Design of Interactive Content

Goals

This course focuses on design and implementation processes of complex multimedia applications, also known as Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Traditional web sites are less suited for displaying and interacting with rich multimedia content in comparison with desktop applications. That's why in the 1990s vendors like Macromedia introduced the term "rich internet applications" referring to the limitations of standard web interfaces at the time, while extending the browser capabilities through proprietary plug-ins. In the mean time Web standards have evolved, browser compliance increased and the AJAX technology reduced the need for frequent page refreshment, which made it easier to implement "rich" (i.e. "fat") clients by means of standard Web technologies like HTML, JavaScript, XML and CSS. However, when high graphic quality is required, a dedicated platform like Flash or Silverlight may still provide superior results. Anyway, a common characteristic of RIAs is that they benefit from the best of both sides, offering the media-rich power of traditional desktop applications and the content richness and connectivity of Web applications.

Rich multimedia content is getting more and more important, both in business applications (e-commerce) and in internet communication in social and cultural domains. With the advance of geo-data and the growing popularity of applications like Google Maps, Google Earth and SketchUp it has become quite easy to express one's view of the own environment in 2D and 3D models. At the same time the general public can now be invited to participate in town and landscape planning in a more direct manner than before, by manipulating objects and by making virtual walks in an environment that exists yet only in the mind of the planner. For ages, one had to travel a lot to experience the past; nowadays digital cultural heritage has brought history to the user. By visiting virtual exhibitions and 3D archeological sites one may even see details that are overlooked or out of sight when one comes to the physical heritage site itself.

Existing RIAs testify to complex design and implementation projects. We will explore possibilities to construct a scientific sound "cook book" for the production of RIAs. Topics we will address in this course concern:

• Concept: clients' requirements versus actual implementation; content and navigation structures of the RIA; functionalities and interaction levels; intended audiences, proto-type
• Record of the design and implementation process: documentation of critical information, design strategy, design principles, system requirements, user requirements
• Feedback: implementation versus actual requirements; user experience; interaction design;
• Implications of the use of geo-data
• Requirements for 2D and 3D visualization
• Content management of multimedia assets

Knowledge and skills in this course

• Advanced design principles for interactive content
• Evaluation of existing RIAs
• Extraction of and recording requirements of existing RIAs
• Conversion of textual content into RIA proto-type

• A number of scientific articles
• Documentation of existing cultural heritage RIAs

• Students and teams.
  • Each student participates in a small team; each team analyses an individual RIA and designs the proto-type of a new RIA.
  • Each student writes an individual theoretical paper (max. 5000 words) about a design topic relevant to the RIAs assigned to his/her team; the paper also discusses the available scientific literature.
  • Each team meets weekly with the lecturers for consultation.
• Lectures
  • During the lectures the available scientific literature is discussed.
  • Each student has to give presentations about topics from this literature.
• Plenary meetings.
  • Every team reports about its findings during the weekly plenary meetings.
  • In the final plenary meeting each team presents its proto-type and the argumentation underlying its design.
• Attendance to the lectures, plenary meetings and team meetings is mandatory and respecting deadlines is part of the course requirements.

• (Individual) Presentation (20 %)
• (Team) Weekly reports and final presentation (40 %)
• (Individual) Paper (40 %)

Each of the last two components must be passed with a grade of 5.5 or higher.

This course is open to students of the master program Content and Knowledge Engineering, and other master students when they have the required knowledge:

• Theory about streaming and non-streaming media
• XHTML, XML, XSLT, (elementary) JavaScript/Java
• Data modeling

The prerequisite knowledge requirement will be strictly enforced.