Multimedia Development Process – Part 2 of 3

Now that we’ve covered the setup and requirements phases, time to move on to the actual work. This involves the design and development phases in which we make design decisions and carry out the planned work.

02 Design Phase

During the design phase we work to produce three deliverables:

Course / Presentation map
Wireframes
Prototype

Coursemap / Presentation map

Same thing as a sitemap for a website. Create a diagram to capture the flow and interactions between all pages, applications, etc. Make sure that all pages have a unique id that can be used as a reference in communication for change requests (e.g. mod010_sub060_p140).

Wireframes

A lot has been said about wireframing over the last decade. But in short, it is the de-facto standard for creating user interfaces for web and multimedia. If you are not using wireframes to layout the logical structure of the user interface you are working on, you are probably not outputting the best result. Wireframes are the blueprints of a UI – and here’s a unique analogy – building a user interface without a wireframe is the equivalent to building a house without a blueprint(!). And we all know that’s just mad. Mad!

Unfortunately, wireframes have their background in IT, while a lot of graphic designers are asked to design the whole user interface for a multimedia project. Most graphic designers don’t have IT training, so it all gets lost in translation. We have to distinguish here between user interface design and visual design. User interface design is mostly scientific and is linked to psychology and usability. Visual design is mostly talent and trend watching mixed together skillfully. Following that, the development of a UI should not be assigned to a graphic designer – ideally. The visual design that is built on top of the UI wireframe is the area where a graphic designer will shine. You’ve been warned so you know what to do.

Wireframing resources will be added soon…

Prototype

Goes without saying, to create a prototype you ideally need some sort of content to use as a base. But as we all know, clients want to see the house built before they have decided how many rooms, bathrooms, floors, and where the house is to be located. Sometimes there is content, sometimes there isn’t. In which case we make up dummy content as placeholders. I hate dummy content with a vengeance, but such is life.

And there you have it. You have magically produced a well-planned prototype that conforms to requirements and does what the client wants. Celebrate with these two supporting documents:

03 Development Phase

So you’ve survived this far. And you’re still here? I admire your commitment…and madness. But I like you – you remind me of myself. And that’s always a good thing.

Anyway, in this part we get down to what is sometimes referred to as integration - but I prefer the term build. You’ve made the plans, you’ve built the logic, during development you only repeat, tweak functionality, and add all the content and interactions.

Another couple of documents to support and guide your well-organised effort:

In the next part I will discuss the delivery and project closure phases. See you then.