Design

The past couple of weeks have been spent working out the design for the project. There are two phases for the design. First, the general outline of the webpage (for now) that will serve as the platform for accessing the modules.

The second phase has been the more detailed portion of the design. It includes laying out exactly how each module will be delivered. Here is the process that I followed.

1. I transcribed the audio that my site supervisor provided for me. This took quite a bit of time (even with my better than average typing skills).

2. I sorted out the transcribed notes into eight large categories. From here, I wrote the narrative for each of the modules. This was very much like writing a research paper. I had not anticipated this type of research work. At this point, these narratives are still being tweaked and edited between me and the site supervisor.

3. With the draft of the narrative in hand, I began to outline the frames of the demonstration. One thing that I realized at this point is that I will be able to reuse many of the illustrations that I will create between the modules. The other thing that I had to consider is how to draw attention to various parts of the illustration. I've decided to use thickened lines in transparent colors to do this.

4. While drawing out the storyboards, I discovered that some of the draft modules had too much information in them. So, this helped me to consider new modules for smaller amounts of information.

5. An important decision that I made was to have the audio created ahead of the modules. I think it will be easier to match the images and animatioin to the audio than to match the audio to the animations.

I'm starting to see how this will come together, but it is a lot of work.

Project Update

Things are going well with my internship project. It took a little longer than I expected to get the recordings (notes) from my site supervisor. We had a little problem getting the recordings to upload from his computer. While we were trying to resolve that, I spent a good deal of time trying to build my graphics skills. I found several resources Ai Vault, Bitt Box and Lynda.com The first two were free. I subscribed to Lynda.com for $25 per month. So far, it has been well worth. I can watch videos on whatever I need.

I've divided the notes from my site supervisor into about four or five topics that will become the modules. The nice thing about having him record the notes with the pen is that he's pretty much drawn out what each "lesson" should look like. The drawings are fairly simple, so I feel like with the skills that I am gaining in Illustrator, I'll be able to reproduce the drawings with no problem.

The next thing that I will need to do is finalize the decision about how these lessons will be built. Right now, Flash is the front runner. I think it will be easiest to have the audio created first. Then I can adjust the animation to what is being said.

The next thing to be done is to make some solid decisions about the design of all of this.