No Interactive Self Portrait

I may not be adding the interactive self portrait to the application now, it is my belief that my client would prefer a drawing application instead of a webcam photo piece but this is very similar to the application that the 2^nd year web students are producing and it would not be appropriate to have two similar apps running on the same kiosk, as it would cause confusion for the user. I will speak to my client to see what she would like to do, as I know she has not yet seen the 2^nd year’s proposal. I will hold off on development of this part of the application until I know what is happening.

Adele’s email

I received an email with feedback from my proposal presentation, in which she says “I and the team are very impressed with your presentation and plan”, this is very encouraging at the moment. In her suggestions and ideas she mentions linking the application to these web learning resources that the gallery currently offers:

http://www.mylearning.org/jpage.asp?jpageid=2280&journeyid=509

http://www.mylearning.org/overview.asp?journeyid=531

http://www.mylearning.org/jpage.asp?jpageid=518&journeyid=147

This would be inappropriate within a standalone kiosk based application. If you give the user the ability to navigate away from your application, they may walk away from the kiosk leaving the screen showing something other than your application, or even worse it may give them the opportunity to open inappropriate web pages. These are just a couple of problems that this may cause and I will explain that to my client at the next meeting. If this application is further developed for web use at a later date, these links could be added to that version of the application.

Adele also suggested looking at the link below to help with the interactive self portrait:

http://www.mylearning.org/interactive.asp?journeyid=144&resourceid=194

Adele and her team do not believe that allowing the user to take a picture of themselves qualifies as a self portrait and it is my belief that they are not completely sold on the idea of a plain webcam picture been art. Adele mentioned in our meeting about users being able to add effects or drawing over the webcam image, but I tried to explain that that is basically what the 2^nd year web students are creating for their project and it would not be appropriate for me to do the same. It is my belief that Adele did not quite get the idea I proposed in terms of its modern interactive artistic appeal. My idea is not about the individual image taken within the main application, it is about the constantly changing random images of the application’s users being displayed as a record of their use of the application and their visit to the gallery. Hopefully it would show the dynamic of users; their different ages, races, sexes and individuality constantly changing as a new dimension of portraiture for the twenty-first century.

Problems

I am not as far on as I thought I was, it turns out that my belief that it would be possible to automatically save the images from the webcam, in a local folder with a corresponding XML list is wrong. To do this the user would have to use the save dialogue box on the computer and for a public use standalone kiosk this would be inappropriate, so I am going to have to do things a different way. The only way to do this is to use PHP to send the image to a folder on a server and anybody who followed my progress on my projects last year will remember how much I love flash and PHP.

theme ideas

After speaking to Adele I have created 3 different visual ideas for her to choose from, as she requested. I was looking for inspiration and I came across these images and decided it would be appropriate if I created something in a similar style for this project. See images below:

I felt they looked classy and they reminded me a bit of a traditional way of showing art but at the same time they felt current. Please see my application ideas below:

I have started building a prototype application to show my client and it will also help me with functional design elements and problems whether it is layout, information hierarchy or technical coding issues.

Client Project Presentation blog

I finally got to present my ideas to Adele Howitt (my client) today, I welcomed Adele to the building and guided her to our studio area where I presented her with a proposal document, I then went through a PowerPoint presentation outlining the main points of my proposal. Adele seemed to really like the idea but she did seem to want a bit more arty interactivity for the self portrait part of the application, this was a little bit awkward as I know she has not seen the second years project presentation yet and I know their project features similar interactivity to what she was suggesting for mine and I do not want to create conflict with their application, rather I hope my application will compliment theirs. Adele also asked about the possibility of turning my application into an online learning resource and maybe even a mobile application. I did suggest that the ideas are doable but may not be possible as part of this brief and they may have to be done at a later date. I consulted Jay about the online and mobile application idea and he agreed it would not be possible as part of this brief.