get rid of – it seems a bit pointless there… i still need to add an ‘optional stuff’ page’ and do the evaluation…. ah well…. i’m tired, so that’s it for today…. may regret it tomorrow though… we’ll see….
09.22.07
midsem break…
wow, it’s mid-semester break already… know what that means? we’ve got something like 4 weeks till end of semester and this to hand in, our 3D final assignment to hand in and one more 15page history report to hand in… oh it’s gonna be FUN!
But it’s been a while since i’ve blogged so i’ll tell you exactly where i’m at….
i think i might have mentioned that there’s been a total shift in focus since my interviews with users – my product is no longer a flight simulator – cos i found that a certain group of users will not use the product at all – it is now both a flight and driving RC sim with a bit of an RPG element in it. I have introduced a ’shop for your model’ feature to it… which i think is pretty cool and i can’t believe i didn’t think of it in the first place….
i have abandoned the idea of 3D modelling the RC vehicles… i think i may just photoshop some photos of the real things cos it’s just too hard with the number of components in them…. that’s more of a DECO1008 thing and even for that i am not going to attempt it… not with the 4 weeks till it’s due anyway :P Although i think i might model something easier like the dispay unit or something (i still haven’t figured out what to do about that – Users, decide on something!!)
oh! i’ve found out that apparently the wireless controller for the playstation 3 works on bluetooth – so it is totally feasible that my iphone thing should connect to a bluetooth device like a laptop – if users really didn’t want to use the headset…. but if they did – bluetooth’s still the way to go! :)
hmm… what else do i think…? did i mention i really am not that fond of web design? just then i was making myself read up on javascript… yay…. you know, florence and i were sitting through the one hour tute on thursday about javascript and at the end of it we realised we didn’t even know what javascript was? i do now though – it’s “script that adds functionality to an html document”…. something like that….
anyways, i believe i’ll get working on the second mini site now….
09.14.07
slightly less confused
never mind the confusion, the website’s uploaded now and it appears to work… it validates so that has to count for something right? that’s all i really needed to say actually….
09.12.07
so confused….
hmm…. i have been subconsciously evaluating everything at every step…. and now i’m kind of confused cos i can’t really separate the stages of my evaluation now… like i interview someone, they give me suggestions, i think about the suggestion and decide its a good one, i then incorporate it into my interview for the next person to get their opinion on the idea… if its good, then i include it in the prototype development…
but apparently as we understand it, we gather user requirements and get their feedback on the idea and then develop the prototype… the evaluation from the prototype then goes towards the development of the next mini site….
hmm…. i’ll try my best….
09.11.07
APEC Productivity
i suppose if anything, the APEC long weekend – which for me btw was not the 5-day weekends that some people enjoy, had to work – gave me the time to sit down and think about my design a lot more… but then last night i had to condemn myself to lack-of-productivity by signing up to facebook… probably the ultimate in procrastination techniques…
anyways, i have been developing prototypes. Firstly, rather than using index cards, a more familiar method that does the same job is a flow chart. Basically i mapped out how different options link up and lead to each other e.g. start screen -> choose fly or drive -> options… i’ll scan the good copy in for my site. i can get the original copy, when i get to a scanner – mine’s been currently replaced by a colour laser printer… give my scanner back!
i have also fiddled around with photoshop in making some prototype screencaps which i think look okay… these will also go into my site.
i’ve interviewed rc users and got some good info and suggestions e.g. don’t limit to flying, include driving too, inclusion of a virtual shopping concept…. and also some stuff about whether these potential users would use the product… i won’t put everything i found out here cos then there’ll be nothing interesting left to read in my site :P
what else… i changed the header on my site… hope i did stuff right in terms of the code… it’s still not uploaded so again, don’t go looking for it just yet ;)
09.07.07
interview’s the way to go
it’s tough to change old habits eh? Ah well, my general rule is that “if it’s not there, i didn’t not do it” so pretend you didn’t see the part about me questionnaire-ing people :P nah, jk jk. it’s all part of the process isn’t it?
Point is i’ve tried writing a questionnaire for people to do, but i discovered the reason it was exceedingly hard – it’s cos questionnaire is not the way to go for my particular project (funny that, i’ve always though questionnaire could be used for anything – but not for this!). It’s too hard to devise questions that can have so many answers. If i did that, i’ll need different questions for people who have used RC, who want to but haven’t used RC, people who’ve used flight sims… and there aren’t enough accessible users to ask all that, so i might as well just interview them individually!
So my solution? Interview several people to get a couple of really good, actually informative stuff, rather than trying to ask lots of people some rather illogically structured questions. And also note that my project does not suit other people’s trend of single-question polls. “Do you use RC? Yes” means nothing to me ;)
Um, i’ve also got something that looks like a website… i still don’t quite know how to do anything fancy to it (i don’t think we’re meant to yet?) i mean, as long as the links work, and the info is there (eheheh…*sweat drop*) it’s good enough for me at this stage. it’s not uploaded yet so don’t go looking for it :P
So yeah, interviewing will commence today… as soon as my interviewee stops stressing about his own assignments… get back to you soon ;)
09.05.07
And yet another…
you’ll probably be happy to know that i have dedicated the whole APEC long weekend to doing DECO1200 stuff. I have got questions for my questionnaire, i’m just trying to structure it in a way that is logical. it’s actually a lot harder than i first thought. i’m beginning to think i need 2 separate questionnaires – one for people who are actually into RC and one for people looking into getting into RC. and then i need categories for questions – RC in general, radios, flight sims, then my iphone app specifically… sigh…
