Part 1: The “Girl Group” Steps up to the Challenge
Out of all of the client projects Sheridan’s IMM class got, I feel ours ended up being the most fun. But lets start at the beginning….
I don’t want to speak for anyone in my group but I am by no means a great coder. I can make things move, I can make things tween, but I am not great at complex coding. That being said, when I found out that I was in a group where none of us had much experience coding (i.e. many of the other groups had individuals who had been coding for many years) I was a little worried. And knowing that I was getting into a group where both Anne and I wanted to do the design, I was a little more worried. How would we split the work? Would we step on anyone’s toes?
I was worried for absolutely no reason (thank goodness!).
Our group meshed so well. Right from the start we agreed to split the design and coding, leaving Project Management to Lara. This way everyone got the role they wanted. Perfect right? Well, yes and no.
After spending many days and holding lots of fun brainstorming sessions we came up with our concept: a time line of innovations born in Ontario. Would Jenna like it? Would she think it was lame? Did we even care? (I’m just kidding, of course we cared!) On a cold, cold day in February we set out downtown to meet with Jenna and sell her our concept. Thankfully, she bought it and we were off!
Many people say coming up with a concept is the most difficult part. I’d say that in this particular instance many people would be wrong. We had a great idea but bringing out the visual design of this concept was something we struggled with. That and the fact that many innovations, while very important and boy am I glad they were invented, are kind of boring (or at least very difficult to depict).
We also needed to take into consideration that Gesture Tek technology captures broad gestures. There is no such thing as being able to ‘click’ on a button. A great way to think of broad gestures is to think of your shadow puppets. The top part of your hand is what you’re looking at, but the rest of you arm is still there making a shadow. Well Gesture Tek’s Wall FX captures your whole arm, not just your hand, and it interprets that as a gesture. So if your elbow is moving, it’s also affecting what’s on the screen.
Taking these two challenges and trying to figure out a way of making them work, and work well was difficult. But we did it! Because we are fantastic.
– Adrianna
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