My Flash Player

View my SWF file

If that does not work use this address;
http://www.swfup.com/file/115643

Behaviour and Response Evaluation

The brief for this project was to create an interactive Flash-based sample player with original recorded sound. The sample players I found during my research varied in purpose and look. I found that many flash players were pieces of art that happened to play sound, and others were very simple in design the sole purpose being to sample music rather than look attractive. I wanted my sample player to be aesthetically pleasing and for the sound to have a purpose. Throughout the project I kept a sketchbook and added to my online journal, this helped to structure, plan and record the work efficiently. (See appendix; Online Journal Entries)

My Flash-based sample player would be an interactive story of Sleeping Beauty and would contain an option for the user to mix the sounds themselves. I would have to keep the design and interactive elements simple, as the target audience would be a young age group, children aged between five and ten. When creating the player in Flash I struggled with action-script and simple things such as making buttons, this was due to a long break from using Flash and it took a few days to get used to working in the program again. Once I had got past these initial problems the project went well.

I used different methods to create my sounds, some were created in a sound-editing program and others were recorded from live voices. Unfortunately this mixture did not work as well as I had hoped, as some of the sounds were higher quality and louder than others that sounded slightly amateur and fuzzy. On reflection it would have been better to use one method of creating sound and sticking to it throughout the project. Unfortunately due to the tight schedule of my time plan I did not give myself enough time to re-record the sounds.

The script for the player is very simple, but, as the player is aimed for young children I did not want to over-complicate things. Although I used straightforward action-script commands I did challenge myself.

I received some peer feedback that was positive, unfortunately, because I had chosen a young target audience it was difficult to find children to test the player. I had two ten year old girls test it who said it was very easy to use and all the instructions were easy to understand. They also said the text was fine to read, they liked the clouds in the background and the colours. I observed both children using the player and neither needed prompting on what to do, it is often important for children to feel independent and not have to ask for help.

I know for future that I need to plan out the testing for projects just as much as the rest of the work, if not more. On reflection it would have been easier to create a flash player aimed at a target audience of young adults, as there is an abundance of this age group on a university campus.

Project Update

I have finished my flash player and I'm really pleased with it. There were some hiccups along the way but overall it's come out well. The script for the player is very simple but because the player is aimed at a young age group. The pages are simple both to look at and to use. The instructions are clear and easy to understand. Both of these points are key when creating anything interactive for a young age group. Although I used simple action-script commands I did challenge myself as I find the whole scripting thing a mystery. It feels like I have achieved something and I am proud that I have now grasped action-scripting, even if it is only the basics.

I have received some peer feedback which has been good, unfortunately because I have chosen a young target audience it is difficult to find children to test the player. I have had two ten year olds test it who said it was very easy to use and all the instructions were easy to understand. They also said the text was ok to read and I was worried the text of the story may be too small.

I know for future that I need to plan out testing for my work just as much as I plan the rest of the project if not more. I would love to say that it had been tested on a range of 4 to 10 year olds and the feedback was all positive but this would not be truthful. On reflection it would have been easier to create a flash player aimed at a target audience of young adults and students as there is an abundance of this age group on a university campus. I now need to spend this week concentrating on writing my evaluation and preparing for my presentation next week.

Actionscript

I've been having some trouble with the actionscript in my flashplayer. Firstly I was trying to find some scrip to make a sound play when a button is pressed. I thought this would be pretty simple but whatever I tried nothing seemed to work. I tried different tutorials and asked for help in my seminars. The simplest solution was to make each sound clip into a movie which, when the button is pressed, it would play. This seems to be working fine and I added a simple "stop();" command to stop the sound from looping. My next problem was making the sounds on the next page play continuously when the button is pressed until another button stopped the sound. This didn't seem to be an easy task either. I thought that if I simply removed the stop command I added in the previous page then it would just play continuously but no, when the stop was removed the button no longer had control of the sound and it just played continuously when the user navigated to the page. When considering many options I decided the best option would be to copy the sound several times into the timeline, this would work better anyway as children tend to leave pages on the computer on and it wouldn't be very good if the sound continued to play for hours and hours. At present the sounds seem to be working fine, for now anyway.

Semi-Final Page Designs

I have nearly finalised the designs for my flashplayer pages. I don't want to say they are final as I may change my mind.

Welcome Page



This page is friendly and welcoming. I had some trouble making the simple buttons work as I missed small details like making the text single line rather than multiline and selectable rather than none selectable. I also forgot to create a large hit area which is important when making something interactive for young children. It's difficult to remember all these small details when it's been a while since I have used Flash. I am now starting to get the hang of it and am remembering key stages in creating a Flash Player that I ahd forgotten.

Story Page



Sound Mixing Page



I think incorporating the sounds into the Flashplayer will be my biggest challenge as I have not done this in a few years. I think I have to make the sounds clips into movies and then the buttons will just play the movies. The sounds in the story page will just have to play once but the sounds in the mixing page will have to loop to play continuously until the user presses the stop button. I think when doing this I will have to ask for help in both seminars and surgerys that are timetabled in the next couple of weeks.

Flash Player Designs

Page One Design One



This background did seem to match the theme of the flashplayer but the colours would clash with the other pages.

Page One Design Two



This page looks too plain and is not exciting at all to look at.

Page Two Design One



Again this page is just a bit boring although it does look better than page one as this page is busier with images and text.

Page Two Design One



This page looks plain and the colour of the clouds is not different enough from the backgound colour which makes the whole page look washed out. I do like the idea of using clouds and I may incorporate this into my other page designs. It makes the page child friendly and fairy tale ish.

Flash Player Vector Graphics (cont.)

Here is a picture of the character that will introduce the flash player.



Here is a picture of the fairy tale castle that will feature in the story page.

Flash Player Vector Graphics

I have created some vector graphics in Adobe Illustrator to incorporate into my flash player. The finished images are simple and easily recognizable, this is important as they will be very small on the 'read the story' page.

These are some pictures that will represent the sounds to be played in the story.

Sound picture for magical fairies



Sound picture for prince



Sound picture for princess



Sound picture for princess sleeping



Sound picture for witch



Sound picture for yawn



Sound picture for monster

Sketchbook Update 2

I've started doing some basic page designs for my flashplayer. I know I'm not the best at drawing but hopefully my ideas will come across.

Welcome page design



Storybook page designs

Navigation for Flash Player

I have decided to have three separate screens so each one is not too crowded. The welcome page will explain the flash player and what you can do. The story page will have the story laid out and the viewer can read it and click on pictures which will play a corresponding sound. This will be an interactive story. The 'mix the sounds' page will list all the sounds and each one will have it's own play, pause, stop and volume controls. When played the sounds will be looped to play continuously to make mixing the sounds easier for the user.

Sketchbook Update 1

I've been keeping a sketchbook throughout this project for research, ideas, inspiration and design ideas. Here are a few pages.

















As you can see I have been looking into what interactive stories are online now, most of the ones I found were from the cbbc and cbeebies websites. Some of the examples are more interactive than others and some seem to be interactive and let you have control over the story but then whatever the user chooses to do does not affect the story at all which was quite disappointing.

I have also looked at children's television, film and story characters. I think it is important to have a character that the user can identify with and for children it is not important whether they are human, animal, or even alien, as long as they are friendly. i have decided that my flash player should incorporate a character to introduce each page and give instuctions on what the user will have to do. As you will have seen I have started on some rough sketches of ideas for my own character.

Story

This is the story I plan to use in my Flash Player. The words in brackets represent sounds but in the final product these sounds will be represented by small pictures.

Once upon a time a princess (FLOATY SOUND) was born. The king and queen were so happy they threw a party and invited 3 magical fairies (MAGIC SOUND). At the party an evil witch (CACKLE) arrived, she was jealous she had not been invited to the party and cast an evil spell (CACKLE) on the baby. This spell said that when the princess (FLOATY SOUND) was 16 years old she would prick her finger on a needle and sleep (ZZZZZZZZ) for 100 years. The only way to break the spell would be a kiss from her true love. To try and get away from the evil spell the three magical fairies (MAGIC SOUND) took the princess and moved to a little house in the middle of the forest. The evil witch (CACKLE) still found the princess and on her 16th birthday she pricked her finger and fell asleep (ZZZZZZZZ). Many years passed by and the princess stayed asleep (ZZZZZZZZ). A handsome prince (DUMDADUMDUM) heard about what the evil witch (CACKLE) had done to the princess (FLOATY SOUND) and decided he would try to save her. He battled with horrible monsters (RRRAAAAHHHH) on his journey. Finally he found the princess (FLOATY SOUND) and saw she was still asleep, (ZZZZZZZ). He gently kissed her and she woke up and smiled. (YAWN). The handsome prince (DUMDADUMDUM) and the beautiful princess (FLOATY SOUND) were in love and lived happily ever after.

Idea

My first idea was to create a flash player in the style of a retro tv or radio. I liked this idea in theory but was struggling with ideas for sound that would relate to the design of the player. I then came up with a completely different idea altogether. I have decided to aim my flash player at young children, mainly girls aged 3 to 9 years old. My flash player will be based on the idea of Disney sound books i used to read when i was younger.





The viewer will read the story and click buttons to incorporate sounds. There will also be a separate page to play the sounds together in any combination to create an interesting mixture of sound. I have decided on the story 'Sleeping Beauty' as this is an easy story to shorten and minimize down. I have decided on 10 sounds that i will need to record for the story. I'm really excited about creating this flash player incorporating a story as I think it will be fun to design for a young age group which I have not done before. The actionscript should not be too complicated but will be a challenge for me as I do not know much about programming actionscript.

I have divided the project into different stages to help me keep focused throughout the workload. I have also labeled them small (s), medium (m), and large (l) to give me an estimated amount of time I should be spending on each section.
- Character design (s)
- Plan flash player navigation (s)
- Layout design (m)
- Page design (l)
- Record sounds (m)
- Alter sounds (l)
- Complete flash page designs (m/l)
- Import sounds (s)
- Flash actionscript (l)
- Testing (m)

Some Basic Research

I started to look at some basic flash players but i found this to be more easy said than done. I did manage to find a few examples at -
http://components.developers4web.com/mp3-flash-player









Flash Players seem to all consist of a few simple buttons:
- Play
- Stop
- Pause

Some also include
- Fast Forward
- Skip Forward
- Rewind
- Skip Backwards
- Volume Controller

3D designs are often the most effective and some seem to look like photos of physical mp3 players. I want to create a Flash Player that bends the rules of the bog standard slightly and I want mine to have a purpose that is more than just playin samples of random sound.

The Brief

Create an interactive Flash-based sample player with original recorded sound.
Keywords: Human Computer Interaction (HCI), interface design, sound

Assessment Requirements

- Upload the finished sample player on the Multimedia Student Server
- Online project journal entries
- Project evaluation (500 words, PDF format)

Handing in/upload date
10/12/07 - 10am