EPP - Visiting Banks for Advice

We all met up at the Museum of Wales to discuss about visiting banks for advice on starting up a new business. We split into groups and organised which of us were assigned to which banks.

We visited Natwest first and tried to get hold of their business adviser who, after 10 minutes told us that she was out and would not be able to see us that day. In the end we were just handed out starter packs with a CD containing Natwest's Business Starting Software. This is to be used for creating a detailed business plan and organising. They took our phone numbers, but never got back to us to re-arrange another meeting.

We then went to the Royal Bank of Scotland. We were told again that we would not be able to talk to anyone and were given business starter packs. These starter packs were not at all useful as it is better to get face to face contact where we can ask questions and be told the basic advice. From these packs I would not have a clue how to set up my own business as i would have to know that all areas have been covered. It would have been good if we'd have been able to talk to a business adviser as we could have had things explained in detail and could have shown us the whole process where we would have known everything, and not left questions unanswered.

EPP - Networking

Almost all businesses need a good networking structure in order to be successful. It is essential for communication within an organisation, as information needs to be shared quick and efficiently especially if it is a large business. Design is an area which is no different. Information needs to be processed and understood quickly as it is an ever changing environment. When searching for design networks, I found a few that are in operation including West of England Design Forum that hold informal events where people who are in the field or interested can arrange to meet up and discuss topics or new information that has arose. There doesn't seem to be any of these events in Cardiff. It would be a good idea to hold one closer to home as it is quite far to travel when you don't know what it's going to be like.

EPP - Motivation

Motivation is needed in the area of Design. You need to have a passion to pursue your ambitions and thrive amongst the vast knowledge that can be gained from such a broad area. I was inspired to create my project as it had been an idea of mine for a while but I had no time or reason to partake in such a big project when there were no goals for me to achieve as such. When the opportunity arose for me to do this project I was glad to undertake the work. It includes all areas that interest me including film, design, sound editing, DVD creation. I have had to learn new programs and have gained experience as a result of this. I have achieved what I set out to do and am pleased with the resources that were available to me. I believe that any new experience has the potential of being useful at some point in your life, especially in such a involving field. Awards such as the YCN competition allow young people to get their ideas across, win a competition if their work is good enough, and even get contacted by a talent scout.

Production Processes 1000 word essay

Production Processes - Interview with Gavin Johnson from the BBC's Web Development Team
Paul Bryant - Design for Interactive Media BA/BSc


For this production processes module my team and I were asked to conduct an interview with a person from a local multimedia company about the production processes within their team and what project management strategies they apply. We decided to ask Gavin Johnson who is the Team Leader of a Web Development Team consisting of 8 members. They are actively involved with the designing and maintaining of the BBC websites. As out lecturer Stuart Neil is a good friend of Gavin’s we were able to arrange an interview quite easily, under informal settings.

As we only had an hour of his time, we decided to construct four key questions that would cover the majority of information that we needed to gather. These were:
1: What Production methods do you use?
2: How do you stay on top of software advances so that you don’t fall behind?
3: How do you evaluate and deal with the maintenance of a project?
4: What methods do you use to market a project?

From the information that we gathered note-taking during the interview, we have found out the following facts:

Their team is broken down into two main sections: Text-based and Video-based. Half the team concentrate on the html and all the textual information that is entered onto the page, which might be information about the programs that are shown, or different projects that are on the go. The other half are involved with editing the video that has been sent from the film department. They, then have to edit the footage so it is suitable to be viewed on the website. They have certain guidelines that they have to adhere to, such as providing the videos on the website in both Windows Media and Real Player formats as they are the most commonly used.

These diagrams show the flow of information of video and audio within the department. The source video is sent from the film studio department to the Web Development team. They then edit this using mainly the ‘Flip Factory’ program that will take the source video and automatically convert this into the required web formats that are needed. The audio is dealt with in a different way as it is streamed live, and has to go out onto the website at the same time. This means that the BBC’s radio distribution centre stream the radio broadcast out live to the audio department within the web team and this is then uploaded on the website, so it is output at the same time as it is on the radio.
As regards to being creative, he responded by informing us that he, and his team had strict guidelines that he had to abide by when creating the websites. This prevents them from using certain software such as flash, as there are certain copyright issues. The guidelines also state that the text has to be readable, and able to be changed not a set size, as they have to cater for people have visual disabilities.
For smaller projects they test their projects internally as this is quicker and more cost-efficient. For larger-scale projects that have little or no research they may hire ‘Redby’, who are a team of testers that will more thoroughly test a project for them.
The BBC don’t compete commercially, but sometimes have client based work for subjects such as education. The BBC have built up an approved supplier list so they know who to trust when wanting certain jobs done. This ensures that it will be done with the deadline and to a satisfactory standard as they would have dealt with them before.
Before taking on a project, the BBC run through a few checks. Firstly, they talk to the client to find out their expectations. This is then checked over to see if it is feasible in regards to time, available resources, software, and cost. If this is OK, the scope of the project will be further analysed.
The BBC department in Wales do not have a lot of money but in order to keep up-to-date with technological advancements, they normally refer to the London department, and see what would be relevant or advantageous to them. They will then be given a budget to keep up to date with any revolutionary new software.

This diagram shows the procedure that the department goes through when a new project is taken on.




There are many methods that the BBC use to market projects. This is through the use of TV, radio and websites in the form of trailers, banners and audio commercials. They have to be aware of the launch dates of programs so they can advertise to the build-up of the launch. Pro-Mo blocks are used on sites that are relevant to each other. These are links that are on the side of a website that might be in picture or text form that link to each other. There has been certain controversy surrounding sites such as Torchwood. This site moved away from the Standard templates that the BBC normally use and sparked controversy as it didn’t comply with the Quality Assurance.

Sometimes alternative versions of websites are produced, such as having a text-only version. With a TV program there is only one set format to be aired, whereas with a website, it has to be done in many formats so that it can be viewed on a MAC/PC, computers with slow connections, different screen resolutions etc. It also has to comply with the Standards and Guidelines.

Competition Brief - Keep Britain Tidy

For this module I have been asked to choose a brief from the ycn 06/07 competition book. I have decided to choose 'Keep Britain Tidy'. This brief asks me to produce a series of posters that will make aware the public's attention to one of the most serious contributors to littering in the UK, which is dropping rubbish from vehicles.

I firstly created a brainstorm, which is a number of ideas jotted down that is in someway related to the brief. From this, I created a shortlist of feasible ideas:



From this shortlist, I asked people what idea they would most prefer to see developed. My second idea gained the most votes so I settled upon this, which would target young drivers/boy racers. I decided to create the posters in Photoshop. Having previous experience I wouldn't have to spend time learning a new program.

PHOTOSHOP PROGRESS:

..............



FINAL RESULTS PRINTED AND LAMINATED:




CONCEPT ARTWORK:

BILLBOARD













NOTICE BOARD



PICTURES USED:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsie/2762368/
http://nyetwork.org/wiki/road.jpg
http://www.cyclec2c.com/april%2028%2029%20191.jpg
http://www.rao-osan.com/osan-info/onbase/other/060603-litter-feast1.jpg
http://www.litterfree.ca/litter.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/2072p8h.jpg
http://www.ohiodnr.com/recycling/toolkits/sem/images/21.jpg

CCS (VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol))

VOIP is the basis of routing a voice conversation over a LAN network or WAN (Internet). VOIP protocols are used to carry analogue audio signals over the IP network, and allow both participants to engage in a normal conversation. Thw analogue waves is converted into digital and then mack to analogue when it is reecieved by the participant at the other end of the phone line. Users that already have an broadband Internet connection can normally use VOIP at no additional cost if talking to each other via a PC.



There are three ways in which to use the voip service. These are:
ATA: (Analogue telephone adaptor) This is an analogue-to-digital converter that allows you to connect a standard phone for use of transferrring voice signals over a broadband Internet connection.
IP Phones: These are specialized phones that have all the hardware/software necessary to make phonecalls via VOIP. An example of a phone that uses this technolog is a Skype phone.
Computer-to-Computer: Using a PC, software, speakers, a microphone, a sound card, and an Internet connection, you can make long distance phone calls for free. The Skype software is free and allows you to add people and chat to othe people with skype accounts.


The majority of consumer VoIP solutions do not support encryption yet. As a result, it is relatively easy to eavesdrop on VoIP calls and even change their content. There are several open source solutions that facilitate sniffing of VoIP conversations.

User-Centred Design (Re-design of Mobile Phone)

The Samsung SGH-D500 phone is typical of most phones found on the market today. It boasts a colourful display with many options and features. This can distract from the main reason that the majority of people use the phone for which is to make phone calls and send text messages. Although both these things are easily achievable with this phone for the vast majority of people, it doesn't cater for those few that have disabilities where their eyesight is affected. For them, the icons and text would appear too small to make out, and maybe even if they were colourblind the colours wouldn't be as apparent as they would be for people with 'normal' vision. Therefore, for this re-design project, I have decided to accomodate for those exact people and produce a prototype that incorporates these options and hopefully they would find more acceptable and easy to use.

I have added two extra buttons on the side of the phone that are easiy accessible and do two new features that the old phone lacked. They are a 'black/white' button that changes it from a colour display into black and white so the text is contrasted and easily decipherable against the black background. The second button is a zoom feature that allows th icons on the screen to appear much larger. I thought this was a better option than changing the size of the screen as it is quite large already.

I followed Jakob Neilson’s principle of only testing it on 5 people as any more would have not brought back much more useful comments. The prototype was tested on 5 different people. 4 men and one woman. I got them to use the phone and look at the prototype I had done so see if my improvements were worthwhile. They all had good vision but all agreed that the changes that I made would benefit visually-impaired people.

If I were to do the project again and had more time I would make a fully functional prototype with all the menus with the added features incorporated into the design as I only showed a brief mock-up. There was not much wrong with the phone but I managed to pick a few bad points and believe I suggested some good ideas.

CCS (Englebart & Nelson)

These two people are very influential within the 'information age' we currently live in. Douglas Engelbart has always been ahead of his time, having ideas that seemed far-fetched at the time but later were taken for granted. For instance, as far back as the 1960s he was touting the use of computers for online conferencing and collaboration. Engelbart's most famous invention is the computer mouse, also developed in the 1960s, but not used commercially until the 1980s. It is now widely used within the computing industry and makes navigating easier. Like Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider, Engelbart wanted to use technology to augment human intellect. He saw technology, especially computers, as the answers to the problem of dealing with the ever more complex modern world and has dedicated his life to the pursuit of developing technology to augment human intellect.

Nelson founded Project Xanadu in 1960 with the goal of creating a computer network with a simple user interface. The effort is documented in his 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines and the 1981 Literary Machines. Much of his adult life has been devoted to working on Xanadu and advocating it.
The Xanadu project itself failed to flourish, for a variety of reasons which are disputed. Journalist Gary Wolf published an unflattering history, The Curse of Xanadu[1], on Nelson and his project in the June, 1995 issue of Wired magazine. Nelson expressed his disgust on his website[2], referring to Wolf as a "Gory Jackal", and threatened to sue him.
Nelson claims some aspects of his vision are in the process of being fulfilled by Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web. However, Nelson says he dislikes the World Wide Web, XML and all embedded markup, and regards Berners-Lee's work as a gross over-simplification of his own work

CCS (Participation Research)

There is software that is specifically made for the building and maintaining websites that handle social networks. Many of these websites offer blog hosting services. Some of the most popular social networking sites are Myspace, Blogspot and Facebook. Most of these social networks allow users to create a unique profile where they upload pictures and enter information about themselves, e.g. likes, dislikes. Some of them have privacy controls where only friends who are added in their profile are allowed to contact them or make comments.

One of the biggest social networks is MySpace. It is currently the world's sixth most popular website. It has over 100 million accounts registered. It was founded by Tom Anderson in July 2003 and was bought for $580 million by Rupert Murdock's News Corporation. Another very large social network is YouTube, which allows users to upload videos and share them to the world. This was founded in 2005 by three former employees of Paypal. Videos of almost anything can be found, from trailers of films, amateur films, old cartoon series etc.