Experiments in Communication

Filing out my everyday use of technology chart, I was a bit surprised at he small number of technological devices I use, because I feel like I am always using some form of technology. It turns out that now that I am living as a student in a small apartment, away from home, most of the applications of technology I normally use have been transferred to my computer.
I don't own a tv, a landline, or a stereo (except for my alarm clock, which plays cds, but I have no cds here so I only listen to the radio). I watch tv shows online, talk to my family back home using Skype, and listen to music that is on my iTunes.

I had never really thought much about usability issues before. I can't imagine how someone would use many of the devices that I use if they weren't able to use their hands. For the redesigning of a device, I chose the alarm clock, because in 3 out of 4 cases I gave it a 5 (impossible to use without the ability to hear, see, or use your hands), and it is a rather important device, so I tried to use my imagination. I don't know if my redesigned device should be able to cover all of these disabilities at once, or one at a time. (If someone can't see or hear, and they also can't use their hands, I don't think there can be a way to set the alarm on their own!)

Posted by kyveli at 01:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We decided to pick the soundtrack for our video first, and decide on the content and storyboard based on a piece of music. So we all got together and listened to songs, and decided to use "Laptop A Go-Go" by End. We thought the music sounded a lot like a chase, and were inspired by the title of the song to make the video a satirical commentary on how much we use computers and technology.

There was going to be a much more elaborate plot line, with other things happening each time of of us got a hold of the computer and ran with it (receiving email, checking the weather), and with the use of technology-related secret weapons (cd's, camera flash, headphones, sleep button) but the shooting turned out to be very time-consuming. We wanted the shots to have some logical sequence so we had to consider things like background, the order in which were chasing each other, and we also had to take enough shots to make the final edit an interesting video to watch, and not just people running. As we were trying to shoot close-ups of the runners, Segway Bill came along and offered to help us with the shoot. It was really fortunate bacause we got some great shots. Later we decided to ask him to come by and steal the computer from us, as a way to end the video.

Editing the video was really fun (though it was hard to do with four people). I learned a lot about Final Cut Pro, and about video editing in general, because I had never done it before. I loved the process of synchronizing the audio and video, and I think the results were great.

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I asked Rona if I could work with her on the assignment, and she agreed, and she said: "I was thinking of making a video for yoga for people staying in front of computer everyday with some funny music by modest mouse." I loved her idea, and we got together and decided we wanted it to be really cute and sort of silly, and decided to make our characters look like the little cartoon character on her laptop case. We worked on the storyboard, deciding to make the animation take place at ITP at first, but then be transported to a magical land while the characters are exercising, and then have it somehow come back to reality.

We broke the song up into four parts, and each took 2 parts, and after creating a library of symbols (the shape of the characters etc) we each worked on our piece of the song. We reconvened later to put the two pieces together, and do some final tweaking (and tweening).

I had worked a little bit with Flash in the past, but only to use it as a web interface (buttons, scenes, etc). I had never done any animations on it, and after making this video I feel much more comfortable with it. It was great to use how to build a library of symbols so as to reuse them efficiently, and as I was making my part of the video I discovered all sorts of cool functions of Flash such as "swap symbol" etc. I feel much more comfortable making animations now, and am very happy with our little movie.

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