Orientation

ORIENTATION
What is this course about?

THE FOCUS OF THIS COURSE

The title "Writing for Multimedia" is misleading. A better title would be Multimedia Design and Development, because that is precisely what we will be doing. This course is about the role of the designer & developer in multimedia, a role which requires you to be something of a jack of all trades. Basically your role will entail:

First of all you must know how to program, even though you may not be a programmer. In the field of multimedia development programming skills are essential if one is to achieve even modest interactive results. Nevertheless, in this course programming skills are merely means to an end: namely, the realization of your design solution. They are not the end in themselves -- they are not the solution.

You must know how to use the various software tools -- Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, Director, etc. -- that will enable you to actually fabricate and combine the various media elements that will comprise your solution.

In many cases you may need to contribute to the shaping of the actual content. While perhaps not a content-specialist, you will make content-related decisions, and effect how the content is interpreted and received.

Finally, you must be a designer. In order to realize an interactive multimedia project via the activities mentioned above, you must have a design concept to develop. Although a design concept is in many ways a sort of blue-print for guiding the development of a product, it is not always the case that development begins when and where design ends; rather, in practice the activities of design and development often influence each other.

THE PROCESS OF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

A solution to the problem of making an interactive multimedia product does not come as an epiphany, where one moment there exists only a problem, and the next moment, its solution appears. Perhaps small parts of projects may resolve themselves in this fashion, but because of their complexity, entire projects do not.

Designing and developing multimedia projects is an iterative process (not a singular event). This entails making many steps, rather than one leap, and also that you proceed with intention and purpose (according to some method or model). Adopting an iterative approach with phases of activity will: (1) organize and better use your time and efforts, (2) divide your project into smaller attainable sub-goals, and (3) provide the opportunity for continuous feedback on your ideas.

The design and development process model that we will follow consists of 7 components, steps or phases:

Information gathering: consulting with your project content advisor and learning about his or her goals for the project; locating and collecting content such as text, video clips, and images.

Defining the problem: composing a verbal statement of the purpose of the product with respect to content goals and the audience that is to receive the content, and any specific problems to be addressed by the design solution. Basic information organization should be achieved via creating content brainstorm lists and flow-charts.

Preliminary concept development: concept sketches (hand or computer) demonstrating layout, navigation and interface possibilities.

Concept development: development of working prototypes based upon most promising preliminary concepts

Final concept refinement: the development of a fully functional design solution.

Refined problem definition: composing a revised verbal statement of the purpose of the product. This document should act as a guide to your final product and reflect any changes in your design goals that were made as a consequence of the design process itself.

Presentation and critique: the concise, clear and articulate presentation of your final solution, including reference to you problem definition and any other necessary supportive material (sketches, concept development, etc.).

THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK

E.E. Cummings once wrote: "Any apparent somewhere which you may inhabit is always at the mercy of a ruthless and omnivorous everywhere."

This thought applies to you: Do not mistake your vision for the limits of the world. You are not normal, nor average. You have certain preferences, biases physical abilities/disabilities, and a unique and personal experiential world. Thus, what appears right for you may not be right for others, and definitely will not be right for all. On that note you should expect criticism -- even ask for it. Make use of any opportunity for feedback. Chances are you will get it anyway -- and in the form of negative, rather than constructive criticism. Thus, you should be prepared for criticism, and most importantly, be prepared to defend your idea.

This thought applies to what you make: Your medium consists of multiple machine types, browsers, monitor sizes, display resolutions, color capabilities, operating systems, memory configurations, all of which, if not considered in advance, will often reap unsympathetic effects on your product.

Therefore, you should strive to create an appropriate solution. In this field, solutions are rarely if ever entirely right or wrong, but rather, more or less appropriate (with the more appropriate solutions approaching what can be called good or correct solutions). Appropriateness is determined in accordance with the context of the design problem, which consists of 2 factors: the goals of the content and the audience receiving that content. To determine appropriateness, you must initially use your own judgment. But then you want to test the concept and the usability of your idea on other people. In this class we haven't the resources, nor the time to do formal user testing, but we can create a fair facsimile through:

one-on-one review

peer review

working with your client

critique by professionals

THE GOALS OF THIS COURSE

Everyone cannot be a master of all the tools and techniques by the end of this course, but you can become productive. At the course's end, it is my goal that students acquire experience designing and developing real projects with an actual client, and have real work that demonstrates a certain knowledge and ability (web pages, director movies, etc.). Currently the market for these kinds of skills and abilities, in industry and academia is incredible. Several of my students from previous years (one of which, had no experience in multimedia development prior to enrolling in the course) have secured well-paying and promising positions since taking this course. To secure these positions you must be able to demonstrate both experience and know-how. This course is designed to give you just that by:

teaching you ways of organizing and designing information for a multimedia product

teaching you the necessary tools and skills of multimedia development

giving you in-context experience working on real multimedia projects, with real clients

resulting in a tangible product or products that demonstrate your abilities as both a designer and developer