theories-and-practice-of-interactivity-yijens-final-paper

   From the journal entries, I have been learning and observing many different aspect of interactive media design from the readings, guest speaker, and class lectures. I really enjoy doing these assignments because they forced me to review what I learned from the class and then organize my thought each week. After writing the journal entries, I know more about interactive designs which exist around my life and absorb knowledge of interactive media design. Moreover, it is a good way to clearly express my thought without feeling nervous. I always want to contribute my opinion into class discussion, but my ability of English is not good enough to let me catch up the topic immediately and then react quickly. Therefore, I took notes about the class content and put my opinion into these journal entries. I think it is a good chance for international students to express their opinion.

 Here is what I learned from each journal entry.

    In journal 1, I organized the principles of game design after reading the textbooks. It is important to learn the principles because games are the most common interactive design. Moreover, in the article by Song and Lee (2007), the computer game industry has become the fastest growing field of the entertainment industry, but only a very small number of computer game products except Wii, PS series, and XBOX, overcome the costs of production and generate earnings. To know more about the principles of game design, it will be easier to design a game which fits players’ need. I may not work in game companies in the future, but I think these principles can be applied to many interactive media.

    The journal 2 analyzed the website design of Virgin American Airline and compared the website designs of its competitors. This assignment taught me a lot what the key elements of a successful website should have. It is important for me to know the elements because I am learning how to design a website by myself in this quarter. After analyzing these websites of famous companies, I know how to avoid creating a bad website and design a user-friendly website. For example, in general, I will make the interface simple (Maeda, 2006) and use more icons instead of texts. Therefore, users can easily understand what these buttons mean even though some of them probably don’t understand English.   

    The journal 3 described the elements for XBOX’s success based on my observation and the speech of Shelley, who is the Interaction Design Manager in Microsoft. From this journal, I learned what factors a successful game design should consider and what makes XBOX outstanding from other competitors. It is a good chance to know and analyze one of the most popular games. 

    I have never thought about the design process before the journal 4 because I usually focus on design itself. However, I have learned more than I thought from this assignment. For example, I have learned what designers should do in the pre-production such as competitors’ analysis, and try to discover what designers may miss some important elements during the design process. It helped me realize how the famous design companies work on designing their products.

   In journal 5, it is very interesting for me to observe an object designed without screen that I interact with in my daily life and then analyzed it by the concept of “The Design of Everyday Things” (Norman, 1990) which also reflects my life struggle with some designs. Furthermore, in the process of looking for an object, I suddenly realized almost everything around my life is designed; none of them come out by accidently. “Design is everywhere.” However, I also realized too many bad designs around my life at the same time. I started to wonder that design make human live better or more complicated? Are design like Maeda (2006) said, “Technology has made our lives more full, yet at the same time we’ve become uncomfortably full? ” For example, why is it so complicated to use the Comcast remote control to watch TV? What’s wrong with its visibility and mapping? It is a good chance to think about these questions.    

    In sum, during the observation experiment, I learn to examine and analyze designs from a critical vision. Moreover, I cannot help criticizing all designs I see around my life and thinking how to improve them all the time. The most valuable learning is that now I know what elements designers should pay attention during the design process and how to avoid mistakes. At the same time, I realize a good design needs a lot of efforts such as research, group discussion and repeated experiments. Maybe a good design is simple, but it definitely does not come out by accident. I do not have a job yet, but I know how to take what I learn from these journals and class lecture to design a great website and interactive media. For example, I know to design a website from users’ viewpoint instead of designers’. Moreover, I realize it is important to make the interface aesthetic and simple. Every function on it should be consistent and users should easily understand what the next step is.     

Reference

Maeda, J. (2006). The laws of simplicity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Norman, D. A. (1990) The design of everyday things. Doubleday Business

Song, S., & Lee, J. (2007, August). Key factors of heuristic evaluation for game design: Towards massively multi-player online role-playing game. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65(8), 709-723. Retrieved October 8, 2008, doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2007.01.001

Journal Entries

Journal #1

 http://yijen.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/journal1-principles-for-game-design/

Journal #2

http://yijen.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/journal2-website-analysis/

Journal #3

http://yijen.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/journal3-xbox-360/

Journal #4

http://yijen.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/jornal-4-blockbuster-website/

Journal #5

http://yijen.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/jornal5-comcast-digital-cable-remote-control/

   “The Design of Everyday Things” by Donald Norman points out the frustration of using product in our daily life, and the relationship between users and design. It also takes many examples to describe problems of designs and how to avoid them. Therefore, I really enjoy this reading because it reminds me of many problems I have faced. For example, when I come to a door, I always do not know which direction it opens. Should I pull or push? Maybe the door slides…in which way? These questions make me feel like idiot because it means that I can not handle a door! Even if a door marks pull or push, I still need few seconds to think what it means and then react. When I face this situation, I always blame myself. Now, I know maybe it is time to examine the design itself, not users. After all, good design should let users know how to react immediately without thinking.

    In this assignment, I will use the concepts I learn from the reading to observe and examine the design of the Comcast digital cable remote control.

      I totally agree with the statement by Donald that people have a tendency to blame themselves for difficulties with technology rather than the design itself. For example, I always let my guests watch TV when I am cooking dinner for them. However, I discover that they give up watching TV quickly because they have no idea how to use the Comcast remote control with many buttons and functions, which lead them to forget how to use basic function. Therefore, the first reaction they had was to blame themselves. They even said: “Come on, our majors are not digital media.” However, TV remote controls should be designed for everyone, not only for someone who has studied digital media before. To be honest, although I use the remote control to watch TV everyday, sometimes, I still feel confused with the relationship between buttons and functions. In this design, there are no visible structures and no rhyme or reason to the relationship between the actions users must perform and the results to be accomplished. Mapping is arbitrary. At the end, my solution is to press every button until the television reacts correctly. The only advantage of this design I can find is that it has good ergonomic appearance.  

    Basically, the problem of the Comcast remote control is that the device have more features and no visible function just like a pilot’s control room in the flight. It has fifty-three buttons on a remote control for watching TV. Which one I should press to start? What other functions are for? After using it one year, I still do not figure out the function of each button yet. For example, the function of the buttons of “Guide” and ” Menu” seems the same for me. When I am using On-Demand, “Last”, “Exit”, and “▼” all represent “return”. “Last” means returning to the On-Demand menu; “Exit” means returning to the regular programs; “▼” means stopping the program you are watching and then return to the On-Demand menu. Different buttons has similar function. How can the designer ask users to remember these complex functions? 

    Why are the modern remote controls so difficult to learn and to use? With the development of technology, it has been offering more functions to make life more enjoyable and provide more benefits. However, it also adds complexities to increase users’ difficulty and frustration. When I ponder this problem, Donald Norman provides a theory to explain it, a U-shaped curve of complexity: starting high; dropping to a low, comfortable level; then climbing again. According to “the design of everything”, new kinds of devices are complex and difficult to use. As technicians become more competent and an industry matures, devices become simpler. After the industry has stabilized, designers know how to add increased capability, but always at the expense of added complexity and sometimes eliminated reliability. That’s why I remember the design of TV remote controls was very simple and easy to use when I was a child, but nowadays they become so complex. 

      Is any possible that the design of the Comcast digital cable remote control become much simpler? The answer is yes because “The principles of good design can make complexity manageable, ” says Donald. If designers can focus on the seven stages of design process Donald mentions in his book: visibility, a good conceptual model with coherent system image, good mappings between actions and results, and feedback about results of actions, the device could be much better. Moreover, I agree with the statement that design should provide strong clues to the operations of things. The new design of remote controls may highlight common use buttons in the center or have a small display screen which have brief preview of all the feature of the remote control. When users turn on the preview function, they can press buttons to see what function they have. Or, maybe it could be as simple as this design below.

 I like this article which tries to figure out how to turn personal lifestyle into a business and also takes a successful example, aNYthing designed by an ordinary person. I believe this report must inspire and lift up some unknown designers. However, when I was reading it, I have some suspicion about this design line. Why would people care and buy these products which were designed by nobody? What is the key element for aNYthing to achieve its goal? How far will this design go successfully? Is it easy to duplicate the same model for other design? And then, this article tries to explain the reasons and I do agree with it. For underground design, it is important to focus on and satisfy the high-end consumers and the curious world of sneaker collecting.

    From today’s presentation, I have learned and reviewed what a brand is. It is really helpful for me to go through all the foundation of brands because nowadays I think that brands are the basis for everything. Everything needs design. For example, companies can sell all kinds of products, but they can go further and sell products quickly with design. For me, the definition of brand is the way that consumers can distinguish your products from other competitors. Moreover, I enjoy the guest speaker use many examples, pictures, websites, companies to explain the concept of design. It really make me clarify the key element of design.

    I choose the case study, “Blockbuster Website Strategy and Design“, on the frog design firm’s website to comment and supplement its design process.

    In this case study, Blockbuster came to frog to create a new user-friendly website. Therefore, the design team did some research to find out the challenges Blockbuster website faced and then set up an objective, which is providing a space for users to manage their own DVD subscription services, with easy access to the tools that make that possible.

    First of all, frog’s strategists recognized that what would distinguish Blockbuster from its competitors. Secondly, by researching disparate media purchasing platforms, frog identified two areas of focus for the website overhaul and understood what kind of advantages the result will bring.

    In this process above, I think the team was on the right track and did a good job. Based on Moggridge book chapter 10, if you are designing a new version of something that already exists, you have to look at the competitiors. Moreover, the design team did not only analyze its competitors, but also researched what has been done to extract knowledge from precedents. However, this article did not point out what the problem Blockbuster website needed to solve. The design team should identify problems of the original website because it is always the first step in the design process. From the design objective they set up, I assume that the problem was the original interface of Blockbuster website is old-fashion and was too complex for users to rent online so that its traffic and revenue was decreasing dramatically.

     After finding two areas of focus for the website overhaul, a multi-disciplinary team of digital media designers, analysts, and technologists worked closely on the project, combining their varied knowledge to push the boundaries of web design. At the end, the team created a powerful Web platform with simple usability and complex functionality for Blockbuster.  

    From the presentation of Amanda McCoy Bast, it is very important to understand and find constraints in the design process because it is the center of design. She also mentioned the importance of core skill of design. Moreover, in the video, “The Deep Dive”, the design team focused on the topic and then do brainstorming to come out the greatest idea. Back to this multi-disciplinary team of Frog for Blockbuster, I believe that they followed the same step to design a new website. For example, understanding the relevant constraints of their product which are the price, strength, balance, and interface, starts the process. After that, synthesis occurs as the subconscious, shared ideas of the design team, and absorbs all of the relevant issues. That’s why this design team consisted of many experts from different fields.

    In this case study, it does not describe all the design process, but I believe they still went through all standard design principle and process. For example, after pushing the boundaries of web design and brainstorming for solutions, the team would mock up alternative solutions, create prototype and then test the reaction of users. After that, they should refine the solution to fix problems and then present high fidelity prototype to their client (Blockbuster).  They would re-evaluate the prototype (new website interface) from the reaction of their client. At the end, it came out the users-friendly website for Blockbuster.

    After reading and analyzing this case study, I see the power and influence of design because the new interface designed by Frog’s team made Blockbuster’s year-over-year revenue rise a reported 50% in the 2006 third quarter alone. Nowadays, design is the basic for everything. Once companies can use design well on their products, the influence will increase dramatically.

Reference

Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. P641-736

Description

    The MSN robot is an interactive application on MSN messenger that users can add a robot’s address to their messenger contact lists, and then they can have conversations with it for fun and ask it questions for answers like search engine. Every robot has different functions. For example, some robots will reply the dictionary definition or translated word back; some robots show the tendency of stock quotations, news, star signs, maps, and others would help you search for MP3s, subscribe RSS and find out how the weather is based on zip codes. In general, you can chat with all MSN robots like regular people because they would reply with quite relevant and coherent sentences

    Here is an example.

 Significance and Rationale

    In the digital era, the growth of Instant Manager (IM) has increased dramatically. According to a recent study by comScore Networks, there’s a decent chance that MSN Messenger, which is available in 26 languages and is used in more than 60 countries by more than 240 million active accounts each month (Microsoft PressPass, 2006), lassoed in 61 percent of worldwide instant messaging (IM) market share. Moreover, with the development of IM, I think that this new service of MSN Messenger, MSN robots, could be the future trend of IM because of its wide application, and its potential of making money and bringing better communication for human being in the modern society.  

     I chose MSN robots as my term project because it is a creative media and it is really fun to use. After reading “Designing interactions” (Moggridge, 2007), I totally agree that the objective of games is to have fun. I think MSN robots not only follow this requirement, but also fit human needs. Users can chat with the robot and search some helpful information at the same time if they feel bored on MSN Messenger. Moreover, small businesses can attract traffic to their websites and make money by designing and spread their own MSN robots because robots will give user a result link if they ask robots questions. It is a win-win strategy. Besides, the whole service is for free. Users do not need to buy additional device for entertainment and it is very easy to play for all ages. These elements above make me believe MSN robots could be the next star of interactive media so that I really want to know more about it.  

The scope of my final deliverables

    In this project, I will analyze every aspect of MSN robots such as current situation, Competitive analysis, and Business Model and try to find a great way for this service in the future to design more effective application, to attract more attention and to be more fun. 

    In the final presentation, I will pitch this project by Powerpoint and flowchart. 

Outline paper

Introduction

Significance

Current situation

Competitive analysis

Business Model

Challenges

Theory

Future

Conclusion 

Research references

Chowdhury, D. & Chakraborty, B. (2005). Viral Marketing: New form of Word-of-Mouth through Internet. The Business Review, Cambridge,3(2), 69-75.  Retrieved October 27, 2007

Foley, M. (2006, June 26). Windows Live Messenger goes gold. eWeek, 23(26), 28-28. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.

 Lin, C. A. (1996). Looking Back: The Contribution of Blunler and Katz’ Uses of Mass Communication to Communication Research. JOURNAL OF BROADCASTING AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA. 40 (4), 574-581.

Maeda, J. (2006). The laws of simplicity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Metz, C., Clyman, J., & Todd, M. (2003, November 11). IM Everywhere. PC Magazine, 22(20), 128. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.

Michaels, P. (2002, August). Messenger Service. Macworld, 19(8), 24. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.

Microsoft PressPass “MSN Live Messenger ” from

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/WLMessengerFS.mspx

Case study-MSN robots

Introduction

  The MSN robot is an interactive application on MSN messenger that users can add a robot’s address to their messenger contact lists, and then they can have conversations with it for fun and ask it questions like a search engine. Every robot has different functions. For example, some robots will reply the dictionary definition or translated word back; some robots show the tendency of stock quotations, news, star signs, maps, and others would help you search for MP3s, subscribe RSS and find out how the weather is based on zip codes. In general, you can chat with all MSN robots like regular people because they would reply with quite relevant and coherent sentences

    Here is an example.

Significance and Rationale

    In the digital era, the growth of Instant Manager (IM) has increased dramatically. According to a recent study by comScore Networks, there’s a decent chance that MSN Messenger, which is available in 26 languages and is used in more than 60 countries by more than 240 million active accounts each month, lassoed in 61 percent of worldwide instant messaging (IM) market share. (Microsoft PressPass, 2006) Moreover, with the development of IM, I think that this new service of MSN Messenger, MSN robots, could be the future trend of IM because of its diverse application, and its potential of making money and bringing better communication for human being in the modern society.  

     I chose MSN robots as my term project because it is a creative media and it is really fun to use. After reading “Designing interactions” (Moggridge, 2007), I totally agree that the objective of design is to have fun. I think MSN robots not only follow this requirement, but also fit human needs. Users can chat with the robot and search helpful information at the same time if they feel bored on MSN Messenger. 

    However, making a product that is usable is one thing. Making a design that people will love and desire to use is another. What do the elements of a good design make people stick to and use more often? Do Msn Robots have these elements? What is the relationship between its user interface and user experience? Is it better than search engines for users? How far the design of MSN Robots will go? I hope to find answers in my paper.

The scope of my final deliverables

 Within my final paper, I will do a case study of the MSN robot to examine its design and then figure out how to create a better user experience for MSN robots.

     I will apply Dax Pandhi’s the basic principles of proper user interface and 20 Tips for a Better, Functional User Experience to examine the user interface of the MSN Robot. This study will help understand the relationship between the user interface and user experience.

    I will not only compare the design of MSN robots with their competitors such as Google and Wikipedia, but I will also conduct usability testing. I plan to distribute 10-20 questionnaires to someone who have used the MSN Robots. By the feedback of selected participants for the user experience of the MSN Robots, I hope to find a relationship between user interface of the MSN robot and its user experience and what leads to rises users’ willing to stick to the design and use them more often. Moreover, I will try to discover how to create a better user experience for MSN robots.

    In the final presentation, I will pitch this project by Powerpoint and flowchart to explain the concept of MSN robots.   

Outline paper

Introduction

Significance

Design analysis

Competitive analysis-Google and Wikipedia

Future

Conclusion

References

Research references

Chowdhury, D. & Chakraborty, B. (2005). Viral Marketing: New form of Word-of-Mouth through Internet. The Business Review, Cambridge,

     3(2), 69-75.  Retrieved October 27, 2007, from ProQuest database.

Foley, M. (2006, June 26). Windows Live Messenger goes gold. eWeek, 23(26), 28-28. Retrieved on October 22^nd , 2008 from Academic Search Complete database.

Dax Pandhi “How to Create the Best User Experience for Your Application” Windows User Interface Technical Articles Retrieved on November 5^th, 2008, from

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa468595.aspx

Lin, C. A. (1996). Looking Back: The Contribution of Blunler and Katz’ Uses of Mass Communication to Communication Research. JOURNAL OF BROADCASTING AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA. 40 (4), 574-581.

Maeda, J. (2006). The laws of simplicity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Metz, C., Clyman, J., & Todd, M. (2003, November 11). IM Everywhere. PC Magazine, 22(20), 128. Retrieved on October 22^nd, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.

Michaels, P. (2002, August). Messenger Service. Macworld, 19(8), 24. Retrieved on October 22^nd, 2008 from Academic Search Complete database.

Microsoft PressPass “MSN Live Messenger ” Retrieved on October 22^nd, 2008 from

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/WLMessengerFS.mspx

   The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and it is also the first console to provide wireless controller support at launch. The integrated Xbox Live service allows players to compete online and download content such as arcade games, game demos, trailers, TV shows, and movies. According to Microsoft, 20 million units have been sold worldwide on July 17, 2008. (Luke, 2008)

    Here are the elements for its success:

Launch Timing:

   The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on May 12, 2005, while Wii and PS3 were released after a year, on November 2006. The timing let Xbox draw a lot of attention and attract many curious users to buy this product first.     

Online service

    The integrated Xbox Live service allows players to compete online and download/purchase content such as arcade games, game demos, trailers, TV shows, and movies. According to Microsoft, the download of online service has increased 400% from November, 2006. This service makes Xbox not only a game console, but also an entertaining center for players and family. Comparing with Wii and PS3, they didn’t do well on their online service.

Compatibility

   The Xbox 360 is compatible with digital camera, PC and iPod by being able to play MP3 files natively and it can play media files from the Zune. Moreover, Xbox 360 users can chat in-game (or while watching a movie) and see the Gamertags of friends logged into Xbox Live. (XBOX.com, 2008) Comparing with its major competitors, Wii and PS3 are only compatible with the products of their own company such as Nintendo GameCube, PS and PS2

Console and Accessory at launch

    The Xbox 360 comes in three different versions: the Arcade console, the Premium console, and the Elite console, each having its own selection of included and available accessories including both wired and wireless controllers, faceplates for customization, headsets for chatting, a webcam for video chatting, Dance Mats and Gamercize for exercise, three sizes of memory cards, and three sizes of hard drives (120GB, 60GB, and 20GB), among other items, all of which are styled to match the console. The different versions provided more option for all kinds of player who have different budgets and needs for games and then satisfied them. Wii and PS3 only provide basic accessory at launch.

           In the presentation last Thursday, I like that Shelley quoted” Art is creativity with/of constraints, design is creativity within them. ” The design of packing (a start-up quick card) also responds to what John Maeda said in The Laws of Simplicity (2006), “While great art makes you wonder, great design makes things clear”

    In sum, the launch timing, online service, compatibility, versions and accessories have made Xbox 360 a successful product. However, other interactive entertainment products have their advantages. For me, PS3 is like movie theatre, Wii is like television and XBOX 360 is like DVD. It’s still early and hard to say which one will conquer the industry of interactive entertainment.

Reference

Luke Plunkett (2008-07-17). “Xbox Division FINALLY Reports Profitable Year“. Kotaku. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.

Maeda, J. (2006). The laws of simplicity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

XBOX.com: “Use Zune with Xbox 360″ retrieved by Oct, 19, 2008 from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/zune.htm

 XBOX.com: “Use an Apple iPod with Xbox 360″ retrieved by Oct, 19, 2008 from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/ipod.htm

XBOX.com: “Windows Live Messenger on Xbox 360″ retrieved by Oct, 19, 2008 from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/livefeatures/messenger.htm

   Our team chose Virgin American Airline to analyze its website and some of its main competitors. I have taken this flight once and had a wonderful experience so I am glad to know more about it. 

                                                                                     Virgin America Airlines Homepage   

With our experience of using the website, we found its interface is uncluttered, great interactive, graphic driven, entertaining, and user-oriented. First of all, the design of icon driven makes user to use this website very easily even if they don’t understand English. It also has magnification design, which only gets large as users point to the icon, to let the interface wide and clean in an Apple way. It is important to leave some white space to create room and a chance to breathe for audience. Unlike other flight airlines’ websites, Virgin America provides more information that users need on its website, such as airport information. Moreover, it has a great interactivity to entertain every user to create an experience from the moment you are on the website until you have landed at your destination. It has techniques to increase interaction and teach users what is available on the plane. For example, users can see the in-flight entertainment device including multi-lingual TV programs, Podcast, music, chat room, movies, and games on the website. I really was impressed by its chatroom design- Passengers can throw online message to any seat or invite others into the online chatroom. Perhaps it has helped someone find out her Prince Charmy :)   Furthermore, users can experience the phased mood lighting on the website which changes throughout flight to create a beautiful blend of color and reduce daylight glare on the plane.

    In terms of its target audience, our guess is 20-40 years old mod travelers and international travelers, especially female because I saw their stewards are all male with British accent. To verify our hypothesis of its target audience, I did some research and found a great website, Quantcast, which has accurate analysis about the website of Virgin America. In this database, Virginamerica.com is a top 10,000 site that reaches over 245K U.S. monthly. The site is popular among 18-49 years old people, a slightly female slanted (55 %), somewhat wealthy (37 % has more than 100K income), more educated (69 % have college degree), more Asian audience (19%). It fits most of our hypothesis about its target audience.

                                                  Quantcast analysis- Virgin America website

Comparing to its main competitors, United Airline, American Airline, Alaska Airline, and Delta, the interface of their website are complex, plain, not interactive, and not user-oriented. The interface of Jetblue is clean, but it doesn’t provide any interactive media and it does not provide further information that customers may want to know. From my observation, these competitors only designed the website for themselves, not from the viewpoints of their customers. Perhaps that is the fundamental distinction between Virgin America and other competitors.

    In sum, I love the website of Virgin America Airline better than any other competitors because its interface is much more clean, attractive, icons driven, user-oriented, carefully considered, engaging, interactive and entertaining. It even highlights its difference as a category on the site. Users will easily find out what speciality it has in a second.  I think the most important is that this website makes audience believe they will have a comfortable and great flight experience in real world.

Reference

 Quantcast “Virginamerica.com” retrieved by 12, October, 2008   from http://www.quantcast.com/virginamerica.com

Powerpoint file: flowchart-wireframe-online-shopping

   In the article of Song and Lee (2007), the computer game industry has become the fastest growing field of the entertainment industry. However, only a very small number of computer game products overcome the costs of production and generate earnings. Therefore, it is time to explore which information and key factors should be considered during the design process.

  Here are some principles for game design:

• Fun: I personally think that this principle is the basis and the most important element for all kinds of games design.

         According to designing interactions (Moggridge, 2007), toys and games are designed for entertainment. In other words, if they fail to please and entertain people, they will die a swift and certain death.

• Easy to learn/play, but hard to become expert:

    From my observation, most people do not have much patience to learn how to use equipment for entertainment. In the class exercise last week, our group would feel bored if we cannot figure out how to play games in 10 minutes. Moreover, Moggridge (2007) said toy and game mean a plaything that an adult is willing to purchase, not only for children. Adults in this modern city usually don’t have much time and sprit to learn how to play a game. Therefore, one of the key factors for game design is easy to learn and play.

     According to “Designing interactions,” to appeal to broad audience, the video game console makers tend to add a little bit of complexity every few years. Complexity is a challenge that players will keep engaging into the game and raise their will to become an expert of the game.

• Affordable price

    As we know, the price of the most popular games is below $300. Moreover, with the economy recession, people will eliminate the expense for entertainment first if they have to reduce life expense.

• Customize

    Everyone believes that she/he is special. Therefore, more and more games customize their game function to let their players feel special as they are and become different from other people. In psychology, this function will make them feel respected and then love it.

• Avatar

    It is very interesting for players to play different roles and have different live experiences. It can be satisfied with players’ fantasy of all kinds of lives.      

• Content: surreal, intensive and life learning etc.

   One of the main reason people love to play games is they want to escape from the real world for a while. That’s why the fighting games in a surreal world become so popular and seem never failing. On the other hand, some people want to learn and experience skills by playing games so that the content of games should be related to the real world in some cases. For example, you can play and experience tennis, baseball and bowling by Wii even though you are not a sporty girl in real world.   

• Portable

    With the increasing gas price, more and more people choose to take public transportation. Thus, people will need portable game equipment to kill their time in the transportation.  

• Multi-players

    I personally like to play games with my friends rather than only myself. Of course, this principle is not necessary for games design, but it will be better for all kinds of games to have multi-players function, which can be connected by wireless.   

• Physical movement/touchable/ sound control:

    These functions are not necessary for game design, but it would be more interesting and fantastic. Moreover, with these function, it can reduce the difficulty to learn how to play games because users don’t need to figure out the function of buttons. All they have to do is press the screen straightly or shake the equipment.   

• Interactive

    In the future, I believe there are more and more interactive functions in games design. For example, I think the trend of interactive games is to apply social networking for the game design.  

Reference

  Song, S., & Lee, J. (2007, August). Key factors of heuristic evaluation for game design: Towards massively multi-player online role-playing game. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65(8), 709-723. Retrieved October 8, 2008, doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2007.01.001

  Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

    From the last week, 2008 Beijing Olympics has been getting a lot of attention around the world and I was looking forward to see the fantastic opening ceremony which should deserve live coverage. However, when I knew that NBC, which owns the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the United States, decided to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 14 hours, I turned to search other streaming media resource to watch online simultaneously. At that time, I found there has already a lot of article talking about how to find online resource to watch it live instead of NBC such as How To Watch The Beijing Olympics LIVE On The Web — Even If NBC Doesn’t Want You To, a wiki, and watch the Olympics online.

    After reading all of these guidelines, I decided to watch the ceremony live on Youtube. Actually, during the decision process, I tried to take NBC online broadcasting system into consideration, but finally I excluded it because users have to download the MS Silverlight first and their IP addresses should be in America that I cannot recommend to my friends in Taiwan. Anyway, when I got up early in the Friday, 8^th, August and searched the clip in the Youtube, I wonderingly found almost every clip which is relative to the Olympics was blocked because of copyright issue. After reading this article of the New York times, I finally realized what’s going on.     

” In response, NBC sent frantic requests to Web sites, asking them to take down the illicit clips and restrict authorized video to host countries. As the four-hour ceremony progressed, a game of digital whack-a-mole took place. Network executives tried to regulate leaks on the Web and shut down unauthorized video, while viewers deftly traded new links on blogs and on the Twitter site, redirecting one another to coverage from, say, Germany, or a site with a grainy Spanish-language video stream. “

    In the age of Internet anywhere, I am really wondering how NBC can take down all illicit clips in all kinds of streaming media. That also represents the problem of digital right management. Maybe it is not all about the copyright. If NBC wants users to respect its right to exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the United States, it should reflect and try to find fault in oneself- Broadcast the game live and make the online system simple first.

    Today, I am going to analyze the star of streaming media- Brightcove, and comparing its business model with other similar streaming media- Revver , Kyte and VideoJug.

    First of all, you may ask what Brightcove is? Brightcove is a video sharing and distribution site where every publisher who creates a Brightcove account is assigned a channel, their own page on Brightcove.tv. From independent producers to major broadcast networks, Brightcove helps them enrich their sites with syndicated video programming by Adobe Flash technology, and it gives marketers more ways to communicate with their consumers, gets more attention, and share the profit to every content producer. That is a brilliant idea. For independent producers, they would like to upload their video content to this platform because it helps to distribute them fast, and it even helps to market their video. Therefore, producers can make money from it. All they need to do is focusing on producing great and interesting content. Moreover, for major media, they can corporate with Brightcove by authorizing their content to distribute on it and share the profit together. Thus, major media don’t need to be busy to suit streaming media which distributed their content through Internet without permission. What a great win-win strategy. Currently, it has partnership with MTV Networks, The New York Times Company, Reuters, Sony BMG, Time Life, Warner Music Group, and Washington post Newsweek etc.

    So, I used Brightcove to see it works that well or not. After all, I think that it is customized for users and I truly believe it can bring money to every content creator. Users can choose when to put ads on their content and they easily get clear traffic and profit reports of their content. However, as a user, I still feel that the procedure of uploading and setting up takes too long and users will easily give up. Furthermore, FAQ is incomplete because I cannot upload my video and I cannot find my answer in FAQ.      

    Although I did find some disadvantage of Brightcove, I still think that it definitely finds its own way out from Youtube and it hits the “sweet spots”. Comparing its main idea, what I mentioned about the disadvantage is trivial.

 Extension:

    Since I knew how Brightcove work to make money, I have been curious other business model among the streaming media and I’ve been searching. I did find three websites which have interesting business model in different ways- Revver , Kyte and VideoJug.

    First of all,  Revver is ” an online media network built the way the internet really works. We support the free and unlimited sharing of media. Our unique technology pairs videos with targeted ads and tracks them as they spread across the web. So no matter where your video travels, you benefit because we share the advertising revenue with you.”

     Secondly, Kyte is a streaming media where users can easily produce pictures and video, simultaneously distribute to multiple online and mobile destinations such as Facebook and Myspace, engage with an audience through multimedia communications and monetize your brand assets. Let’s see this brief but amazing video to know how Kyte works.

    Last but not least, the video content on the VideoJug includes informative “How To” and “Ask The Expert” films that lead you, step-by-step, through everything and anything in life.  

            “With offices in the UK and US, VideoJug professionally produces literally thousands of videos per month. Each film is carefully researched and produced with high quality production values.”

 Simply, its profit is from placement marketing in its professional video. That’s a interesting and new business model for me.

Take a look.

    From reading the Quicktime chapter, I personally think that the author likes Quicktime more than other streaming media software because he seems to take Quicktime as a standard to compare with others. Therefore, I thought this week assignment would be easy to find a website utilizing Quicktime and I could easily find a special one to analyze. However, I was stuck over finding it. I have searched it for three days, but I cannot even find one. Almost every website I linked to is using Flash or Window Media play. This situation makes me think about the future of Quicktime. Has it already been out of date? Any capital disadvantages lead Quicktime close to death? Anyway, for this week assignment, I decide to choose the Quicktime official website to analyze. 

   In the most popular section of the trailers, I took the The Dark Knight as an example. (Ironically, most every movie on the Quicktime offfical website utilizes Flash to promote the trailer on its own official website, including the official website of the Dark Knight) On this page, users have several versions such as Trailer 1, 2, 3, High Definition and iTune/iPod to watch the video. First of all, I like the design because no matter what users choose, the result still shows on the same page. It would be easy to be back and forth if users want to click other versions. Secondly, I think the most special design is the HD version. Nowadays, the quality of entertainment needs is higher and higher. I believe putting a HD version in the trailers section is a good way to attractive somebody who take high quality of videos seriously. Furthermore, this website tries to catch up the tail of portable videos. It also has the version for iPod so that users can watch it directly on iPod instead of sitting in front of the laptop. I think that it is Quicktime’s biggest advantage to integrate with popular iTune and iPod.      

   However, the bandwidth is not wide enough to deliver HD so that I will hit the buffer and the video will be paused four to five times in three minutes. It really annoyed. Moreover, it provides too many types of HD (480p, 720p, and1080p). I suspect that users will know how to decide which version is available for their connection although it has system recommendations to explain. If click wrong version, users will hit the buffer more often and must feel unsatisfied with Quicktime.

    In conclusion, this website communicates a clear message about introducing trailers, and provides a quality product, as long as users don’t hit the buffer.

    In terms of this week’s assignment, the first idea come to my mind is the website of the documentary I recently saw and felt impressed- Up the Yangtze. Once you click the link, you’ll see a video screen using Quicktime takes the most part of its homepage. I admire this design because it did communicate the message well- introduce the movie and attract audience to know more about it without writing any words. It let movie introduce itself by footage. Moreover, it’s professional to choose Quicktime format in this part because it let the video has higher quality to play.

     Furthermore, when you click on the section of trailer and interviews, you’ll find that it use flash to promote the trailer and interview clips because it’s convenient for audience to embed these videos on other places.

    In sum, I like its strategy of using these different streaming media by their different functions to introduce and distribute the movie.

p.s. Up the Yangtze won many awards in the internation film festivals now is showing on the Varsity Theatre on the U-way. (U-district, Seattle).

    From the Travis’s presentation of last class, it reminds me of the Podcasting experience in the last quarter. During the podcasting in business class, I have been following and listening to many famous Podcasts like Ninja that Travis mentioned and Boing Boing TV is one of my favorite Podcasts.

    Boing Boing TV is the webTV of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. Much like the blog, BoingBoingTV, which is hosted by Xeni Jardin and co-creator, Mark Frauenfelder, while other BoingBoing contributors will also host segments, will focus on odd bits from around the Web in daily 3-5 minute video segments, five days a week. It’s the Top 5 blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, 4^th popular video Podcast of iTune in 2007 and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony.

    I think that it is targeted to the audience who are curious and open-minded for every interesting thing around the world. Here is one of the funniest episodes I think- Cell phone deep fry:

     In the Boing Boing TV website, users can download the videos they like as MP4, which is the format for iPod video. Thus, users can carry and watch the video they like to anywhere. Nowadays, I believe that it is very important to make video portable.

     Moreover, I found that Virgin America airline has already applied Podcasts into its personal entertainment program for passengers. I think that it’s a wonderful way to use Podcasts because passengers have more choices of entertainment when they are taking a plane and they can also keep watching/ listening to the Podcasts they have been following without carrying iPod, this kind of MP3 devices.

Above is the screen of personal entertainment on the Virgin America airline

Something I like about Boing Boing TV 

• Content: diverse, attractive, interesting, and creative
• Design: simple and easy to read and be subscribed to
• I can easily choose which I am interested in from the introduction of every video and then directly watch it without wasting any time.

Something I do not like about Boing Boing TV:

• No categories:
• Simple but ugly design
• Too many Ads for me

    When I started to find a website utilizing streaming media, the first one come to my mind is Tudou. Tudou is one of the largest video sharing websites in China, where users can upload/download, view, and share video clips. It served over 55 million videos and 2,000 new videos each day. Sounds like another Youtube? Actually, it clearly has difference from Youtube because the length of Tudou videos is usually much longer. Let’s say…I will surf on Tudou if I want to find movies/series to see, while go to Youtube if I want to watch MTV. 

    What I like about Tudou:

• 1. easy to use without downloading any software
• 2. Huge database and efficient search engine: No matter which language I key in, the result always gives me exactly what I want.
• 3. iTudou: Registered users can download videos into mobile phone, iPod and PSP by iTudou.
• 4. Interactive: users can leave comments, and give a grade and recommendation publicly.

   What I dislike about Tudou:

• 1. Bandwidth: The speed of downloading and watching online is too long.
• 2. Advertising: The background of video is advertising. It is annoying to see the advertising all the time behind the video I am watching.    

    When I choose the streaming media website for seeing videos to kill time, the most important element affects my decision is the speed of downloading. I believe that it is very important for users to see online videos smoothly. Therefore, I think that Tudou should give priority to improve its bandwidth. Moreover, it can consider to add some customized function. For example, users can modify the brightness and color of the video they are watching. Sometimes, the nuance will hit the sweet spot on the Internet.

 Supplement:Tudou’s wiki

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Personal Podcast Name = The wisdom of Chinese

Category = Education

Short description about  “The wisdom of Chinese.” 

   As you may have known, there have been many wise proverbs in China during 5 thousands years in the past. Therefore, the host will tell an ancient story or a proverb for each episode to let audience learn something or be inspired by this story which included the wisdom of ancestors. The target audience will be someone who are interested in different culture or Chinese and children who love to listen stories. Its length will be 4-6 minutes and will be released on every Saturday morning when parents can listen with their children and then teach the extension from this story to their children.     

     Pluggd is a podcast directory, but what makes it special is its ‘HearHere’ technology, which makes it possible to search podcasts by concept, rather than keyword. I think that the technology involved is stunning because when listening to a podcast, you can select the search option and find the section which you’re interested in. I have heard complaints about subscribing Podcasts from one of my friend because he thinks that the information of podcasting is overloaded. For example, if he subscribed 5 Podcasts, he will have 5-35 episodes after one week. In these episodes, may only one episode he feel interested, but he still need to spend a lot of time to listen to and find it out. Therefore, I think the emergence of this idea and website will solve this problem very soon and encourage people to listen more.

    How does this technology, “HearHere”, work? It is only available as a demo on the site at the moment, with the examples all ESPN podcasts. For instance, you can type in the word ‘Kobe Bryant’ and Pluggd will display a heatmap which shows where that word or related words occurs in the podcast.

     As Seattle based startup, Pluggd has raised $1.65m in funding from Intel and angel investors to help it start distributing its technology. I am looking forward to see how they develop this technology well for Podcast in the future.

  After doing some research on the industry of Podcast every week in this quarter, I think that there are three ways or directions to enhance the development of Podcasts in the future:

    1. Organizations should apply Podcasts into their websites to provide users customized content. For example, Standford use Podcast to let its students listen and review their course content.

    2. Integrate the service of Podcasts into the platforms such as mobile phone and add more online services

     3. Encourage Bloggers to produce personal or corporate Podcasts into their Blogs. It can attract more royal readers to know you or your products more and this method could be also a new marketing strategy.

any other suggestion?

    Podlinez is a free service that lets users listen to podcasts on their phone. Enter the RSS feed URL for a podcast in its website to get a phone number people can call to hear it, or browse our directory for a number to try. If your favorite podcast isn’t already in its directory, you can add it immediately and it’ll be available to call within minutes. Moreover, use the * and # keys on your phone to skip forward and back in one minute increments through the recording. Podlinez always keeps the latest version of the podcast on hand.

   On the homepage of Podlinez, it also shows the most recently added podcasts, the most recently called podcasts and the most popular podcast on its system.

    In some countries, it is hard to promote portable equipments like iPod because they are expensive and they are not necessary for life. Therefore, I think that is the meaning of Podlinez. People do not need to wait the market of iPod or other MP3 players to be mature in order to listen many quality Podcasts. With Podlinez service, people in the some poor country can jump to listen Podcasts on their phone as well.

    In this week, I think that the guest speaker, Jason Preston, mentioned the two important points about social media. The first one was a person’s inherent desire to be social and a great market to advertise in.

    Applying these two elements to Podcasts, I think a great Podcast should include:

•  Interesting content
•  Good quality of recording
•  Released periodically
•  Create a social platform to gather audience, not only a regular platform to let audience download it.
• Gather all power of other Podcasters to develop a great market to advertise in
• Adaptable and effective marketing strategies - I especially recommend use the viral marketing strategy to market personal Podcasts at the start because it cost less and sometimes it can spread widely.

Any others?

    During this quarter, I have been reading the Mashable blog. Mashable, which was created by Pete Cashmore, is a social networking news blog. With allegedly over 5 million monthly pageviews, 166,000 per month revenue, it ranks 9^th among the largest blogs on the Internet. Mashable regularly writes about MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Facebook, and Xanga, but it also reports on less high-profile social networking sites such as twitter. The website also features its own social network, customized profiles, and MySpace layouts.

    Actually, I like its content more than the design because I personally think its design is too complicated. Here are some pros and cons.

Pros-

•  The colorful and energetic page (dark blue, light blue, pink, and gray )
•  Clear label with brief introduction, quick links and categories on its header.
•  Search engine of its website
•  Useful and interesting widgets such as most popular post and recent visitors
•  Update very fast, almost every hour
•  Easy to let readers subscribe to its new post and daily email enewsletter. It provides many web-based news readers such like my yahoo, google, and bloglines
•  Easy to read because almost every post has picture or chart to support its claim and every post is short.
•  Responsible: it shows the email and also provides its other social media like LinkedIn and Technorati to contact the owners.
• Allegiance - it has its own social network, customized profiles, and MySpace layouts.

Cons-

•  Too many Ads.
•  No “about us.

    In conclusion, I will continue to follow this blog for a long time because it is effective for the audiences who like to read any news about social media. Of course, it would be much better if it can take some annoying ads off. Moreover, I suggest it to add “about this blog” to introduce itself and move the subscription to the top of the homepage for the convenience of new audiences.