Month: November 2019

~Protype feedback~

This week I tested some interview questions, and overall it was not too bad.

What people mostly gave was that my questions need to be a little more focused rather than broad. I was hoping that the questions I created were going to be both broad but focused (if that was even possible). Sadly tho, this was not the case.

Besides that actual questions, the answers that I received were interesting. As the interview when on, people started to realize how annoyed they were getting from just navigating a website. When this started to happen, a light bulb could be seen going off and it made me realize that what I was reading it was true.

Therefore, I need to have a balance of both focused and broad questions to make sure I get the best possible data from people in the future!

~elevator pitch~

Hidden navigation is becoming outdated and hurting the experience of the user. When the navigation is hidden from the user, it brings down the discoverability of the site, e.g. it takes users longer to find information within the site, and the overall metrics, e.g. less time on the page means less money from ads and etc. #BreaktheBurger is my thesis show how badly this element of design is and showing how navigation could look in the future.

Current Pitch

Above is the pitch I tested on people last class, and people had mixed reviews.

Pros:
– under a minute
– easy to understand

Cons:
– no mention of mobile
– longer parts are dry
– hashtag never said before

I presented a new demo in class. It did not go as well as I had hoped.

I made some last minute changes in the mix. This muddied the production and made the vocals unable to be understood. I was hoping that this would be a more “mainstream” sounding mix and I did not achieve what I aimed for. I know if I put more time into it I will be able to achieve it.

There was some criticism for the guitar riff, I think I’m going to change it.

Having a good sound is very important to me. Good sounding music will make it easier for the next stage of the project, the promotion.

Ultimately I learned that I need to spend more time on my mixes and take them seriously. I also learned the importance of listening on different speaker systems before presenting.

For this 2^nd week, I decided to show off some of my script and ask questions about my project. I asked everyone about narrating with voice overs along with subtitles, a recommended time limit, how much of each “stage of abuse” in the cycle should appear to be most effective, and any thoughts on it being interactive. Everyone seemed to agree that there should be voice overs to speed up the process and really help put the user in the story. Of course, this led to a discussion about the kinds of sounds I can include in the story, and I already knew the sound would be a major part of the experience aside from visuals. The general consensus for a time limit was about 10 minutes on average and about 15 minutes absolute max so it isn’t too long to lose interest at the showcase. There wasn’t much agreement on how much should be included from each stage or much of a ratio, but it seems like everyone is very interested in the “gray area” of subtle abuse that people may not realize is bad. I’m going to be working out how I can show that off since sometimes it can be such subtle abuse or gaslighting that even the main character doesn’t process the gaslighting until many many months later or even a year later. That gray area will be important as well to show how easily someone can get trapped into an abusive cycle and not even realize it until they are well out of the relationship and on the road to healing. Something that may help with that is spending more time on the character reflecting on the abuse and all the discoveries of the gaslighting that went on to make the character feel crazy or as if they’re overreacting. Otherwise, there may be an issue of the user not catching on to the abuse at the moment as well if it is so subtle and I spend too much time on it. There won’t be an interactive story in the sense of it containing choices and multiple endings, but I hope to make an interactive environment where maybe if the player looks around enough, they can discover more details behind the story if they’re interested. I could make the whole game short when you simply walk through but have opportunities to uncover more stories and specific details along the way if the player was invested in the story enough. Then at that point, the minimum could be around 5-10 minutes of gameplay that could expand into 15 minutes, or possibly more if the player wishes to spend the time learning more.

Unfortunate news so far regarding my prototype. Things are now in motion due to a story inconsistency that has occurred upon further examination of the plot, and also I was unable to successfully transfer my files into unity. This is only a minor set back as I believe the cause of this issue was due to an error in the saving process. This week I will work on these incursions and will work to remedy this situation pronto. in the meantime I do have my elevator pitch ready to be heard, It goes a little something like this.

“Graphic novels have introduced us to a world of visual literacy that has changed the way people look at different books. Comic books another type of literature that helps the reader see what is going on as they read, but how can we make it more interesting to read and drive the point across that actions are going on? How can we make the experience of reading a graphic novel more personal? Well here’s the answer to that question, interactivity. What I have here is an interactive digital novel that will let you see interesting background information about the characters in the story and also anything you would like to know about by looking within the scenes and discovering the lore behind what is happening on the panels. The more you look within the scenes, the better you will understand what is going on with the comic. With parallax, you can use the mouse to move around the page as it gives it a sense if movement and direction. It’s really interesting to partake in and I think that it will introduce a new and better way of reading graphic novels to a wider audience ready to accept them.”

And there you have it, hopefully this was convincing enough to get you interested.

My second week of prototyping was another drafting sketch – I drew up a few iterations of Bigfoot in different color palettes like light brown, purple, and camouflage. In addition, I also did a design sketch of what Bigfoot’s exhibit room would look like with a tree stump stand, plaster cast of his footprint, native plants to where he’s been spotted, and the patterson-gimlin footage.

A lot of the feedback I got was constructive and thoughtful, but at the same time not necessarily helpful for a project with constrained limits. I got some suggestions to expand on his color palette – what if it was variable by region? In some places Bigfoot is camo, but in others he’s brown. It’s a cool concept, but it also means more work for me when I already have four other cryptids to design and color. In terms of the display room, people also suggested the room change based on the variant, or that he be placed in a “natural” setting such as a forest. Being able to flip a switch and have the room go from museum to woodlands setting would be awesome, but it also sets the precedent that all the other cryptids would have alternative rooms as well. So that’s double the amount of assets for each cryptid’s room, when I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get all five cryptids done in time. Overall, the best advice I received was that you can change the colors of Bigfoot, but you have to include what everyone already knows about the cryptid. So I feel confident in changing his color palette to something funny like camouflage, but I have to make sure his height, stance, and fur are all recognizable elements that still identify him as Bigfoot on first glance.

For the second week, I had two main goals for my prototype: try to make it output songs with more than one note, and get a dedicated system to run the program and train the model.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get an output song that utilized more than one note, but I was able to get my hands on a Raspberry Pi to use as a dedicated system. However, I ran into some issues while trying to set up the SD card with the operating system and libraries I would need to run my program.

For the last week of prototyping, I intend to stick with my plan of transcribing some songs for my program to use (once it starts working correctly).

For this week I have more choices for logos, a definitive brand with strategy, a definitive name, and a few other things. I started using illustrator about two weeks ago, and I have definitely seen a little bit of progress. The font that I decided on which is being used in the blue background logos below, and the red background logo below, is called “flottflott” and it is free for commercial use. The other fonts I played around with are “airstream,” “buffalo-nickel,” and “teamspirit.” I got the idea from a font I have seen used on baseball jerseys and clothes centered around the sport. I really liked the way the letters roll together almost like cursive. As I stated before, I checked the availability of LLC names here: https://www.njportal.com/DOR/businessrecords and found out that “Origin Productions” is available. For domain names, i went to GoDaddy and found out that originproductions.com is not available but origin-productions.com or originproductionsnj.com are both available. The last big thing I have left to do is figure out how I actually want to lay out the website so that it makes sense, and isn’t just randomness with no structure, and for that I have a few ideas.

For my second prototype I worked a lot on the branding for the name and the logos for the business. I wasn’t able to make class, but attached are some of the logos I came up with. I decided that i want to go with “Origin Productions” because it implies the story-telling elements that I wanted to be included and productions does a good job of implying there is some video going on, but it is open-ended enough to where I could slightly change things later. I had to pick a font that was free for commercial use so I made sure to find one that matched the style I wanted while still being up for use, legally.

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For November 11th, I brought to class my ideas for the small business I wanted to start, how I wanted to present, and some ideas for names. I decided since I want to do story-telling through creative video and be able to tell people’s stories and how they got to where they are today, I was tossing around “Origin” and different variations of that name. Having started an LLC before with a name that wasn’t very clear on what we do I wanted something this time around that made more sense. Some of my ideas were “Origin Video,” “Origin Media,” “Origin Productions,” and so on. I had ideas for presenting that I didn’t really like, such as having a giant poster-board that outlines all the basic steps of starting a small business, or doing a video series about it. Lastly, I brought to class the vision that I had for the business which was doing commercial video to fund creative video.