Changes Made

I have changed the application to fit the colour scheme that Adele chose and I am going to do some typography sheets to help choose a more appropriate typographic combination that is suitable for both user and client.

Adele’s 3rd email regarding content

Adele has got back to me already and again seems quite impressed with my work so far, saying “It is a very good initiative with just enough bite-size information to enable the first time visitor to absorb and enjoy portraiture at the Ferens Art Gallery and beyond!” She sent me some slight changes and some imagery to use within the application, so it’s time to get cracking.

2nd meeting with Adele

I met Adele today to show her a prototype of the application, she seemed to like it although she was concerned about the readability of the typography, her opinion was that sans serif fonts are easier to read for users and this is what she would like for the application. I used a serif font to fit the thematic design of the application, so I suggested that we use serif fonts for the headers and titles as they would be displayed slightly larger and thus easier to read and I would find an appropriate sans serif font for the main bodies of text. I also spoke to Adele about the links she wanted adding to the application and I explained why it would be inappropriate for the kiosk application to have these links, she seemed disappointed but I did explain that the links could be added to a future web based version of the application, that could be developed after this project has finished.

I also spoke to her about the interactive self portrait and I told her about the 2^nd year’s application and I tried to get across my feelings for how this interactive portrait could be a great example of modern interactive art and this time I think I may have gotten somewhere as she seemed quite excited about the idea, so the interactive portrait is back on. I gave Adele my proposed content for the application for her to check and add to or edit where appropriate and I asked her if the gallery had any appropriate imagery for the application, she said she would get back to me.

Time Line Placement

The placement of the timeline has been a source of great inner debate for me, I know the best practice for navigation on touch screen kiosks is to place it at the bottom of a screen, to avoid the user obscuring content with their hands and arms and I have placed the primary and secondary navigation at the bottom of the screen, but I felt the time line would potentially cause confusion for the user if placed at the bottom, due to the different interaction method. The primary and secondary navigations are press and go buttons but the timeline is a draggable slider, so I have decided to place the timeline at the side of the screen, see below:

Timeline idea

I have decided to show the historical aspects of portraiture in the form of an interactive time line. It would be easy to create points on a line and add buttons for a user to press to navigate the time line but instead I would like something a little bit more interactive and unique for this application. I would like some form of slide that the user can drag to navigate to the different parts of the timeline.

Here are some timelines I looked at as part of my research:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/timelines/british/index_embed.shtml

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/50th/main.html

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/seamonsters/timeline/index.html#latecretaceous

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/index.html

http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/

No progress but new baby!

For the past couple of weeks there has been no progress but this was not unexpected, I spent 5 days at my partners bedside as she was being induced for birth of our child and the next week was spent snowed in, adjusting to life with a new baby son and a 5 year old who was very bored as his school has been closed due to the bad weather.

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.