Week in Review

As we moved toward halves presentations, Week Eight saw some major milestones in both the digital and physical components of the project.

We spent much of the week refining the user interface for the installation based on feedback we received from last week’s client call. The original UI concept made use alternately of the touchscreen monitor and the larger television screen for providing narrative and instruction to guests. Our clients at the San Antonio Children’s Museum and their advisor at Argyle Design pointed out that this layout could be confusing and encouraged a more purposeful use of each screen.

Given the investments we had already made in programming and a UI and the time required for a complete overhaul, we found a happy medium in a version of the interface that improved on the shortcomings of the original design without requiring too much reprogramming of the interface. Guests will now be guided through creating their story on the lower, touch screen, while reserving the larger screen for the displaying their ongoing creations.

As we were doing this digital work, we also built a prototype of our physical installation, allowing us to get a better sense of guest experience when testing our digital builds. Now we can experience the relationship between the television screen and the interactive touchscreen in physical space while the final physical build is in the hands of the fabricator.

We also settled on a tentative installation date of May 3rd, putting our timeline of having a completed project ready to ship by late April into perspective. To that end, we’ve also moved forward in animation, finalizing our hero characters and giving them animations and environments to live in.

As usual, we wrapped the week with an (albeit delayed, due to technical difficulties) call with our client, updating the museum on our progress and making plans to show off our work in April when they visit Pittsburgh.

We Suggest

• “The Scared is Scared” is a video directed by a college student based on a 6-year-old’s adorable story (http://vimeo.com/58659769#).
• Watch a robot designed to separate Oreos for you. Why? Why not? (http://tinyurl.com/bfhuu7p).
• Donald Norman’s book The Design of Everyday Things offers some great advice for designing more usable and more pleasurable products.
• In Pittsburgh? Please join us for our Halves presentation at 2:30 on Monday April 18.

The Week Ahead

Next week is spring break, and while that may conjure up images of rest and relaxation, we’ll be working hard. We’ll be:

• Getting a playable build ready for halves with at least two options per choice point
• Preparing our halves presentation
• Finalizing and polishing the user interface
• Finalizing artwork for the physical build