MS Capstone

Begin Implementation Phase

Posted by admin - 31/03/08 at 06:03:03 pm

Yesterday, I was over at Weez’s house for our bi-weekly Capstone dinner. This is where a bunch of capstone students gives her an update and receive feedback and eat! I showed her my latest design and asked for her opinions in regards to the Day view in the all day section cause I seriously did not know what to do. After some discussion, we came up with a plan. It would have bands and a picture will be in each band. Once the user selects that band, it comes to the foreground. So now begins the implementation phase! I am mighty scared!

Troubles and Evolution

Posted by admin - 29/03/08 at 09:03:26 pm

The past couple of weeks have been hectic with prepping my portfolio and resume for the career fair this week. I did continue to work on my design but not as much as I had wanted to do. During past couple of weeks, I kept running into problems. I am in between the design and implementation phase at this point. I’m drawing the final design which will show how everything will look. However, I am also keeping in mind that I will be using the design will need to be easy to implement. I did not realize how difficult it is to draw a curved grid with perspective. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best approach. I then realized that the initial design might be difficult to implement and it did not look right as well. (See initial design at the bottom of the post).

So I revamped and came up with another design (See Version 2). However, I was worried about implementing it and I was worried about the information that would be displayed in the year and month view.

On Easter, I came across a tool in Illustrator that made drawing grids and curved grids a snap. How did I not realize this?!? Needless to say, I was…peeved and frustrated. So I went back and started to draw. I then came up with this design (see Version 3). This design is not literal and is more abstract. However, upon after discussing this design with my capstone committee, this design would act more like a sundial. This is due to not only the look but the interaction as well. However, it was not a complete sundial due to the linear line of the Day view.

I then went back and turned it into a curve. My metaphor has now evolved from “Life is a Highway” to the sundial. I still had concerns with the information for the year view and month view. After discussing an idea with Elouise, I’ve decided to use segments where each segment would represent a category. Once the user clicks it, a pop up of the events that fit into the category will display. Priority of the events will be displayed by size. For example, a bigger picture is more important the the little picture. The only time the user will see the actual picture in the curve will be in the day view. (See latest version and day close up). In regards, to how the user will see each view; when the user selects the view, the screen will zoom in on that view and fade the other views out. I shall post some pictures tomorrow with the fade and zoom.

Revamping the Design

Posted by admin - 13/03/08 at 07:03:53 pm

Today was a productive day. I’ve begun to flush out the final design in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I’m using Photoshop to draw out the initial sketches and using Illustrator to “turn” it into a vector image.

My original idea consisted of having four highways. Two of them would be curved and three of them would have perspective. As I began to draw, I ran into problems with the curve of highway. Imagine having to draw a curve that had grid lines with perspective. It is doable in Photoshop but not very easy to do in Illustrator.

After spending the whole afternoon, drawing, pondering, and sketching; I’ve decided to forgo the perspective and do a straight up aerial shot. Therefore, when looking at the highways, you would be looking straight down at them.

I’ve decided to do this for a number of reasons.

First, I wanted the highways that are straight and curved. If I wanted to keep perspective, all the highways would be straight with no curve.

Second, if I kept the original design, placement of the events (with the pictures) on the “grid” might cause more problems in regards of coding.

Lastly, time constraint. I have only 9 more weeks left to implement a prototype. The keyword is prototype. As much as I want to have the perspective, it’s just not feasible. Besides, I know there are other and more efficient ways of drawing the curve with perspective. I will look into it for version 1.1!

In case you aren’t aware, I do have plans on turning this into a real working application at some point in the future.

It’s also important to note that in the original design, there would be a “billboard” on the Day View that would cycle through all the events. I will keep this idea.

A quick list of things to be done within the next two weeks:

• Finish up Final Design work (to be done by this Sunday 3/16)
  • Draw all the views
  • Draw in fake events to ensure that it will work
  • Prep the 4 highways to be imported into Flash/Flex
  • Post final design to blog
• Programming (to be done by Thursday 3/19)
  • Begin pseudocode
  • Figure out what classes are needed and how it will be structured

Search