Assignments

Information on these assignments will be updated throughout the semester. Check below for the dates on new additions.

Leading up to your major project, there will be two assessable deliverables.

Project Plan - Week 7(12/04)

You have days left.

Any decent multimedia work must be properly planned. This assignment involves preparing an initial (written) plan of your final project - the online experience.

Assignment Details - Now available.

Reference - Chapter 2

Prototype - Week 10 (08/05)

You have days left.

Assignment Details - Now available.

The prototype will be developed in the applications required (put together as a web site), with accompanying documentation to be printed out (made in whatever you wish).

Reference - Chapter 7

Testing

In between the prototype and your finished project, you will do some user testing using testing sheets you develop yourself. Feedback from this testing should be implemented in your final product, and will be part of the assessment for it.

17/05 - Create one testing sheet (preferably a single page) that allows for 'testers' to evaluate your prototype (or what you're up to now). Design the sheet according to the important factors that you think need to be evaluated. You will be marked on the quality and suitability of the sheet you create.

You should then get 2 (two) different people to test your prototype for 5-15 minutes each, filling out the sheet you provide. Choose people who you think would make good testers. You will explain why they were chosen as good testers in your Documentation (below).

You will be expected to respond to the results of the user feedback (fix broken bits, implement suggestions if possible...). More info in the Documentation section below.

Reference - Chapters 7 & 8

Major Project - Week 13 (28/05)

You have days left.

You will create an online multimedia site using all of the software covered by this subject.

You should find (yourself) a unifying theme or topic for your project so that it is not a collection of unrelated bits, but one online experience.

• You need to choose something significant that you can feasibly have all of the necessary elements for - e.g. can you think of a Director game for your site?
• It can be entirely fictional.
• It must be useful in some way (even if it is for entertainment purposes.
• A personal home page is not acceptable.
• If you are unsure of your topic, please ask Lindsay about it.

{read what the Internet Eye Magazine has to say about "web experiences"}

You need to keep a resource sheet for all of the media you use in your project (start it now, not at the end).
Details are on the assignment 2 page.

You can make changes to your plans (assignments 1 and 2), but these must be recorded in the documentation for the major project. Include what you changed and the reasons for any changes (e.g. if your game was going to be simple because you thought you couldn't do anything with Director, and then you learned heaps and so you made it cooler.).

Your project will contain (but not be limited to):

• Splash screen made with Freehand & Photoshop (this can be anywhere within your project)
• Flash intro with ACID-made loop (short)
• Dreamweaver-made web site
• Fireworks web graphics
• Flash navigation system (within site)
• JavaScript functions (simple)
• Director-made Shockwave game(s)
• ACID-made song (longer)

The requirements above are more in terms of components to make and use than particular parts to your design. You work out where to put them (unless otherwise told).
e.g. the "splash screen" is a large image that looks cool. It could be at the very start of your web site, or as the credits page, or perhaps a downloadable wallpaper...
the others are the same - put them where they fit :)

Documentation

Your documentation for the project should include:

• Title Page (Name, Student Number, Login, Date, Assignment/Subject details... )
• Executive Summary (like an abstract)
  Essentially (in brief) what the project is and why (one or two farily short, concise paragraphs).
• Plan Update (if different from prototype)
• Testing
  In this section you are to explain how you tested the product, with who, why you chose them... as well as summarising the results and explaining how you responded to the feedback.
  Include the two actual sheets used (or clear copies of them).
• Resource Sheet (as for prototype, but updated)
• Contents Sheet (as for prototype, but updated)
  Here you can also specify any instructions for the marker - e.g. the preferred browser for marking.

Submission

In a plastic sleeve or envelope include your printed documentation and your electronic files.
Label everything!

Hand in a ZIP disk or CD-ROM containing ALL of the files actually used in your project (not ones you were planning on, but didn't). This includes the source files where applicable (example the .fla file as well as the .swf).

Please place them in one top-level directory called SurNameFirstNameCP2010 - e.g. SmithJohnCP2010. (Note that this is different naming to the prototype.)

This should be handed in to Lindsay (in person, or in the labeled box outside TG129 (Lindsay's office) on Monday 28th, or earlier.