Life in Your hands - palm reading demystified
This project was created on my own using Flash animation and ActionScripting. It is designed to teach a user about the major lines on the palm and how to interpret their meaning. Along with gaining knowledge about the palm lines in general, the user has an opportunity to take an interactive quiz to interpret their own palms.
COMPETENCIES DEMONSTRATED:
Along with the development and design of the site, this project required me to complete a series of evaluations to help fine tune the final deliverable. Skills highlighted include the ability to summarize feedback into a cohesive report, prioritize issues and apply decision making skills to determine whether or not changes should be made based on findings.
| After learning how to use Flash CS4 to create animation, we were given the task of creating an Interactive Animation Project highlighting all of the skills we had acquired. I selected the topic of Palm Reading for my project. In addition to the build of the site, evaluation and usability was a key consideration during the process. The framework used for evaluation and usability was influenced by Jakob Nielsen's work with heuristic evaluations and other forms of usability testing methods including user feedback, observations and questionnaires. Evaluations and usability are a critical part of the process because "no matter how much analysis has been done in designing a product, experience has shown that there will be problems that only appear when the design is tested with users." (Reeves and Hedberg, 2003) The first step in the project was to state the purpose of the site including who the intended audience is and how the user will interact with the site. Though it was still in the design phase, I had a co-worker review the storyboard for feedback. The input I received allowed me to refine my project plan prior to working on the design. |
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| In my first iteration of the project, I stuck to my design plan for the most part. Some of the items that varied from my storyboard came about because I realized the project would look or work better if it was tweaked a bit. For example I chose to use the mask effect in the "Home" scene instead of the "About Palmistry" scene because it seemed to fit better there. Other changes were made simply due to my lack of skill in ActionScripting. You'll notice that instead of having the user dragging lines in the palm itself to trigger variations in the palm lines, I went with the user dragging and dropping a crystal ball onto the palm. | |
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| Four classmates evaluated my project for items such as ease of navigation, interface design, quality of animation and technical performance. The feedback was then summarized, prioritized and changes were made as a result of the findings. | |
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| After changes were made from the peer evaluations, the project underwent another round of evaluations this time with usability testing. Three users outside of my peers were selected to evaluate the content and performance of the enhanced site. The purpose of this round of evaluations was to catch any additional issues that arose. This time, the testing was done with a group of people who were not as familiar with Flash designing. The testers reflected typical end user and allowed me to see how my intended audience would interact with the site. Usability testing consisted of direct observation to see how they interacted with and navigated through the site, followed by a survey to capture their experience. | |
My final site reflects all of the changes made as a result of the peer evaluation and usability testing. Using systematic evaluations at every step of this process was extremely useful in helping me fine tune the project. It was eye opening to see the types of issues my peer group would bring up vs. a typical user and I can certainly see the validity in using a mixed group of people to help with the evaluation process.For a comprehensive review and report summarizing my findings from the Peer Evaluations and Usability testing, including future recommendations and project reflections, please see my project evaluation report attached. My final site received 24.6 points out of a possible 25 with my evaluation report recieving full credit. |
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references
Green, T. and Stiller, D. (2009) Foundation Flash CS4 for Designers. Friend of ED -Designer to Designer
Nielsen, J. (n.d.), Ten Usability Heuristics, [Online document]. Available: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
Nielsen, J. (1993) and Reeves and Hedberg (2001), Usability Testing Methods, [Online document]. Available: http://cutshall.myweb.uga.edu/edit8350/usability/methods.html
Reeves, T. and Hedberg, J. (2003). Interactive Learning Systems Evaluation. Educational Technology Publications