Flash Video Interface: Analysis of the features

Flash video players are a big part of the web environment, and even with the coming upgrades from html5, most websites still rely on the Flash interface to stream video content to users. I thought it was interesting on an aesthetic and design level. So I decided to focus my attention on researching several Flash video players and examining the interfaces for each player. This was an ICS 419 design project. What's surprising is the complete lack of literature and studies for interface designs. I found that most sites had instruction guides that showed people how to install and create your Flash video players, but they didn't really talk about the design aspect of the interface. Most of them just used a premade layout from Adobe.

After looking at several interfaces from well known sites and some not so well known ones, I gave my analysis on what I thought. This analysis was based on design principles from Donald A. Normans books about the same topic, Emotional Design and The Design of Everyday Things. Norman gave general ideas about design in general, whereas I applied them to Flash video player interfaces.

Donald A. Norman was at one time the Vice President of Apple Computer's Advanced
Technology Group. His writings taught me a lot about design, but also about the world we live in.

Here is my paper: here

Week 17: Finishing the video

It's coming down to the final week on the Kukui Cup Energy Dorm Competition project. I've worked on the competition design group and the content development group in the past few weeks. As our group has filmed several interviews, we've been thinking about how to put together the video about Solar Energy. This past week we recorded even more material for our narrative in the video. It's getting even more in-depth now.

It wasn't very easy to create the narrative in the video and piecing together what we would say.

The footage we recorded this past week was of ourselves narrating the story about Solar Energy. What was most frustrating was the narration. We had to really think about the transitions that would lead into the interviews. There was a lot of takes in order to get the words correct.

Since we finished filming, it now comes down to editing and making the video good.

Although this past semester has had very little for me to do in terms of coding, I've learned a lot project management and the process of creating content.

Week 16: Slow progress

Our project in content development about solar panels is coming along. We shot footage last week.

This week hasn't been our most productive time. I had some projects coming up for other classes and needed to spend time on those things. What I've done is look at how exactly we would frame our footage in order to create a piece about solar panels. It seems more and more likely that we'll need to create even more footage in order to make a coherent video. We shot A LOT of footage last week by interviewing owners of solar panels and also on campus, but it needs some context to be valuable to us.

I was wrote a short script in order to get an idea of how this video will look. It really doesn't have much on it because we've only thought about the footage so far. The challenge has been in trying to make use of our material. We're not sure yet how to break it up and use the interviews we got.

An idea I had was to use slides or pictures in the video along with narration to explain how solar technology works. We'll use abstract pictures that describe the electrons that are being displaced by solar rays and show the flow of electricity as a result. I find that simple is usually better. This might be worth trying.

Script

We've already agreed that there would be at least two videos. Our second video will probably contain footage on the interviews we had with the Sunetric open house. That interview had even more material and we're just trying to look through all of it.

Week 15: Shooting footage

This week our group has begun shooting footage for our solar energy project. Our content development group is creating videos for the Kukui Cup Dorm Energy Competition. We've interviewed Deans, homeowners and solar companies to find out about photovoltaic solar panels. Over the course of our filming and research we got some really interesting material.

The first interview was with Associate Dean Bill Chismar of the Shidler College of Business. He graciously talked to us and gave us a lot of insight on the PV panels installed on the BusAd building. I also got my first experience with interviewing someone on video. I was kind of nervous, but I found that I just needed to stay focused and maintain my eye contact. You never think about it, but videos require people to act very slow and calm. If you move your hands a lot or move very erratically, it can become distracting. The footage was good and we also got pictures of the panels. The only challenge we had was the rushed schedule. We got a message for an opportunity to talk to the Dean and we had to figure out very quickly whether we could do it. We were grateful for the opportunity and so needed to get things set up ASAP. I thought we did great with the time we available to us.

On our second shooting day, we went to a Sunetric open house at Hawaii Kai. We talked a Suntric representation and the homeowner that was trying to sell a home that had PV panels installed. What's amazing was that she had installed 24 panels on the roof and it was enough to offset all of her eletrical usage. Her electrical bill from HECO was $18 just as a base charge for using the electrical grid. One of the challenges in interviewing at this site was that we didn't know what to expect. We didn't know if the people there were going to agree to being interviewed and we were lucky to get the amount of footage that we did. The homeowner and representative was so forward and willing to talk about the topic of PV panels. Since they were so willing, it was very easy for us to just listen to what they had to say.

Overall, our efforts this week has been in coordinating our shooting project and getting everything ready. The people we interviewed were really giving and willing to share what they know. I learned a lot about photovoltaic panels and the information about using them. A lot of the insights we gained were somethings you couldn't learn from straight research.

For the coming week, we'll work on putting the videos together. From the amount of material we're thinking about making a few videos out of the material. We'll need to write a script with some commentary about what photovoltaic panels are and how it works. This way the audience will know what it is before it suddenly jump to the subjects we go into. I think people watching the interviews are always going to have the question in the back of their minds if we don't address what photovoltaic is.

Week 14: Solar Energy Idea

To educate students in the University of Hawaii about energy conservation we're creating a competition to encourage lower usage of electricity..

Our professor has proposed a idea for the new video we will be working on. It will be about Solar Energy. This new video project will need us to interview people, and gather information to for the video. Unlike our last video, where we just created our rules for energy pong, we thought this video will require outside sources of information. I had some work done this week specifically in research. I learned a lot about relying on outside sources. So far I've sent out two emails out to the Shidler College of Business Building and Saunders Hall and one came back with some information, but it has been hard to try to contact people to respond to your requests.

The basis of this video is about the present infrastructure of Solar Technology in UH today and what Solar Energy is. It occurs to me now that more than ever, we need to emphasize that Hawaii is a great place for solar energy technology. Even if we can't get interviews, I think we could still make great content by showcasing the solar technology used around campus. Dolly Omiya of the Shidler College of Business has graciously provided photos of the solar panels mounted on the Shidler building.
Photos:
here

I think with some great narrating from John Mack like in our Energy Pong video and editing, we can make the pictures work great. Right now all I can do is wait for replies and also look at other sources of information.

The main type of solar technology we we want to talk about is photovoltaic cells. I have a inkling of how it works. But as I began thinking about how to explain these concepts, it made me more worried. Narrating about how this works will not be enough.

So these are all the worries I have about the video project. I am going to work on these this week.

Solar Energy Video Research

Week 13: Reshoots and a new Video.

To educate students in the University of Hawaii about energy conservation we're creating a competition to encourage lower usage of electricity..

As we are creating content for the competition, this milestone reflects how far we've come. This week our content development group did a re-shoot for our Energy Pong video after getting critique from our first draft.

This was our first attempt.


We quickly scheduled another filming day with volunteers. It was actually smoother than our previous shoot. This time we had some experience and knew what we needed to film. I was there just like last time doing the little things. I reminded the guys about lighting, made suggestions for how to show the scenario and also to use old footage rather than shoot again due to time constraints. I really wanted to keep some of the old footage from the first video because some of it was just classic. It couldn't be better.

The challenge this week was in critiquing ourselves. We had to reorganize the video and take the suggestions from our professor and making the changes. We had a discussion where we had to decided whether to re-shoot the entire video or to add more footage. This was a major decision, and helped me understand what it's like a in a project like this.

We decided to re-shoot the video and add some old footage that was good. We also wanted to add some footage of girls participating in the video. This was a challenge as well. It was really hard to find girls that were excited about video making.

This is the newest version we shot and uploaded.


Overall, I think I got some great experience from working as a team.

Week 12: Video shooting is a lot of fun!

To educate students in the University of Hawaii about energy conservation we're creating a competition to encourage lower usage of electricity..

Thanks to the efforts of my teammates, we gathered a few friends to shoot as extras in our Energy Pong information video. We did it over the weekend. As part of the Kukui Cup Energy Dorm Competition, we are creating content that will help students during the competition and maybe teach them a little something which they can remember for a long while. The purpose of Energy Pong is to teach and reinforce facts and practices that we have introduced to the students about energy literacy.

The shoot itself was our main labor this week. We discussed over the details of the preparations. Equipment was borrowed from the UH CIS department and from Scott Wong one of the team members. And with the suggestions from Professor Johnson concerning copyright laws, we also printed out release forms to the actors in the video in order to keep everything legit. I myself am in the video and will probably be reminded of this years from now. yeah..

During the shooting of the video, we didn't really follow a regiment. Instead, our team followed the screenplay and focused on creating the scenes we needed. This was our biggest endeavor. It was actually quite an effort. Since most of us were new to this video making, we had to learn right away how to make this video better looking. It was pathetic. Even the lighting was bad until we took a makeshift lamp to improve the lighting. We learned a lot about the things that are necessary to create the scene. Moreover, getting one scene exactly right took us a better part of half an hour. One particular scene required that one of the ping pongs was spinning and then be dug out. Well since we're not exactly a Hollywood studio, someone had to spin it and create the illusion. I mention this because it was our most frustrating task and should be remembered for all time. Let it be known that the students of the content development team were very dedicated to this!

Even with the frustration, we had a lot of fun. It's just funny remembering all the laughs we had. This is probably a good example of the type of team work that helps to organize a group. A rough cut of the video is coming soon..

Meanwhile take a look at our screenplay.