Digital Multimedia Management

Digital Multimedia Management
Digital Multimedia
Management
2nd edition
Louise Harder Fischer and Marie Oosterbaan
Translated by
Thomas Blom Hansen
and Karen Merete Grnborg
Digital Multimedia Management
- previously Developing Multimedia
2nd edition 2011
Nyt Teknisk Forlag 2011

Editor: Henrik Larsen, hl@nyttf.dk
Cover design: Guus Oosterbaan
Graphics: Mette Nielsen and Guus Oosterbaan
Dtp: Mette Nielsen
ISBN: 978-87-571-3258-8
Order no.: 44021-9
All rights reserved according to Danish copyright
law. Copying this e-book is not allowed.
Nyt Teknisk Forlag
Vigerslev All 18
DK-2500 Valby
info@nyttf.dk
www.nyttf.dk
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The structure of this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Who was this book written for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Essential terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Holistic: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Digital media: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Interactivity: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Paradigm: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Development: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Developers: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Project team: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Development method: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The HOME method: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Users: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Theoretical Legacy and the New Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Project management and digital media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
General challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Specific challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Communication theory and digital media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Software engineering and digital media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Project Life Cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Software engineering processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The waterfall method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Exploratory programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Prototyping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Agile methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Paradigm parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Risk management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Fixed time and costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Project management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6 DIGITAL MULTIMEDIA MANAGEMENT

Introduction to the HOME development method . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Actors in digital media development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
HOME step by step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Pre-analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Process-oriented activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Product-oriented activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Process-oriented activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Pre-analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Questionnaire for product definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Questionnaire for process definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Project start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Three important processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The development process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The comprehension process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The acceptance process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Stakeholder analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
The project description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Process activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
The projects success factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Establishing a team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Planning with milestones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Planning product-related activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
User involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Planning test activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Testing satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Risk management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Situational choice of tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Identification of general challenges and choice of means . . . . . 82
Detailed risk analysis and risk management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Planning project plan evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Product activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Concept development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Mindmapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
CONTENTS 7
Collages used as concept development tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The girls explanations to the collage made with
images from the internet: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The girls explanations to the collage made with images
from magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Summary: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Considerations about e-books: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
PO Provocative Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
RAFO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
PMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
The Six Thinking Hats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The creative room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Concept description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Communication research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Techniques for gathering data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Focus groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Cultural Probes and diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Data gathering from social media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Selecting respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Data analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Validity and verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Communication planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Sender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Target audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
User profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Communication environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
The Design Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Problem analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Techniques for problem management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Retrospective problem management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Prospective problem management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Product activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Information design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Qualifications of the information designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Information design phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Selecting information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Users demands for the information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Information briefings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Organize information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Places and phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
All sides are front pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Organizing information in educational products . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Organizing information in presentation products . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Interaction design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
What is interaction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Building flowcharts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Presentation design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
How to choose media elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
The media elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
The user interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Attention levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Design a rough layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
The gestalt laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Contrasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Choosing colours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Style and mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
The Gestalt laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Media elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Colours and contrasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
The Gestalt laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Media elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
The Gestalt laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Media elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
The storyboard documentation of presentation design . . . . . . . . 173
Function specification documentation of information,
interaction and presentation design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
CONTENTS 9
The Completion Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
The production team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Completion phase management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Managing processes by breaking the work down
into minor tasks - SCRUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Signing off and evaluating your project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Product activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
What you need to know about sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
File formats and compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Online audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
General consideration about audio production . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
What you need to know about video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Online video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
General considerations about video production . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
What you need to know about graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Integration of media elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Maintenance and updating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Case implementation of a project management model . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Vizion Factory e-learning A/S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Risky projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Follow-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Internal and external learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Level of implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Preface
Welcome to the English edition of Digital Media Management. This
book is a translation of the third Danish edition of Udvikling af
multimedier.
The book describes the digital media development method HOME.
HOME is a 10-year-old method that has been used for many dig-
ital media projects in Danish educational centres and companies.
Danish business academies, Copenhagen Business School, Roskilde
University Centre and the IT-University are but a few places that
use the book diligently. Furthermore, several companies consider
this book a significant input for developing digital media products.
It has also been published in Norway.
Some of the instructions in the book have been updated consider-
ing the wide application of the method and the overall development
of the sector. This third edition is still founded on the development
frame called HOME. HOME is a holistic, dynamic development
method we have enhanced by adding some of the numerous new
theories, techniques and perspectives that have come up since the
last edition of the book.
The most significant changes compared with the 2nd edition are
connected with the shift from a development-oriented approach to
multi-media production to the focus on how to handle user and
client involvement as combined with the technical insight designers
are expected to have.
One of the most radical changes seen in this sector is the far
greater need to turn to users for advice, i.e. to involve them in the
process.
Today, digital media users contribute to creating the contents
and the communication they interact with, to a greater extent. In
this connection, they are referred to as prosumers (producing or
proactive consumers) that expect to get the opportunity to influ-
ence contents and design, especially in our sector. Users that do not
feel taken seriously will not take the communication or the product
seriously.
It is absolutely crucial for designers to be able to help clients
or the commissioning party build a relationship with their target
audience. In order for the latter to perceive this relationship as
meaningful, they must have the opportunity to express themselves.
PREFACE 11
Most people are keen on setting out views or new ideas, and these
inputs are vital to achieve successful product development.
As mentioned above, the development method should envisage
constant user involvement. At the same time, it may be adjusted
according to a continuous dialogue with the client. One of the proc-
ess life cycle families giving clients control is referred to as agile
methods.
These two new perspectives are included in this book and in the
method, and therefore you may find the answers to the following
questions:
What is the most suitable way of involving users?
What graphic techniques and effects can you use to give users
an experience that is as pleasant and professional as possible?
How do you select the most suitable development method
ensuring a smooth, transparent work process?
What does that imply in terms of work organisation?
This book addresses you, who wish to become a professional designer
and make well-considered decisions about process management and
development of products, leading to comprehensive, transparent
projects for both project team and clients.
Enjoy the book!
Louise Harder Fischer and Marie Oosterbaan

Introduction
This introduction covers:
- The digital media development method HOME
- The structure of this book
- Who was this book written for?
- Essential terminology
Digital media development is a discipline characterized by fierce
competition, rapid growth and innovation. The intense competition
has pressured the developers ability to manage time, resources and
quality. It is our experience that this has led to an increasing de-
mand for methods and tools tailored to tackle diverse requirements
and opportunities.
This book is an attempt to create a coherent and holistic approach
to developing interactive, digital media applications. The method
is founded on a coherent view of development and comprehensive
experiences from actual digital media projects.
The point of departure for the method is that there are require-
ments or demands related to digital media projects. A client may
define the requirements or the project may be initiated based on a
presumed demand on the market. It is of vital importance in both
scenarios to produce suitable content, user interfaces and an ap-
propriate technical standard.
This is the starting point for the project team. It is important for
the project team to select a development method and tools that are
suitable for the situation, the client and the product.
HOME
The book describes HOME, our proposal for a holistic and open
method for developing all kinds of digital media applications for
Internet or CD-ROM. The method is concerned with project manage-
ment and the resulting product. The purpose of HOME is to propose
a structured approach to developing digital media projects to
make the developers choices throughout the process coherent, well
considered and relevant.
INTRODUCTION 13
The HOME method can be adjusted to fit the activities, documenta-
tion and sequence most suited for your project. How you adjust the
method to your needs determines how you will benefit from reading
this book. Like any other instructional book, its value will only
show in relation to actual experience.
The structure of this book
After an introductory chapter about the books theoretical back-
ground (chapter 1), we will present the general principles operating
in HOME (chapter 2). Hereafter follows four chapters (chapters 3-6)
describing the four steps of the method.
The four steps are:
Pre-analysis: introductory definitions of process and product, choice
of development method, stakeholder analysis and project descrip-
tion (chapter 3).
Research: project plan, communication plan, research and concept
development (chapter 4).
Design: Assessment and adjustment of the project plan, design of
content, structure and form (chapter 5).
Completion: Final adjustments of plans, production and integration
of media elements, evaluation and project finish (chapter 6).
Client-meetings
Information gathering
Project description
Pre-analysis
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Planning
Concept description
Communication plan
Test documentation
Collaboration agreement
Project plans
Project description
Research
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Communication research
Communication planning
Concept test
Teambuilding
Assessment
Adjustment
Information structure/briefs
Flowchart
Storyboard
Adjusted plans
Project description
Design
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Interaction
Presentation
User test
Assessment
Adjustment
Project finish
Media elements
Golden master
Adjusted plans
Sign of contract
Evaluation report
Completion
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Production
Integration
System test
Acceptance test
The four chapters will cover both process and product levels. The
process level describes all the activities you can utilize to control
and manage the development, while the product level contains the
activities related to the research, design and implementation of the
application.
A number of documents written materials are related to the
process and product levels.
Who was this book written for?
This book is targeting you who study or work with developing
digital media.
It was written for students at digital media designer courses and
will further be suited as a project management tool and a source of
inspiration for people working in the digital media industry. Finally
the book can support companies planning to invest in digital media
productions with relevant information to evaluate processes and
products.
Essential terminology
This book will make extensive use of certain terms that it will useful
be to be familiar with from the start.
Holistic:
Holistic means that we consider the development of digital media
as a coherent whole where all choices influence other factors. The
goal for the project influences the entire process, which draws upon
methods and knowledge from a variety of disciplines relating to
both process and product. The opposite of a holistic approach would
be to view each phase in the development process individually and
draw upon theory and experiences from one field only.
Digital media:
I this book we use the term digital media to describe digital, interac-
tive productions integrating several media. The resulting product
could be e.g. a CD-Rom, a DVD or a websites.
INTRODUCTION 15
Interactivity:
The interactive aspect of a digital media application denotes a
meaningful exchange of in and output between user and computer.
Digital media can be more or less interactive depending on the
extent and meaningfulness of this exchange.
Paradigm:
A paradigm is the scientific term indicating a shared set of basic
assumptions within a group of people working within a particular
field. In this book we use the term in relation to three basic, differ-
ent ways of structuring a development process.
Development:
Development of digital media entails the specification, design and
implementation phases. This includes project planning, evaluation
and adjustments of the project life cycle. This book covers both
management (process) and production (product).
Developers:
Developer is a generic term for project managers, designers and
programmers.
Project team:
A team of developers working with a specific project.
Development method:
A certain method for planning and structuring a specific project. We
describe the HOME method and also three classic approaches from
the field of system engineering.
The HOME method:
The HOME method is our proposal for a holistic development
method. HOME is an abbreviation of Holistic Open Multimedia
development Method. The method is based on a holistic and open
approach and consists of the four phases listed above. The method
is also illustrated above. HOME is a meta-development method i.e. it
can be adjusted to traditional methods depending on type of project
and the development tradition within a field or a company.

Users:
The term users refers to the end users of the digital medium. It is
often used in connection with interactive digital media, but in this
book, it also covers concepts such as target audience, clients and
consumers.
1
The Theoretical Legacy and
the New Perspective
This chapter includes:
- Project management and digital media
- Communication theory and digital media
- Software engineering and digital media
This book has its theoretical legacy from three very different fields:
project management, communication theory and software engineer-
ing. In this chapter we will discuss the reasons for this particular
theoretical background. We will further explain the important prin-
ciples and guidelines from each of the three disciplines that have
lead to the suggestions put forward in this book.
An understanding of principles and guidelines from each of the
fields are necessary for a holistic approach to developing digital
media.
Project management and digital media
The first theoretical foundation for our method is that part of
project management theory concerned with high risk or innovative
projects. In this section we will introduce the special circumstances
surrounding any digital media project and we will point out which
principles and guidelines you can use to solve the various situations
you may find yourself in.
A project is risky when it includes a high number of unknown
factors. Many unanticipated situations may arise from these factors.
Digital media projects include a high number of unknown factors.
Often, you will be using new technology also new stakeholders and
clients will be involved, you will be working with unfamiliar con-
tent, new working methods and different resources. These unknown
factors make the development explorative by nature that is risky.
Risk management is one of the many forms of control you can
use to manage the uncertainties in your project. Risk management
is a style of management that aims at identifying and controlling
the risks that arise from the developmental work, posing a potential
threat to project success. In any project there will be a number of
challenges you must be aware of. Some have a general nature and
will be found in all types of projects even outside the digital media
industry others are specific for digital media development.
General challenges
It is quite normal to avoid risky projects and uncertainty. However,
it is our experience that you can make risk your friend and get
far better results. Choosing to confront risky projects can lead to
greater success than avoiding risks.
As developer, you are generally faced with many decisions about
how to manage the project life cycle. You are faced with planning,
assessing and regulating the activities necessary for carrying out
the development.
The initial decisions are often the most difficult ones. Early in
a project you do not have the necessary or relevant information.
Project management theory says that the importance of a decision
is inversely proportional to the relevant information the decision
must be based on. Let us explain that further.
Figure 1.1 is a diagram of two curves. One shows the amount
of relevant information available. This curve increases over time.
The other curve in the diagram shows the importance of any one
decision over time. The diagram shows that the initial decisions
have the greatest importance, because the entire project will rest on
these first decisions.

High risk
Low risk
Amount of
relevant
information
Impact of
decision
Time
Figure 1.1 The project managers dilemma.
THE THEORETICAL LEGACY AND THE NEW PERSPECTIVE 19
The problem is that the initial decisions are often based on in-
sufficient knowledge. That makes the decisions risky. So the first
decisions will remain the most uncertain decisions through the en-
tire project life cycle.
The challenge is to make sound decisions based on insufficient
information or to postpone the decisions until a higher level of
information has been reached.
There are other challenges. Project management theory discusses
the operational and the contextual uncertainty. The operational un-
certainty is the internal uncertainty in a project. It is an expression
of any uncertainty about reaching the project goals. The contextual
uncertainty is the external uncertainty. It arises when the project
goals change because of external changes e.g. when the clients re-
quirements or the market opportunities change during the project
life cycle.
Making and adhering to a project plan with meticulously planned
content and purpose of activities can diminish the operational un-
certainty. A carefully planned project plan ensures that you can
reach the initial project goals by following the plan step by step.
This approach, however, creates other problems in a field of con-
stant flux. A highly detailed project plan leaves little if any room for
changing and learning during the project life cycle. This leaves your
project vulnerable to the external uncertainty posed by a constantly
changing world. Changes that ultimately could render your initial
project goals irrelevant or superfluous.
The challenge for a developer is to walk a tight rope between
internal and external uncertainties. This calls for a transparent and
visionary method of planning that can be modified according to
external changes or internal learning without unnecessary internal
costs. The illustration below shows the dilemma of contextual and
operational uncertainty.
We have chosen first to focus on the uncertainties and risks that
are likely to arise during a project life cycle, to enable you to cope
with the circumstances surrounding a risky project. After that, we
move on to the methods and techniques you can apply to diminish
risks. Risk management is a suitable method in a situation involv-
ing high risk. First of all, the method leaves little room for major
surprises; secondly it is a method that ensures a rapid development
through the entire project life cycle.

Time
External risk
Internal risk
High risk
Low risk
Figure 1.2 Operational and contextual uncertainty.
In other words: risk management is based on the idea that rapid de-
velopment will diminish the potentially harmful influence of risks.
A risk is defined as a possible situation that may have severe
consequences. Risk management includes risk analysis and risk
control.
Specic challenges
There are a number of challenges specific to the field of digital
media. During the last years we have identified four conditions
influencing most digital media projects.
Living up to demands of conceptual innovation and short production
time. It is difficult to meet the demands for innovation while keep-
ing production time down to a minimum. Innovative ideas take time
to mature. You need innovative ideas fully up-to-date to compete
with the range of applications already on the market. When this
demand is combined with a wish for short production time, in part
because of the rapid technological development, you find yourself
in a dilemma not easily solved.
Being technological forerunners. It is crucial to be a technological
forerunner, to maintain your competitive edge in the digital media
industry. It requires up-to-date knowledge and a lot of resources.
You need to consider the technological development in your project
plans and you need to allocate time for learning new skills or up-
dating existing skills.
Communicating opportunities and limitations to the client. Often, your
client is not a digital media expert. Your clients lack of knowledge
can be a major challenge for you. Most clients do not understand
opportunities or limitations when the project starts. They cannot
foresee the consequences of the initial decisions e.g. do you want
high quality sound or a wide target audience using older comput-
ers. These kinds of decisions have a lasting impact on product and
project quality, time and price. As a developer it is your responsibil-
ity to ensure that your client understands the decisions made and
the reasons for making the decisions. In other words you have to
include client learning as a factor in your work.
Finishing the project despite of new opportunities constantly emerg-
ing. Because of the three above listed challenges, it can be difficult
to finish the phases of the project. It can be a costly venture for
the developer if new, good ideas evolve as new technologies are
introduced to the market. In this case, it may be wise to opt for
methods allowing the customer to define partial objectives and set
priorities in progress, thus selecting and deselecting items.
As explained above, there are a number of conditions the designer
must consider when initiating a digital media project. You will
find suggestions to specific activities and procedures for planning,
assessing and regulating your developmental work in the sections
dealing with the various steps of the development method.
Communication theory and digital media
The second discipline we have incorporated into our method is com-
munication theory. Communication theory investigates the relation
between sender and receiver and, when it comes to digital media,
the relation between the medium and the user.
When planning communication it is essential to know the suc-
cess criteria and the target audience for the communication. Also
the medium used for the communication is of great importance.
This is the field of study addressed by communication theory.
On the overloaded information highway you need thoroughly
planned communication to reach your target audience. The purpose
and message of your communication must be clear, so the user
knows what to expect quickly. That calls for knowledge and skills
from the field of communication theory.
Planning strategic communication was never easy. But in digital
media you are faced with a variety of media types, interdisciplinary
work and, at times, conflicting traditions. Each discipline has its own
parameters for measuring quality. That makes it difficult to establish
a shared set of quality parameters in a digital media production.
Many digital media combine text, video, images and sound, and
the technical quality largely depends on the platform used to run
the medium. In many cases, for example, graphic and sound design-
ers have to make compromises in terms of quality to make sure that
products function on a platform such as a mobile phone or a set-up
box.
It is relatively simple to identify technical quality, but when it
comes to content or design quality the only real measure of quality
is the target audience. This is where communication theory enters
the stage: who is your target audience, what do they want, what do
they expect, how do they relate to the message not to mention the
sender and can they figure out how to use your product?
There are many communicative issues relevant for the develop-
ment of digital media. Very often they are given low priority during
the development.
Below we have described some of the typical causes for commu-
nication problems in digital media products.
Vague target audience. For a digital media project to succeed, the
developer needs a clear understanding of the target audience: who
should benefit from this production? It is our experience that most
communication problems in digital media are caused by developers
who remain unclear about their target audience. They fail to in-
volve representatives from the target audience in the development
process or they have a far too vague definition of the target audi-
ence. A good communication process requires a narrowly defined
target audience, it requires that the developer involves the target
audience in the development process and finally it requires that you
test your application and adjust it according to target group feed-
back. Your chances of success are higher with a narrowly defined
target audience. If you address too many in one production, no one
will hear your message.
Unclear sender. The user needs to know who the sender is. It is a
known problem that users reject the message if it is unclear who the
sender is. The users begin to question the credibility and authenti-
city of the message.
Who is talking? The complexity of the information society makes it
difficult to understand who is talking and who is being addressed. It
is the communication planners responsibility to clarify these roles
to ensure that the target audience understands the communication
as reliable.
Too many messages. The message is of primary concern in any com-
munication process. Experiences show that it is imperative to work
with one message only. A common cause for multiple messages
in a production is that senders fail to kill their darlings. A darling
is a developers personal preference for a phrase or an illustration
that is included in the application, even if it does not support the
message.
Over the years, communication theory has conceived many tools for
planning communication to counter these possible pitfalls between
sender and receiver.
Modern mass communication research began in the 1940s with
the emergence of electronic media. The initial research was influ-
enced by the eras enthusiasm for science, therefore the early com-
munication theories where complex models, formulas and statistics.
The sender was understood as having primary control over the
communication process. The receivers were understood as passive
objects or targets for communication.
Today the receiver is understood as an active participant in the
process of creating the meaning of the message. That means that
communicators today are more careful about predicting results
from planned communication. The recent communication planning
tools operates with more complex definitions of the different as-
pects of the communications process. You need to understand those
aspects.
The point of departure for communication planning is Harold
Laswells famous sentence: Who says what in which channel, to
whom, with which effect?
1

Or in other words:
Who is the sender
What is the message
Who is the target group
What medium should we use
What is the intended effect
Lasswells formula is an example of the linear models of early
communication theory, viewing communication as a transmission
of information. This puts the emphasis on the effect of the com-
munication rather than on how the target audience decodes the
message. The transmission mind-set becomes a problem the minute
we attempt to predict how the target audience will decode our mes-
sage. The problem can be illustrated with an example two people
engaged in dialogue.
During the dialogue we can see a constant process of adjusting,
specifying and negotiating the message. Often when we finish a
sentence with a yeah which means, are you listening, do you
agree? We expect the other part of the dialogue to reply with a
mhh or a nod. During conversation we constantly have the op-
portunity to adjust our message to our target audience. We are alert
to the signals from the receiver and can instantly moderate our
mode of expression if we detect a decreasing attention from the
receiver.
It is clear that dialogue is an exchange of meaning. The meaning
is dynamic, individual and negotiable.

In mass communication the nature of the message cannot change.
The message is still received dynamically and individually but as
senders we lack the opportunity to moderate our message while the
communication is taking place. If we understand communication
as a linear process, we will fail to understand the importance of
1 Harold Lasswell: The structure and function of Communication in society, in Bryson
(ed): The communication of Ideas, Harper 1948.
the interaction necessary to moderate the message while the com-
munication is taking place.
Obviously we are not always interested in engaging our target
audience in dialogue. But we have to understand that creating
meaning from communication is an active, individual process. That
is why the effect of communication is impossible to predict. The
better we plan our communication, the better equipped we are for
understanding how the target audience create meaning from our
communication. That understanding can help us to influence their
process of creating meaning.
Lasswells sentence contains the essential parameters in the com-
munication process, but it lacks the questions of the surroundings
and feedback from the receiver. When we are dealing with digital
media it becomes even more important to understand the communi-
cation process as significant for our success even that part of the
process that will follow after the development has been completed.
In the design phase we will cover information, interaction and
presentation design. All your decisions in this phase will refer back
to the research you made while developing the communication plan.
That research could be interviews with client and target audience,
observation of possible user situations, creation of user profiles etc.
The communication plan will be one of your most significant docu-
ments because the target audience are the only ones who can tell
you if the intended message is getting through to them.
In the sections about product-related activities in the analysis
phase we will investigate specific tools for planning strategic com-
munication.
Software engineering and digital media
The third theoretical foundation for our method is software engi-
neering, the discipline of developing organizational and commercial
computer systems.
For many years software engineering was exclusively a discipline
for highly trained engineers. Many digital media developers have
avoided working with financial systems and client databases. It is
our opinion that we can learn a lot about how to organize the de-
velopment process by investigating software engineering theory.
Software engineering approaches to development can be divided
into a limited number of paradigms, each illustrative of different
approaches to organizing development. It is this books hypothesis
that these paradigms are very applicable to the development of
digital media.
Below we will outline the specific circumstances that lead us to
believe that software engineering can shed some light on digital
media development:
Knowledge and experience with a variety of approaches to organizing
development. If we take a closer look at software engineering, we see
that it is about producing the right software for a specific client. It is
equally important to develop the software correctly, so it is reliable.
Verification and validation are commonly used terms from software
engineering. Verification is testing that the system is reliable, if it
has been developed correctly according to specifications. Validation
is testing if the system is right for the users. The chronology and
emphasis of the various necessary tasks influences your ability to
develop the right system correctly with the expected quality. Digital
media developers can benefit from learning about the experiences
with chronology and emphasis in software engineering.
The borders between IT-systems and digital media are becoming
blurred. Internet, intranet and digital marketing materials, the use of
social media as well as mobile contents already fall under compa-
nies IT-strategies. Digital media products are an integrated part of
the strategy supporting their business model. That calls for a shared
and transparent understanding of development.
New demands for digital media call for development methods that can
meet those demands. The users demands of digital media are chang-
ing. Today, digital media must be reliable, functional and consistent
while remaining relevant and aesthetic in terms of communicative
value and design. The time has passed when fancy animations were
appreciated despite exceedingly long download times. Content, de-
sign and technology must merge seamlessly to present a meaning-
ful whole. Software engineering deals with multiple demands and
requirements from users, technology and user situations.
50 years of experience and documentation. Another good reason for
looking into software engineering is that the discipline comes from
50 years of experience with optimising approaches to developing
systems. This has led to a variety of approaches applicable in a
large number of scenarios. The approaches are often thoroughly
described and documented, making them accessible.
When we believe that we can benefit from the field of software
engineering, it is to a large extent because the discipline includes
development methods. A development method communicates expe-
riences and inspiration between a disciplines practitioners. A devel-
opment method will support team learning. A development method
makes the development process visible to everybody involved, not
just the project team but also the client and any other stakeholders
that may have an interest in how the work is organized.
A transparent and understandable development method ensures
a reasonable relation between quality, time and costs.
Time
Quality Costs
Figure 1.3 The quality, time and cost triangle.
Quality of computer systems entails technology, design and con-
tent. Time is important because it determines the amount of time
necessary to complete the production and present it to the market.
Costs are important because they determine the cost of development
and the expected profit.
Time, quality and cost are the three parameters the client and
developer can navigate by. They are the primary challenge in every
project dealing with development of digital productions. A good
method will help the developer organize the development and make
the development phases transparent.
There are many different development methods. Some are better
suited than others for specific scenarios and conditions. Choosing
the right development method is a very important first step in the
development process.
As mentioned earlier the various development methods organize
a project differently and they operate with different tools. But in
general, all development methods consist of the main phases listed
below:
Design Analysis Programming Maintenance

Figure 1.4 Main phases of the development method.
Analysis. Development processes always begin with an analysis
where purpose and limitations are established. During analysis you
investigate all relevant aspects relating to the product. The data
is acquired through user interviews and client meetings. Data and
analysis are communicated to both users and the project team, often
in the form of one or more documents or specifications. In minor
projects, such as flash application development for the internet or
mobile phones, this phase is shortened by devising a collaboration
agreement including an overall specification of the applications
purpose and function.
Design. The design phase is about making proposals for digital
products that will meet the specifications. Documentation of the
design phase describes the final product in detail to ensure that
the resulting product will be technically possible and will meet the
specifications. Users and clients demands and requirements are
transformed to descriptions of functionality, processes and infor-
mation architecture together forming a complete technical system
description. Often, the actual online development is started at the
same time as concept development in order to enable users to test
as many features as possible as early as possible.
Programming. During this phase you start programming based on
the descriptions from the design phase. The product will very often
be seen as a long list of different parts and units. These are tested
according to their specific function and purposes. Then you integrate
the different parts to form the product. The entire product is tested
for functionality and purpose. Finally you are ready to sign- off the
product to your client.
Maintenance. The product is implemented and used. Maintenance is
about correcting errors, optimising the system and extending and
improving the system, as new demands arise.
The chronology, emphasis and content of the different phases
outlined above can vary from one method to another. The art of
development is to select the best-suited method for the project at
hand, so that the right quality is produced in the shortest time pos-
sible and with the lowest costs possible. In the sections describing
the development process we will discuss various ways of organizing
the work.
Summary
Project management theory with an emphasis on risk management
will be your point of departure for planning and assessing activities
in the four phases of the development process. We will present a
number of tools from the project managers toolbox that will pre-
pare you for making a project plan, identify project risks and adjust
the development according to your specific project team and the
circumstances surrounding your project.
Communication theory will give you a professional approach to
pre-analysis and strategic communication planning. We will out-
line a list of questions relevant for any development process. The
answers for those questions will form your communication plan,
your primary tool for designing and completing the digital media
product.
Next chapter will investigate the development process and the
choice of development method in more detail. Starting from soft-
ware engineering theory we will move on to presenting the HOME
method, which will be your springboard for choosing an appropri-
ate project life cycle.

2
Project Life Cycles
This chapter deals with:
- Project life cycle models
- Introduction to the digital media development method HOME
- Presentation of HOME
This chapter deals with project life cycle models and with how we
organize the necessary activities preceding the delivery of a high
quality digital media application. In the first section we will exam-
ine different models for organizing the project life cycle, presented
by the software engineering theory over the years. Experiences in
the software industry have resulted in three very different process
paradigms relevant for different situations. Outlining these different
approaches will form the basis for the actual work with this books
holistic, open method, which we will cover in the concluding sec-
tion of the chapter.
Software engineering processes
From the emergence of software engineering in the sixties and up
until today much have been learned about how one can most ap-
propriately organize a projects life cycle. The planning of the work
is called a development method.
We use the following definition of a development method:
A development method contains guidelines and recommen dations
for developing and implementing a digital product.
A specific approach to organizing chronology, emphasis and content
of the project life cycle is often called a developmental paradigm.
In this chapter, we have chosen to cover the four
2
most distinctive
proposals.
2 The paradigms are from Ian Sommervilles book Software engineering which presents
four paradigms. We do not discuss the Re-use paradigm here.
PROJECT LIFE CYCLES 31
Paradigms are also historical standpoints and, consequently, express
trends to be found during the periods they respectively belong to.
The fact that there are four basic paradigms denotes the develop-
ment and eagerness to improve characterising the IT-development
environment.
These paradigms are:
The waterfall method
Prototyping
Exploratory programming
Agile methods

The outline of these paradigms below will focus on the general
principles and attitudes that have formed them. Each description is
supported by an illustration. To distinguish more clearly between
the large numbers of different activities we have noted which ac-
tivities dominate the various phases (see also page 28). This should
result in an overview of how the paradigms are different from each
other in regards to chronology, emphasis and content of the main
activities.
The waterfall method
The waterfall method is an example of the linear project life cycle
with distinctive phases. The emphasis is on continuous approvals
and documentation. The waterfall method focuses on defining the
specifications for the project. This way of developing tools meant
for people is based on a functionalistic world vision, where the
wider world and peoples behaviours are looked upon as being
deterministic, presuming there is an objective truth.
The paradigm grew out of software engineering in 1960s. It
points to a systematic and sequential approach to developing soft-
ware systems.
Using the waterfall method, the project life cycle is divided into
a series of clearly separated phases or steps, resulting in specifica-
tions of requirements to the product in general and to the design,
the implementation of the design, and the testing of the finished
product in particular. Each phase is formally concluded with a sign-
off. Both contractor and client must approve the sign-off document.
The phase is then concluded and the process continues to the next
phase.
Specification
analysis and
definition
OK!
System
design
OK!
Emplemen-
tation and
unit test
OK!
Integration
and system
test
OK!
Operation
and main-
tenance
OK!
Design Analysis Programming Maintenance
Figure 2.1 The waterfall paradigm.
Exploratory programming
Exploratory programming emphasizes an explorative and user-
oriented process. The focus point of exploratory programming is
that neither the starting point nor the finished result should be
determined from the beginning of the project.
Figure 2.2 The exploratory programming paradigm.
The paradigm indicates that you should develop an initial imple-
mentation of the finished product from the very beginning of the
Programming
Design
Analysis
Design
Analysis
Maintenance
General
specifikations
Make
application
Use
application
Accepted
by users?
Sign-off
project
NO
YES
life cycle. This implementation can include screenshots with only
very limited functionality and information. Changes are incorpo-
rated until the users accept that their demands and wishes for the
finished product have been met. The philosophy is that the product
will better meet user requirements through exploration, several
implementations and tests.
Prototyping
Prototyping represents the iterative approach to development.
Rough outlines of demands and wishes are tested and improved.
The iterations aim at enabling the user and the client to better for-
mulate specific system requirements, which then form the basis for
a project.
The paradigm points to the importance of testing. Starting from
general specifications, prototypes of the system are developed and
then systematically evaluated. Within this paradigm it is considered
essential that the prototype is discarded after evaluation. The proto-
type is only relevant as inspiration for formulating design, content
and technical specifications as the prototype progresses.
Prototyping resembles exploratory programming by testing a va-
riety of possible solutions. But the purpose of developing a prototype
is to improve the ability to formulate precise system specifications,
which will form the basis for design and implementation of a new
and better version. The last activities resemble the waterfall method
but there is a significant difference. Design and implementation is
achieved by consulting both client and users a so-called continu-
ous validation.
Figure 2.3 The prototyping paradigm.
General
specifications
Make
prototype
Evaluate
prototype
Specify
application
Design and
implement
application
Validate
application
Pro-
gramming
Design Analysis Design
Analysis
Maintenance
Agile methods
The most recent methods family within software development is
called agile methods. Just like prototyping and exploratory pro-
gramming, agile methods are part of a battle against methodological
heavyweighters such as the waterfall method. Agile means movable
and quick, and one of the characteristics of agile methods is actually
their being apt at handling changing conditions quickly and effec-
tively. These methods focus on short iterations, where each iteration
goes through all development stages, from planning, requirement
specification, design, programming, testing and acceptance test of a
functioning product. An iteration should not last too long, typically
1-4 weeks a so-called time box. It may very well take several,
subsequent iterations to make the product more articulate, and at
this point, client priorities are bound to be determining. The clients
representative plays a decisive role in all agile methods.
The work is carried out by small-sized teams (5-9 people), and
each team includes a representative from/appointed by the client.
This representative should participate in daily or weekly meetings
and tests so as to dispose of all information needed to establish the
project course after each iteration. Typically, agile methods do not
pay great attention to documentation. Within an agile project, docu-
mentation such as requirement specifications, test reports or other
project materials, have exactly the same ranking as functioning
products. The client is asked to set priorities amongst all elements,
starting from the business model as perceived at the beginning of
an iteration. The client (or the clients representative) is also called
upon to specify what results are to have the greatest business value.
In this way, the client has the chance to leave out documentation to
speed up completion and obtain well-functioning results.
Paradigm parameters
The outline of the different paradigms clearly illustrates a number
of different parameters significant for the project life cycle. We will
now investigate these parameters in more detail. The factors we will
investigate are:

Specifications
Risk management
Verification
Validation
Documentation
Maintenance
Fixed time and costs
Project management.
Specifications
As mentioned previously the specifications for projects vary a great
deal. Sometimes the client has an accurate understanding of what
the final product will be, but sometimes the goal of a project is open
and vague. This can come about through many causes and there are
many ways of dealing with the situation. The goal should always be
to reach the desired level of relevant knowledge and information, so
client and contractor can reach a mutual understanding of the prod-
uct in question. The different life cycle models reach the necessary
level of specification details through greatly varying means.
Successful use of the waterfall method presupposes detailed spec-
ifications. Exploratory programming on the other hand is appropri-
ate in situations where specifications and thus the ideas about the
final product are vague and uncertain. Prototyping falls between
these two approaches in that it emphasises the need for accurate
specifications but assumes that the necessary understanding of the
resulting product is rarely available from project start. Prototyping
indicates a method for obtaining a sufficient basis for producing
specifications and then commence a traditional linear process.
Risk management
It is important to realize your attitude towards risks also when you
choose which development method to use. Risk management deals
with the problems of predictable or unpredictable results. Choosing
an unpredictable approach, you gamble a little with the resulting
system hoping to arrive at a better system than you could have pre-
dicted. Some companies are prepared to venture down an uncertain
path others are not.
The waterfall method operates with a very small risk margin be-
cause it exclusively bases development on the initial specifications.
The specifications do not change, so the resulting system does not
deviate from what was required.
Exploratory programming operates with very high risks because it
does not emphasize a precise definition of the final system. Here the
process relies on the continuous demands from users and thus the
product remains in an eternal process of development. The re-sult is
unpredictable throughout the project life cycle.
Prototyping is moderately positioned between the two extremes
in that it begins with uncertainty about the result but only until a
certain time, at which sufficient knowledge should be available. The
development process continues while consulting both users and the
client to ensure that the system will meet their requirements.
Agile methods do not allow for risks as far as deadlines are con-
cerned; it is vital to comply with the envisaged time boxes. Agile
principles aim at minimizing risks derived from market and client
requirement changes.
As the course is established by the client on the basis of a func-
tioning (though unfinished) product, it is practically up to the client
to decide the risk margin of a given project. Therefore, risk manage-
ment pertains to the percentage of completion, but not to quality,
time and technique.
It can be discussed if risk management only pertains to predict-
able or unpredictable results. If we reverse the argument we can
state that the waterfall method operates with high risk because it
is not open to the continuous changes demanded by users and sur-
roundings. The result can be a system no one wants to use.
To develop software with this attitude can indicate acceptance of
high risks.
Documentation
The amount of documentation varies significantly from one ap-
proach to the other. Whether documentation is an important issue
or not is determined by the extent one requires progress to be trans-
parent. But it is also determined by the amount of planned system
maintenance and by who should carry out this maintenance.
A situation where maintenance responsibilities lies with the cli-
ent calls for good, intelligible and well-structured documentation
in the form of maintenance manuals. If maintenance lies with the
developer there is still a need for documentation but manuals are
not required. In this situation development documents and test re-
sults should suffice.
The waterfall method emphasizes extensive and detailed docu-
mentation. Exploratory programming does not produce any docu-
mentation at all since the product evolves gradually on the com-
puter. There are no specifications or design documents available
for later use. Prototyping involves documentation in the form of
the many prototypes that are tested and in the form of the final
specifications that forms the basis for the continued development
process.
Agile methods make use of resumes of the decisions made dur-
ing reviews, but documenting wished for changes in progress may
noticeably slow down the process. As it is up to the client to set
priorities for the results he or she believes are bound to generate the
greatest business value, great amounts of documentation will often
be cut out in order to promote swift progress and well-functioning
results. For this reason, documentation focus may be very low.
Verification
To verify is to ensure that you have developed your software right.
This means that you must prove both that you have developed
your software according to specifications and that you have pro-
duced a stable and reliable system.
The waterfall method is often characterized as an approach that
focuses exclusively on verification of the system since the extensive
documentation forms the basis for the activities tests that guar-
antee the client that the system is developed according to specifica-
tions.
There is no focus on verification issues in the paradigms where
specifications are absent.
Yet we assume that all software engineering approaches attempt
to produce reliable systems, hence all approaches, to a certain de-
gree, emphasize verification. Lacking verification is bound to be
immediately noticed in prototyping, exploratory programming as
well as agile methods.
Validation
To validate is to ascertain that the system functions right, in the
eyes of the target audience. As it were with verification, so is it with
validation. All approaches will naturally and invariably validate
that the target audience can use the developed digital media system
but some approaches emphasize validation more than others.
The waterfall method in its original form has not aimed at
validating computer systems at all. At the time the predominant
attitude was that users typically had nothing useful to contribute
to system development. Software engineering was characterized
by very technical language, which users often did not understand.
Therefore it was difficult for users to give constructive feedback to
the developers.
The situation has changed but the waterfall method and its prin-
ciples are still influenced by that kind of thinking. It is visible in
its rejection of returning to problems from previous phases and
correcting inexpedient matters. Inexpedient matters pertaining to
the use of the system are not continuously ascertained since the
water-fall approach assumes that the specifications are satisfactory
and thus right.
User-controlled and user-oriented approaches are exactly the
opposite. This is where exploratory programming and prototyping
are positioned. The opposite extreme are the agile methods where
client feedback is almost imperative. All these paradigms encour-
age much dialogue between the clients representative, users and
developers to ensure that the resulting digital media system will
be used. In exploratory programming, this is achieved by repeated
acceptance testing with the users. In prototyping, it is achieved by
systematic evaluations of every prototype followed by continuous
user involvement in the design and implementation phases. In agile
methods, the clients representative is to maximize the products
business value and, consequently, user success. Face-to-face meet-
ings are held every day, and in this connection the clients repre-
sentative is encouraged to participate in and observe the process.
Maintenance
This parameter indicates how easy maintenance of the final system
should be. Typically, maintenance is easy if the development proc-
ess is thoroughly documented. In this connection, documentation
may be defined as important. Still, the construction of a given
medium also impacts on subsequent maintenance activities. The
former obviously depends on the platform, development software
and the professional competence involved. The same software may
be used in several ways making maintenance more or less easy. The
easier the updating and maintenance of a medium should be, the
more time the designer usually has to spend on it. For this reason, it
is important to be aware of the extent of future maintenance tasks
in order to be able to balance the two aspects. Often, it will take the
same amount of time to obtain optimum update and maintenance
features and to start all over again. Designers using agile methods,
which aim at avoiding all superfluous processes, tend to give up any
re-use, thus focusing on what is needed here and now, instead.
Fixed time and costs
If time and costs are significant factors which they often are the
different life cycle models can be more or less recommendable. The
waterfall method can be advantageous for projects of short life cycle
and fixed price because changes in the surroundings are not very
likely to have any significance to the project due to the short life
cycle. Exploratory programming cannot be recommended for such
situations since it exclusively focuses on exploration. Prototyping
can be used for projects with fixed time and price, but the iterative
part of the process must be carefully planned. For example client
and contractor can decide on three iterations before moving on
to the linear process, where the extent of user involvement is also
determined. Agile methods actually focus on time and fixed price,
but at the same time, the project goal is dynamic. That is, of course,
specified in the project contract, and it is a risk that client and
designer share.
Project management
Finally we must determine if the project life cycle model makes it
easier to control the process. Whether the approach should in fact
be easy to control is determined by the situation. Sometimes it is
important to choose an approach that makes the process transpar-
ent and results in unambiguous specifications. This will enable the
client and other stakeholders to monitor the process.
At other times a lesser degree of control is necessary. An example
could be a situation where you need to explore many options or
entirely new technology.
It is also important that you and the rest of the project team are
clear about your own attitude towards control and management.
Some developers perform best if they are under tight management,
whereas others perform best under little or no management.
Traditionally, a process tailored after the waterfall method is con-
sidered very easy to control because everything is carefully planned
and because the client can monitor progress through the continuous
documentation produced.
Exploratory programming on the other hand is very difficult to
control since the goal of the process is never clear. As client or
contractor, one can only ascertain what the present status of the
project is.
Prototyping is somewhat different. The initial activities are best
carried out with little control, whereas the later activities are best
carried out under tight management.
Agile methods focus on time and resource management as well
as frequent reviews. The work is, however, completed in small-sized
teams with tight deadlines, and that may facilitate management
aspects.
The project life cycle paradigms we have presented here can all
be used in a variety of situations. The project team must adjust the
approach to the circumstances of the project.
Summary
The four paradigms are expressions of three very different apn
proaches to organizing a projects life cycle. Many new approaches
have arisen since these three originally came into existence. Our
claim is that all the new approaches can be divided as belonging to
one of the above and that these three paradigms are expressions of
the different fundamental principles of project life cycle models.
In this table you can see the paradigms organized according to
their relation to the previously described parameters. Read the table
as a summary and use it as a tool for deciding which approach you
could take in your project.

Paradigm The waterfall
Method
Exploratory
Programming
Prototyping Agile methods
Specifica-
tions
Detailed Vague Vague Both/and, actually hardly influenced by
the starting point.
Risk Aversion to
risk.
Every detail is
planned with
the client
Acceptance of
risk. Diffiult to
manage proc-
ess and pre-
dict outcome
Aversion to
risk. The ap-
proach aims at
getting a de-
tailed project
description
before devel-
opment starts
This method prevailingly focuses on
client needs to the detriment of large,
polished products. Projects are deliv-
ered on time. That is specified in the
contract. Considerable willingness
to take risks as precious clues apt at
boosting project are expected to come
up in progress.
Validation Little emphasis
on validation
High emphasis
on validation
Considerable
emphasis on
validation
Enormous emphasis on validation
Verifica-
tion
High emphasis
on validation
Little empha-
sis on valida-
tion
Considerable
emphasis on
validation
Very little emphasis on verification
Documen-
tation
Considerable
documentation
Very little
documenta-
tion
Considerable
documentation
Little documentation
Mainte-
nance
Easy to main-
tain due to
thorough doc-
umentation
Maintenance
difficult for
other than
developer
Easy to main-
tain due to
thorough doc-
umentation
Maintenance difficult for other than
the developer unless standard pro-
grams are used or source code docu-
mentation remarks are entered.
Time/
Costs
Recommended
for short
project with
small resources
Can be expen-
sive and lead
to long pro-
duction time
May lead to
long produc-
tion time, but
can on the
other hand
prove to be
inexpensive
to adjust and
maintain
Recommended for all projects that
are supposed to function on uncertain
markets. A condition that must be
fulfilled is that the client is 100%
committed to the method because
it requires great client insight, engage-
ment and openness to change.
Control Easy to control
because of the
transparent
process
Difficult to
control since
the process
is invisible.
Difficult to set
deadlines
Can be diffi-
cult to control
since many
iterations may
occur
The team is easy to manage due to
the large amounts of reviews and the
small team size. If several small teams
are working contemporarily on the
same project, the managing team will
have to arrange collective meetings
in order to manage the process. Short
intervals and a great amount of itera-
tions give the project manager great
advantages.
Table 2.1. Factors of the development paradigms.
Introduction to the HOME development method
Now you have insight into the most significant paradigms when
it comes to developing digital projects. We also hope that you are
adequately aware of how these paradigms differ from each other in
terms of need for control, user involvement and adjustments. Now
it is time to get started with the actual development process in order
for you to comprehend how the method we are introducing can be
tuned to the need for control and exploration, depending on how
you choose to use its components.
We have organized the various development activities in an open
method we call HOME. HOME is an acronym for Holistic, Open
Multimedia development Method. We will start by presenting the
principles, advantages and characteristics of the method. Then we
will go through every single step of the procedure. In the second
part of the book we will describe every activity in detail.

Figure 2.4 HOME 2000 Marie Oosterbaan and
Louise Harder Fischer.
Principles
HOME is founded on two basic principles:
It is holistic, meaning that all activities are viewed from both
a product-oriented and a process-oriented point of view.
It is open, meaning it can be adjusted to most
development scenarios and types and products.
Client-meetings
Project description
Pre-analysis
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Team establishment
Planning
Concept description
Communication plan
Test documentation
Project plans
Project description
Research
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Concept development
Concept test
Teambuilding
Assessment
Adjustment
Flowchart
Storyboard
Adjusted plans
Project description
Design
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Information
Interaction
Presentation
User test
Assessment
Adjustment
Project finish
Media elements
Golden master
Adjusted plans
Sign of contract
Evaluation report
Completion
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Production
Integration
System test
Acceptance test
Holistic. Development integrates two main divisions of activities:
one is the development of the actual product. This includes ac-
tivities such as analysis, design and realisation of the digital media.
The other is managing the process of development. This includes
activities such as planning, assessment and adjustment. Dividing
the development into product-related and process-related activities
is an important aspect. The two types of activities call for different
skills and focal points. In practice the two are difficult to distinguish
and the activities are often mixed up. Failing to divide the activities
pose a great risk for a project because the focus of the different
activities often will be misdirected.
Because of the holistic approach, HOME contains a multitude
of methods and guidelines related to each type of activity. Each
activity is viewed from the perspective of the larger goal of the
project. Are you directing design activities to meet a paper proto-
type dead-line or are you arranging examples for the user test to
finish the design phase? One activity is process-oriented the other
is product-oriented. Your perspective of the situation will determine
what methods you will apply to get the work done.
For example, the person responsible for developing the graphical
user interface will have difficulties if put in charge of time man-
agement or follow-up. The problem is that the graphic designer
should have product quality as focus point. The person responsible
for time management will similarly have difficulties meeting both
graphic and managerial parameters of quality.
In smaller companies there is a tendency for developers to work
with both product-oriented and process-oriented activities. In this
scenario it becomes even more important to make the division of
the two types of activities, so the rest of the team will know when
and to whom to address what questions. The developer should also
make the division to manage the various responsibilities.
The division must not polarize the development activities. It is
important that all activities are consistent and transparent.
To sum up you could say that the holistic principle makes all
aspects of development visible to the entire project team.
An open method. HOMEs second principle is openness. HOME is an
open method that can be adjusted to fit a variety of development
scenarios. It can be adjusted according to the project teams prefer-
ences, the level of knowledge of the client, the demand for quality,
user demands and product type.
The principle of openness rests on our assumption that in any de-
velopment process there are both permanent and optional elements.
There are a number of general activities facing all digital media
projects no matter what the circumstances are. Examples of general
activities could be building a project team, defining the target audi-
ence, design and architecture and production of the media elements.
Chronology and emphasis of the activities may vary from project to
project. We suggest that you follow methods relating to each activ-
ity. However, it is important that you adjust your choices according
to the factors we described in the previous section.
Actors in digital media development
In this book we operate with a set of actors relevant for the develop-
ment of digital media. We have defined our terminology below:
Client. When we refer to clients, we are referring to the person,
company or organization with the authority to terminate the devel-
opment process. It is a good guideline to attribute that power to the
intended target audience in projects where there is no client.
Contractor the company in charge of developing the digital media
application.
User the persons who will be using the digital media application.
Subcontractors any freelancers or companies delivering finished
parts for the production, e.g. video clips or sound files.
Project team normally consists of a project manager, a variety
of designers and programmers. Developer is the common denomi-
nator for all these functions. When it is relevant to distinguish we
will use the above titles.
Experts people we can consult when we need detailed information
about certain areas of knowledge. Examples of experts could be
teachers, psychologists, dramatists etc.
HOME step by step
HOME consists of four steps: pre-analysis, analysis, design and
realization. This is our general presentation of HOME:
Pre-analysis
We begin our presentation of the HOME method with the pre-anal-
ysis. This phase clarifies the background for the project. The pre-
analysis must in other words produce sufficient information for you
to choose a development method. The pre-analysis must establish
product and process definitions. This can be done by using question-
naires and by making a stakeholder
analysis. The stakeholder analysis will
be the backbone of all future commu-
nication between project stakeholders.
The pre-analysis is finished when the
first version of the project description
is complete. Many developers consider
pre-analysis the most important phase
in a project life cycle, because project
goal, course and basis are established
during the pre-analysis phase. With
a good project description you are
prepared to venture further into your
project.
Research
The process-oriented activities during the research phase are to es-
tablish a good project team and producing a comprehensive project
plan. The product-oriented activities are to develop the project
concept further and gather information about the market and target
audience.
Process-oriented activities
Here it comes to establishing and producing a project plan. The
projects size, use of technologies, test attitude, risk profile, how and
to what extent users are involved and product-oriented activities
are assessed all influence the production of the project plan.
Client-meetings
Project description
Pre-analysis
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Product-oriented activities
The product-oriented activities of
the research phase are to develop the
concept further and to gather more
information, which will form the
basis for the design and completion
phases. Here you describe the concept,
target audience and the market, and
you test your ideas. You document
your findings in detailed reports such
as a concept description and a com-
munication plan. You may also have
the first interface draft that can be
implemented directly in the develop-
ment software.
Design
Process-oriented activities are fo-
cussed around assessing and adjusting
the project plan. The product-oriented
activities are about specifying the
concept further in terms of content,
interaction and presentation design.
During the design phase you focus
on following up on decision made in
the analysis phase. You must assess
and adjust plans while keeping a close
watch on the risk factors.
The product-oriented activities can be divided into three main
categories consisting of information, interaction and presentation
design. You describe how to organize your content, how your users
should interact with the digital media product and how to present
the digital media experience in terms of style and layout. Decisions
are documented by means of several documents such as storyboards,
Team establishment
Planning
Concept description
Communication plan
Test documentation
Project plans
Project description
Research
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Concept development
Concept test
Teambuilding
Assessment
Adjustment
Flowchart
Storyboard
Adjusted plans
Project description
Design
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Information
Interaction
Presentation
User test
wireframes and flowcharts, that may be tested with the target audi-
ence or experts. Alternatively, they may be implemented directly in
the development software in order for them to be tested right away
by users. You may also opt for digital presentations depending on
your choice of project life cycle model.
Completion
The process-oriented activities in
this phase may call for tight control
and detailed planning. The product-
oriented activities are to realize the
decisions from the design phase.
You need to produce all the media
elements (sound, video animation etc)
and integrate these into a consistent
interactive digital media product.
Process-oriented activities
This phase differs substantially from the Sign-off contract previous
phases. Tight project management can be important in this phase
because several cost heavy activities are carried out simultaneously.
Completion of these activities must be carefully planned, as any
delays will affect all other activities. Start the phase by making a
detailed production plan that everybody should follow. You need to
consider which activities to keep in-house and which to outsource.
Finally you can start to consider the finishing activities such as
sign-off to client and a formal project finish with the project team.
The product-oriented activities are many simultaneous productions
such as graphics, sound, video and text. These media elements are
integrated with your chosen authoring tool. When the product-
oriented activities are finished in this phase, you end up with a
complete digital media product.
Assessment
Adjustment
Project finish
Media elements
Golden master
Adjusted plans
Sign of contract
Evaluation report
Completion
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Integration
System test
Acceptance test
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Summary
Now you have seen the different challenges and recommendations
we relate to the different phases of HOME. Depending on your role
in the project team, your focus will be either on the product or
process-oriented activities. In the following we will carefully go
through each step of the way with thorough descriptions of each
activity.
Whether you are a project manager, designer or programmer,
we believe that you need to understand both product and process-
oriented work. It is a prerequisite for a holistic and transparent
development process.
3
Pre-analysis
- Questionnaire for product defnition
- Questionnaire for process defnition
- Project start
- Stakeholder analysis
- Project description
The pre-analysis is the first phase in HOME.
PRE-ANALYSIS PROCESS/PRODUCT
Involved: Project manager and client
Purpose: To establish sufcient information for deciding
project life cycle model, process denition, product
denition, for making a stakeholder analysis and the rst
version of the project description
Input/documentation: Enquiry from client, a need on the
market, an idea
Activities: Gather data, stakeholder analysis and project
description
Output/documentation: Project description
Responsible: Project manager
Pre-analysis activities are about gathering information for a rea-
sonable and thorough project establishment. Among the other im-
portant activities such as stakeholder analysis and project goals, it is
also important to consider how you want to organize the project life
cycle. Do you need iterations and tests and thus minimize control
or do you need to finish each step of the way with fixed milestones
and deadlines.
To make those decisions you need to investigate a number of
issues.
In relation to choice of project life cycle model you can investigate
the factors listed in chapter 2. They are all important in deciding the
sequence of activities in HOME. The questions below may help you
make the decision.
Are project specifications vague or detailed?
What are the demands for transparent project progression?
What is the importance of documentation?
What is the importance of fixed start dates and deadlines?
What are the project teams and the clients
preferences do they prefer tight or loose control?
Should emphasis be on validation or verification?
Will the project need maintenance or further
development at a later date?
The pre-analysis needs to uncover the background and the direction
of your project. The pre-analysis is documented with two sentences,
one dealing with process and one with product. These sentences are
elaborated upon in the project description.
The purpose of the project definition is to make the project un-
derstandable and transparent for everybody. The product definition
includes following points (for an elaboration of the points, see the
section about Communication planning):
Target audience
Purpose
Client
Software and hardware
Medium for distribution (internet, CD-Rom or mobile phone)
Product definition: The Danish Ministry of Health wants
an Internet campaign site to get teenagers to quit smoking.
Similarly you need to make a process definition, which consists of
the management philosophy and the project life cycle model of the
project. Following issues should be covered:
Project life cycle model
Available time
Management philosophy
Resources approximate number of team workers.
Process definition: Using prototyping we will develop an
online game for the Ministry of Health. Project deadline is
PRE-ANALYSIS 51
6 months from today and our philosophy is that creative
people perform better with less control.
It is important that both client and developers can understand and
identify with both definitions. The definitions determine the course
of the project.
We recommend that you make a questionnaire. It is important that
you formulate the questions in co-operation with the client or a repre-
sentative from the target audience. Below we have shown an example
of a questionnaire you can use to uncover the different issues.
Questionnaire for product definition
Who is the target?
Gender
Age
Nationality
Residence
User situation
Home, public, work or institution Work or spare time?
Alone or in a group?
Combined with other material?
Purpose
What is the clients purpose with the product?
What is the users incentive for using the product?
Who is the client?
What is the clients image?
What are the clients other products, if any?
How does the target audience perceive them?
What image does the client wish to present?
Soft- og hardware
What soft- og hardware is avaiable for the developers? For users?
Are the platforms compatible?
Are there any special requirements for authoring tools?
Are there any specific requirements for special media
elements such as sound or video?
Medium for distribution
What are the clients demands for functionality can these be
met by the medium?
Maintenance and updates
Does the product need maintenance or updates?
Should the client be able to maintain or update the product?
If you compare your answers to the table on page 41, you can see
what project life cycle model your process calls for. Having decided
your project life cycle model, you are ready to plan the overall
process using HOME.
If your answers indicate that you should use the waterfall method
you simply set up HOME as a linear process. Make sure that you
stress the documentation activities described for each phase of
HOME. You insert sign-offs and milestones in your project plan as
described in the next chapter, analysis.
If your project will benefit more from the exploratory program-
ming model you may remove the analysis and design phases from
HOME. The activities and decisions from these two phases are made
during the realization phase.
If you find that your project is a prototyping project, you plan for
a sufficient number of iterations leading up to the final result.
Questionnaire for process definition
The need for process documentation large/small?
Do you normally manage using documentation/sign-offs?
Is documentation important for decisionmaking in your company?
Clients knowledge about genre/digital media
Has the client contracted digital media products before?
Does the client know other digital media publications on the market?
Your knowledge about digital media?
Expert/omniscient?
General/all-round?
Knowledge of few titles/beginner?
Specification of demands/requirements
Can you at this stage precisrly specify what you will be devolping,
or do you need to do some research first?
Can you describe technology, content and design?
Approach to project work?
Is it important for you that the project is visible on all levels?
Do you believe that a loosely managed project leaves better op-
pertunity for creativity and innovation?
Time and costs
What are the deadlines for each phase/activity?
Are the budget realistic?
PRE-ANALYSIS 53
If you have opted for agile methods, you go through all steps in
a compressed form, within each iteration. The designer and pro-
grammer take care of product-oriented activities, including inter-
face design and user testing, while the project manager deals with
process-related activities, including management, documentation
and reviews.
You can combine the paradigms. You could for example iterate
the analysis and design phases and then move on to a linear process
through the realization phase. You could finish the iteration of the
two phases with a user test.

Project start
Having completed the project and product definitions it is time to
start the project. But before you get started on planning process
and product activities, team building etc, there are some general
processes to consider.
Prototyping
Agil method
The Waterfall Method
Exploratory Programming
Three important processes
The model below shows three processes of equal importance for
project success. The project manager should consider these three
processes carefully as they have great impact on how the client
perceives and receives the project.
The development process
Start End The comprehension process
The accepttance process

The development process
The development process includes the methods and activities leading
from concept to finished product. The development process should
be understood as the planning and completion of the project. Very
often focus remains only on the project and the ultimate goal of the
project quite understandably. But it is important to remember the
two other processes as well.
The comprehension process
The comprehension process is important to consider if the project
is likely to change working procedures, functions or ways of com-
munication within the client organization. Employees in divisions
within the client organization not directly related to the project may
wonder what it is about and what the implications of the project
will be. This may influence their working situation positively or
negatively. The project manager and the client must be aware of
the comprehension process and handle it in a manner leading to a
positive start of the acceptance process.
The acceptance process
It is during the acceptance process that the client determines if the
project, after implementation, had a positive or negative impact. Or
in other words: does one long for or dread the day when project
results are visible to everyone? Project success depends on the proj-
ect being accepted and used. So the acceptance process is important
to consider.
PRE-ANALYSIS 55
In the section about stakeholder and risk analyses we will describe
a number of methods for managing the three processes to ensure
project comprehension and acceptance.
Keeping product and project definitions and the three important
processes in mind, you are ready to start an actual stakeholder
analysis.
A stakeholder analysis answers the question: to whom are the
project results important? A stakeholder analysis will show you what
people or company divisions take interest in project success. These
people and company divisions are valuable for the project. They
can specify project demands and they can be project protectors.
Stakeholder analysis
A stakeholder analysis can clarify whom it will be necessary to in-
volve in the project because of their interest or power in relation to
the project. The stakeholder analysis can uncover their expectations
and ensure that the expectations will be either met or moderated to
comply with a realistic result from the project.
When you are considering stakeholders, consider everybody who is

Influenced by the project during its life cycle
Influenced by the project after implementation
A brainstorm can generate a comprehensive list of stakeholders.
For example:
The company department/target group receiving the project result.
Those financing the project.
Those who came up with the original project concept.
Anybody who supplies anything to the project.
The competitors on the market.
The legal authorities.
The project participants.
The companies/departments who provide
team workers to the project team.
Below is an example of a list of stakeholder from a project for a
medium-sized public institution.
PROJECT INTRANET
The project purpose was to develop and implement an
intranet to support an increasing demand for new and
better ways of communicating and sharing knowledge. The
institution established an internal project team of people
from the head ofce and a department chosen for the pilot
experiment. The external supplier of the intranet platform
was hired to adjust the technology according to needs and
demands from the client.
Stakeholders:
Head offce: The management (because it aims at
improving communication and knowledge sharing within
the institution and because it has the power to terminate
the project).
Head offce: The joint union delegate (because he
traditionally represents the employees that will be
infuenced by the project result and because those
he represents will be communicating and sharing
knowledge differently after the project. This may
infuence their working environment and ultimately
their jobs).
Head offce: Head of the IT-department (because basing
internal communication on an intranet could lead to
more work and new responsibilities for his department).
The department involved: Head of department (because
the project is important for his employees and because
he is contributing a substantial amount of man hours to
the project).
The department involved: The project team workers
(because they have an interest in contributing to project
success and because they hold the relevant skills for the
project).
The department involved: The department union
delegate (because an intranet could lead to new tasks
for the department and new ways of communicating
internally. That should be accounted for in the
agreement with the relevant union. Finally he is a
stakeholder because he represents those employees
directly infuenced by the project).
Intranet supplier: They have an interest in
demonstrating the effciency of their platform, so they
can sell more intranet solutions.
PRE-ANALYSIS 57
Next step of the stakeholder analysis is to make a hierarchy of
the stakeholders. The order of the hierarchy is determined by the
stakeholders potential influence on the project result. This is an im-
portant process because it can lead you to a better comprehension
of how you can involve and communicate with the stakeholders. If
you use the matrix below you will quickly identify whom to include
in the project group, who you need in the management group and/
or in a reference group.

Influence on the project
Necessary in the
project organization
Yes No
Yes Active participant Hostage
No Grey eminence Outside project
When you have made the hierarchy of the stakeholders the next
step is to organize them.
Normally there are three groups of stakeholders and project team
workers. In this book we will use the following terminology for
these groups:
Management group. Typically the leaders who have
initiated the project. But also the leaders who finance
the project. The grey eminences and the project
managers typically form management groups.
Reference group. People with valuable knowledge or
skills, but without decision-taking power. Reference
groups will often be formed by hostages.
Project group. Consists of all project team workers and
project managers. In relation to the above matrix, active
participants will obviously always be involved in the
project group as either developers or project managers.
Next step is a stakeholder communication plan. Here you consider
your and your stakeholders expectations for continuous communi-
cation during the project life cycle. Stakeholders with different lev-
els of influence, receive different levels of communication. Consider
the nature of the communication. Should it involve the stakeholder,
allow for stakeholder feedback, or should it perhaps just be a short
briefing.
Involved stakeholders
The stakeholders who wield significant power in relation to the
project and whose active participation is necessary for project
success should be involved. In the before mentioned example this
would include the union delegates and the entire project group.
Stakeholders with feedback
The stakeholders who wield significant power in relation to
the project and but whose active participation is not necessary
for project success. These are often the stakeholders with the
power to terminate the project. In our example this would be
the board of directors and the head of the involved department.
Stakeholders to be informed
Stakeholders with little power over the project, but who will be
directly influenced by the project results are informed about the
project and its progress. This segment often consists of the target
audience, the users or in our example the involved department.
Stakeholders to be briefed
Stakeholders, who take an interest in briefings, are
typically external stakeholders with little influence or
participation in the project. They are important to brief,
as they could be important in the long run or could have
significant power and importance in other situations.
Stakeholder communication can be face-to-face, written and elec-
tronic. The scenario for the communication could be a meeting, a
meeting brief, a project description document, a workshop, a short
training course or actual participation in parts of the project.
No matter how you categorize your stakeholders, you need to
consider them carefully. A lacking understanding for a stakeholders
expectations, power and influence and a lacking communication,
can potentially terminate a project.
A good project start must, besides a thorough understanding of
the three processes and a stakeholder analysis, entail a project
description.
PRE-ANALYSIS 59
The project description
Now you have product and process definitions and a stakeholder
analysis. It is time to make your project description. Both stake-
holder analysis and project description should preferably involve
the entire project team, as their acceptance of these documents is a
good start for a successful project.
A good project description can be viewed both as a contract with
the client and as a project management document.
A good project description could include:
Project motivation
Purpose and results
Goals and limitations
Project concept and life cycle model
Project schedule and deadlines
Organization
Economy and resources.
Each bullet point will be explained using our example with the
intranet project.
PROJECT MOTIVATION
How did the project begin?
Why is the project relevant?
Example: The motivation for this project is that our head
of department have noticed how many employees have
felt un-informed and lacking possibilities for retrieving the
information they wanted. An intranet where all relevant
information is only a click away would improve our
communication, making knowledge visible and accessible. An
intranet is relevant in a learning organization, because we
need to learn from and with each other.
PURPOSE AND RESULTS
What will we achieve by completing this project? How can
we measure project success?
Example: An organization where everybody has the
opportunity to know a lot more about the present condition
and activities of the organization. This will help our
organization to work faster and more efcient for a shared
goal, since good decisions are based on knowledge, not
ignorance.
GOALS AND LIMITATIONS
What will we have when the project is nished? What will we
not have when the project is nished?
Example: The organization will have a platform that through
pilot experiments has been adjusted to medium-sized public
institutions. It is up to the intranet users to make the intranet
use relevant only by everybodys active use, will it be
relevant.
PROJECT CONCEPT AND LIFE CYCLE MODEL
What is the concept? What project life cycle model will be
used? What milestones are important?
Example: The concept is to enable users to share knowledge
online. The project will be developed using the waterfall
life cycle model and user involvement. Pilot experiments
are carried out as short waterfall cycles producing the
knowledge we need for the nal development and adjustment
of the system to meet organization requirements. The
milestones are the completed pilot experiments and the nal
implementation.
PRE-ANALYSIS 61
PROJECT SCHEDULE AND DEADLINES
What is the schedule? When is the project due?
Example: The pilot experiment will be concluded in 6 weeks.
Final implementation deadline is one year from today.
ORGANIZATION
Who is responsible for what? Who are in the management,
project and reference groups?
Example: The project manager is responsible for the pilot
experiment. The board of directors are responsible for the
overall project. The management group consists of the head
of department, the board of directors and the joint union
delegate. Selected employees and the project manager form
the project group. The IT department and the union delegate
form the reference group.
ECONOMY AND RESOURCES
How many man hours / EURO are available for the project?
Example: The main department has allocated 90,000 EURO
for the project while the pilot department contributes with
400 hours at 60 EURO per hour.
The project description is an important project management docu-
ment. It is the foundation for the project. It may be elaborated and
adjusted during the project life cycle. If any changes are made, it is
important that they are approved by both the project team and the
client. When important decisions are made in the team, these are
documented in the description. The initial project description should
be no longer than a couple of pages and gradually change as the
project evolves.
Include the process and product definitions derived from the pre-
analysis in the project description document. These definitions
outline the products overall purpose, the project life cycle model
as well as the basic team management approach, thus establishing
what is expected. The project description, which is, in principle, the
contract, must be accepted by the client and also by the stakehold-
ers, ideally before the job is started.
Summary
The first phase of a project is considered one of the most significant
because project goals, direction and foundation are established dur-
ing this phase. In the HOME pre-analysis phase, you also decide
which project life cycle model you will be using. The pre-analysis
gives you the general overview of the projects organization and a
clear view of project circumstances and stakeholders. With a finished
project description you are ready for the next phases of the process.
Depending on how you have organized the phases of HOME, you
are now ready for design or completion or you can continue to the
next phase research.
4
Research

This chapter includes:
- Process activities:
Setting goals
Team building
Planning
User involvement
Testing
Risk management

- Product activities:
Concept development
Research
The pre-analysis has given you a good point of departure for the
further work of planning the process and developing the product.
During the research phase you clarify the conditions for the proc-
ess and decide how to manage the project. Then you move on to
product-related research, which will further influence your project
management.
You produce a project plan, and concept description and a com-
munication plan as documentation for the research phase. These
inputs will be used in the next step of HOME the design phase.
This chapter has two main sections: one dealing with process
activities, one about product activities.

Process activities
The goal of these activities is to build the project team and to estab-
lish a project plan.
RESEARCH PROCESS
Involved: Project manager and team
Purpose: To initiate team building and establish the project plan
Input/documentation: Project description
DEVELOPING DIGITAL MEDIA
Activities: Team building and planning
Output/documentation: A team and a project plan
The projects success factors
Before you start planning, let us investigate the determining factors
for project success. You can use the list below for inspiration. It
represents a prioritised list of parameters that can make projects
successful:
A powerful vision for the project
A specific project description
Enthusiastic team members
A clear division of responsibilities and mutual respect
Personal learning for each team member
Team development
A valuable process for individual team members
Favourable expectations to the project in the organization
Adequate resources
Top management support for project
A realistic deadline with no room for slack
An intensive project culture
That the project is funny and involving
RESEARCH 65
SETTING GOALS
Involved: Project team
Purpose: Explicitly formulated shared project goals
Input/documentation: Project description and individual
preferences
Activities: Denition of goals
Output/documentation: List of project goals

As developer, you must be aware of your thoughts about the project
and its success factors. Remember it is not just the client who has
to be pleased with the project; you and your team are equally im-
portant.
It can be a good idea to write a prioritized list of success criteria.
You could distribute the list to everybody in the project team when
it is established. You could formulate the points as questions and
post it somewhere for everybody to see. A shared goal could be that
everybody involved must accept the most important project goals
if that is not the case, it is time for an evaluation meeting, see page
84f. Examples of questions to clarify project goals:

Is the project vision still the driving force for your work?
Does the project contribute to your personal growth and learning?
Do you understand the project description?
Is it clear who does what, when?
Establishing a team
Now it is time to establish a project team. Up until now we have
referred to the project team as an existing unit. But that was only
to simplify our explanations. In reality it can be difficult to speak of
one project team, since many people will be involved in the project
for shorter or longer periods. Some will only do a few specialized
tasks whereas others will be needed all through the process.

TEAM ESTABLISHMENT
Involved: Project manager and team
Purpose: To hire people for the product development
Input/documentation: Project description
Activities: Analysis of social and professional needs, job
interviews, project initiation
Output/documentation: Contracts of employment and/or
team contract
In digital media projects you divide team members according to their
level of involvement in the project. You have core team members
and peripheral team workers. The core team members must hold the
skills and qualifications necessary throughout the project life cycle.
The project team is supplied with extra help as specialized tasks
arise. Sometimes tasks are outsourced to developers out-house,
perhaps even in other countries.
We suggest that you establish a core team of developers and
assign one of these as project manager. The remaining members
should have general skills enabling them to understand the process
and product-oriented activities. They should have the special skills
necessary.
The competences of the developers must be in the fields of
interaction, presentation or the used technology. Three profiles in
combination administration, design and technology can take
care of the project development demands of quality, time and costs.
We consider team establishment as a parallel process to hiring the
core team.
The Project Team
Project team core members are typically:
Project managers
Developers with design or programming skills
When necessary, the project team is supplemented with:
Experts within relevant felds
Media production workers
Sub-contractors
Target audience representatives
RESEARCH 67
In the pre-analysis, you established what kind of digital media
you are going to work with. You are aware of the development
platform/language/standards/formats as well as the management
philosophy. You have established project goals, your target audi-
ence and technical platform. That is a solid foundation for choosing
the right employees for the core project team. It should be pointed
out, however, that you are not always directly involved in team
building. Sometimes you will work together with those available,
sometimes the management are invested with resource allocation,
thus knowing what employees have the required competence and
are available.
As designers and project managers, we basically presume that we
will contribute to building the team, or at least have the chance to
determine decisions.
It is important to choose people with significant programming
or design competences relevant for the particular field you will be
working in. In our example it could be:
Product type (games for websites and mobile phones)
Project life cycle model (prototyping)
Target audience (teenagers)
The problem the project is addressing (first-hand
experience as smokers who started and quit
smoking during their primary education)
Platform (experience with designing or
programming for mobile platforms)
Project schedule (available for six months)
Media elements (experience with video formats such as MPEG-4)
It is up to you who pick the team to decide what skills you will
emphasize. The combination of skills must match your and the
developer companys competences.
Besides skills it can be important to look for certain personal
characteristics in your future colleagues. Dr. Meredith Belbin has
researched the influence of different personalities for team success
or failure. 4 A number of personal characteristics were identified as
beneficial for a project team.
Dr. Meredith Belbin wondered why teams made up of skilled and
competent members not always performed successfully. He then
initiated a research project to identify certain personal characteris-
tics and identify what combinations of personalities could lead to
success or failure in teamwork.
For nine years he studied more than 300 teams. He concluded
that in professional work there were nine roles, characterized by
certain personal traits.
These roles were:
The implementer, who is typically conservative,
conscientious and predictable
The co-ordinator, who is calm, self-assured and moderate.
The shaper, who is restless, extrovert and dynamic.
The plant, who is individualistic, serious and unorthodox.
The resource investigator, who is extrovert,
enthusiastic, curious and informative.
The monitor evaluator, who is level-headed, cool and cautious.
The team worker, who is social, friendly and sensitive.
The completer finisher, who is meticulous, orderly,
conscientious and somewhat nervous.
The specialist, who is single-minded, self-starting, dedicated
and provides knowledge and skills in rare supply.
According to Belbin the team with the greatest potential is the team
with:
A representation of nine different roles/characteristics. The nine roles
are expressions of stereotypical and delimited personality types. A
person will always have traits from every role, but some will be
more dominant.
A co-ordinator or shaper as team leader. The teams formal and
informal leader must have many traits from the co-ordinator or
shaper types.
No more than one plant. There should not be more than one person
with the plant role. A team will typically perform better with no
plant than with several plants.
RESEARCH 69
Even distribution of the nine roles in a six-person team. The optimum
team size is six people with an even distribution of the nine roles
among them.
Concordance between individual job and role! There must be con-
cordance between a persons job and his team role. For example
the formal leader must have co-ordinator or shaper traits and the
creative person should have plant traits.
A team with stable, extrovert traits is always good. Teams with coor-
dinators, team workers and resource investigators often outperform
teams without these traits.
Mutual respect for differences and complementarities. Variety is
generally speaking a strength. This strength can be emphasized by
a team tendency to respect and supplement each others strengths
and weaknesses.
There are many ways besides Belbins of dividing basic tempera-
ments or types. The point of the above is to alert your attention
to the existence of many different roles. It is a good idea to use
knowledge of roles in teamwork.
Clarify which traits already exist in the team i.e. which roles you
identify with. That should help you to decide what traits to look for
in your future team. If it is impossible to have all roles represented
you should be attentive to the lacking role and act proactively to
fill the gap.
When you, through thorough interviews about contracts, com-
petences, personality, salary and conditions of employment, have
hired the core team members, you should go through the project
description from the pre-analysis. Perhaps the newcomers have
relevant input for changes or adjustments. Maybe you need to go
back to the client with questions about certain details. The purpose
of that exercise is for all team members to take responsibility for
the project goal.
When that is finished you have a formal project start. We suggest
some kind of positively surprising event to establish the team as an
actual group.

Team building
There are many possible activities for team building. One
could be for the team to stage a toy gun war, another could
be to go go-kart racing. What is important is for the activity
to be non-routinely and that the team will have to co-
operate to be successful.
It can be a good idea to wait with the wild activities such as
bungee jumping, paintball war or survival trips until the team
knows one another. Often a dinner or a trip to the movies can
be sufcient to start the teamwork.
Planning
Having hired the core team members you have a team with the most
important skills. It is time to start planning.
PLANNING
Involved: Project manager and key team members
Purpose: To produce a dynamic project plan
Input/documentation: The project description
Activities: Milestone, activity and resource planning and
risk management etc
Output/documentation: Project plan
The project plan we will describe here will include:
Milestones
Plan of activities including:
Product-related activities including time and resources
User involvement and test activities including time and
resources Risk management including time and resources
Evaluation activities including time and resources
Planning with milestones
A milestone is a project turning point. It is the point in a project life
cycle where an activity naturally is either finished or started. Choice
of project life cycle model has great influence on what milestones
RESEARCH 71
will be relevant for the project. If you use the waterfall model you
can typically plan your milestones successively. If you use proto-
typing or exploratory programming you can insert deadlines after
user tests or between iterations.
The project milestones must be named and fixed to specific dates.
It is important that you specify exactly what to have completed or
decided for each milestone. That is your sole means for monitoring
if you are following your project plan or if you need to adjust it
during the project life cycle. Hence a milestone always includes one
or several evaluation activities.
Planning product-related activities
Between each milestone there will often be a number of tasks to be
completed in a certain order. You should name each task, allocate
resources and assign the skills and materials necessary for comple-
tion of the task. You must determine input and output related to the
task, and decide how much time to allocate for the task.
To estimate time for each task we recommend top down estima-
tion because digital media project often have fixed deadlines. Top
down estimation simply means that you know the final deadline for
the project and from that knowledge you estimate how much time
you have for the different project phases and activities.
The method is founded on experiences with the relative time
normally spent on various phases of a project. As inexperienced
developer you can either draw on your companys previous ex-
perience with projects or you can learn from the literature about
system engineering. As a rule of thumb you will spend 1/3 of the
project time on analysis and design, 1/3 on completion and 1/3 on
testing:
12 % specification Pre-analysis
12 % Analysis
}
Research
12 % Design Design
34 % Construction } Completion
30 % Test } Test
The opposite approach is called bottom up estimation. Here, you
estimate how much time you need for each activity, add up the
estimates and calculate a realistic deadline. There are many other
approaches to estimation. We suggest you read about these in the
system engineering literature.
In HOME we have included test activities in several phases. So
if we are to use the top down estimation approach we need to al-
locate the test hours to both research and design phases and to the
completion phase in equal units.
User involvement
As mentioned in the Introduction and the paragraph including use-
ful advice on digital media development, it is important to decide
how and to what extent users are to be involved. We have also
seen that users can be involved in many different ways and with a
wide array of purposes. It may, for example, prove useful to involve
users in test activities, both at an early stage, prevailingly with an
exploratory purpose, and more precisely to obtain inputs about the
concept and further product features, and during the final stages,
in order to make an evaluation. Later on, in a paragraph about data
gathering, we also explain how to get information and knowledge
about and from users by directly asking them questions or in more
indirect ways, e.g. by observing them or listening to their conver-
sations online. We shall deal more thoroughly with these matters in
the paragraph about Research/gathering of data on p. 102.
The single test activities should be contemplated similarly to all
other activities in the project plan.

Example of top down estimation:
If the deadline is six months from today, we can make the
following plan: Pre-analysis, research and design phases
should be nished in approximately three months (90 days
for 7 activities). In three months, pre-analysis, research,
concept development, communication planning, interaction
design, information design and presentation design should be
completed and tested. 8,4 days have been allocated for each
activity. This estimate can be adjusted. For example pre-
analysis should not need as much time as the other activities.
RESEARCH 73
The nal pre-analysis estimate could look like this:
Pre-analysis: 5 days Activity make questionnaire (1 day)
Activity meeting with client (1 day)
Activit analyse data (2 days)
Activity make process and product denitions, stakeholder
analysis and project description (1 day)
Planning test activities
Test activities are often overlooked or underestimated. Continuous
testing will far too seldom be incorporated in the first phases of
development, leaving it up to the individual project manager to
implement test activities in the development method.
As mentioned earlier, development is basically about two things:
developing the right digital media product and developing it right.
Test activities verify or validate the digital media product during the
project life cycle.
The challenge of testing is to decide when to verify and when to
validate. Obviously it will be too late to validate a project when it is
completed. It is similarly obvious that it is too early to verify when
all you have is a concept description.

If we take a closer look at how testing is normally carried out in
the digital media industry, we will see a process akin to the one
illustrated by the model above. The arrows clearly indicate where
the mistakes are, but also the interrelation of tests and phases. The
model shows that decision made early in a project are the last to
be tested. Such fundamental flaws identified so close to the final
deadline, are difficult to mend. You run the risk of not meeting the
project requirements.
Analysis Accepttance test
Design
Programming
User test
Unit/System test
The different test activities should be planned closer to the activities
leading to the result actually being verified or validated. A bet-
ter and safer approach is shown in model 4.2. Here you see tests
planned and conducted close to the possible sources of error.

Figure 4.2 Recommended sequence of test activities.
There are many kinds of tests. Many of them involve users, es-
pecially the ones aimed at validating products. We are going to
outline the other ways of involving users in the paragraph dealing
with data gathering and communication planning. Below we have
listed the most common test activities with and/or without user
involvement.
3
Concept test. Testing the concept means to present your idea to rep-
resentatives from the target audience. You can present your idea us-
ing illustrations or simply explain either concept or client proposal.
The purpose of a concept test is to have the concept accepted by
the target audience so you are ready to continue the development.
Concept tests are sometimes referred to as accept tests. Concept tests
can be conducted during and after the research phase or during the
design phase.
Prototype test. Prototype tests can be conducted in many different
ways. A prototype is a preliminary model of the digital media prod-
uct. The prototype can have a variety of purposes and take many
forms ranging from paper sketches to digital, functional parts of the
digital media application. It is recommendable to design the proto-
type and the test depending on what you want to test. This could
be design, functionality or didactic structure. Prototype tests can be
conducted during and after the design phase or during or after the
completion phase. You can test if you have developed the product
right or if you have developed the right product all depending on
the purpose of the prototype and how elaborate it is.
3 For a closer review of test methods see Managing Multimedia by England and
Finney.
Design Acceptance
test
Program-
ming
Unit/Appli-
cation test
Analysis User
test
RESEARCH 75
Peer review. Peer review means to test with the help of experts who
can help with particular aspects according to their field of expert
ise. Peer review can take many different forms. The crucial point is
to get an answer quickly and thus economically. You can test con-
cept, user interfaces, functionality etc. Peer review can be conducted
all through the project life cycle. You can both verify and validate
using peer reviews.
Usability test. Usability tests can vary a great deal. The purpose of
usability testing is to investigate if the product works for the user.
You test if the user interface draws the users attention to the right
function at the right time or if it gives the user the intended experi-
ence. You can both verify and validate with usability tests.
A digital medium is usable if it is:
Easy to learn
How quickly do I manage to get started with the
feature I am looking for and does it suit my purpose
(entertainment, purchase, information etc.)?
Easy to use
Do I recognize the digital medium, and am I,
consequently, aware of its features?
Effective to use
Can I find my way? Where am I?
Comprehensible
Am I able to understand most of my options?
Satisfactory/nice to use
Would I use the medium again or recommend it to other people?
Which questions may be asked in a so called Think-aloud test
regarding www.dmi.dk?:
Easy-to-learn-and-easy-to-remember-test is implemented by pro-
viding users with a range of practical tasks. For instance: How is
the weather in 4500 Nykbing Sjlland?, How is the direction
and strength of winds today at 3 Oclock pm? How many people
are employed by DMI? The same tasks are carried out after a while
perhaps 10 minutes to check how easy they are to remember.
Testing efficiency and intelligibility may be carried out in greater
depth by a so called trunk test. A trunk test is a test where users
are thrown off at an arbitrary site as if you were dropped off after
driving round in a car trunk. You may ask:
Which site is this? (Site ID)
What are the main sections of this site? (Tabs or other indications)
What are you able to do at this level? (Local navigation)
How can I perform searches?
Testing satisfaction
Would you recommend this site to others?
You need to plan usability testing very carefully. Tests are conducted
while observing users, possibly in a test lab. After the test you need
to analyse the data and distribute test results to the project team.
The test can be conducted with paper or digital prototypes or with
Pre-analysis
Team building 3.1
Planning
Assesment/test
Finish/evaluation
Research
Design
Completion
Process activities
Product activities
Project description
Project plan
Concept description
Communication plan
Design documentation
Project plan -
Media elements
Golden Master
Completion
Dokumentation
Date
Time line
(40 )
(10 )
hours
hours
(20 ) hours (100 hours) (100 hours)
Start Pre-analysis Research Design
(300 hours)
(300 hours)
Milestones
Project plan for: Stop smoking in primary school
1.1.12 14.1.12 16.1.12 1.3.12 1.4.12
**
Project plan
*
RESEARCH 77
parts of the finished product. Usability tests can be placed during
and after the design or completion phases.
Field trials are conducted with representatives from the target audi-
ence in a plausible user situation. Field trials are similar to usability
tests when it comes to purpose and planning. When using field
trials, you test the digital media application in the actual commu-
nication environment. Hence all types of tests can be conducted as
field trials. You can use them for verification and validation and
place them in any phase throughout the project life cycle.
Integration and system test means testing that the product functions
correctly and that it is bug-free. There is a multitude of test forms:
stress tests, black box and white box tests are but a few. The purpose
of the tests is to verify if the digital media application is reliable and
that there are no performance errors in the code. All integration and
system tests are verification tests.
Golden master Completion Finish
(100 hours)
(20 hours)
(300 hours)
1.5.12 5.5.12
Description of
16th of Janaury 12 am
Involved: Project manager
Estimate: 30 hours
Description of each milestone
Description of each activity
Description of all sub-tasks
Deadline and ressources (estimates
and responsibilities)
Teambuilding finished
Contracts signed
Goals defined
3rd milestone
- Project plan
Checklist for milestones
Deadline
Description of activity Team building
Sub-tasks:
Deadline 16th of Janaury 12 am
Involved:
Estimate: 10 hours
Job advertising
Schedule meetings
Job interviews
Selection
Write contracts
Project manager
*
**
(20 hours)
Design
1.4.12
Production planning
Final tests. The client tests the product with reference to contract
and specifications. It involves both verification and validation.
When the client has accepted the final test, the client takes over all
responsibilities for the product.
Individual test activities must be evident from the project plan
like all other activities.
Risk management
When you have finished the basic elements constituting the project
plan determining milestones, product and test activities you are
ready to decide how you will manage the risks your project will face.
In this section we will offer three suggestions for how you can
manage risks. The first approach is to analyse all possible risks and
then choose from various tools to minimize the risks. In the next two
approaches, you select which areas you need to be especially alert to,
giving you the option of both pro-active and re-active responses.
The approaches are:
Situational choice of tools
Identification of general challenges and choice
of external means for risk reduction
Detailed risk analysis and selection of
internal means for risk reduction
Situational choice of tools
It is helpful to categorize projects according to following risk pa-
rameters, when working with situational choice of risks tools:
4

Project organization
Technology
Scope
Project organization is indicative of how structured a project is or-
ganized. Tightly organized project are typically planned in every
detail. The project goal is clearly defined and visible. Neither goals
4 This section is based on John K. Christiansen Projekter, usikkerhed og risiko
og valg af styringsvrktjer, a Danish article based on McFarlans work with
projects and risks.
RESEARCH 79
nor plans change during the projects life cycle. Loosely organized
projects are the exact opposite. Sometimes it is difficult to define
project goals e.g. if you do not have the necessary competences
within the field. Such a project will have a loosely defined goal.
Goal defined or vague
Plans general or detailed
Changes acceptable or not
Experiences with technology and methods. The parameter includes
the used technology. It deals with two categories of technology. One
is the hardware and software used for the production and for the
project work. The other is the approaches and methods used for the
project work.
The parameter is specified according to following aspects:
Knowledge of software (both process and product-related software)
Knowledge of hardware (both process and product-related hardware)
Knowledge of methods (e.g. development methods, communication
planning etc)
Project scope can have significant influence. Scope is measured in
terms of duration, team size, economy and other involved depart-
ments or subcontractors. The more significantly each of these pa-
rameters are represented in a project, the greater the risk. However,
the parameters are relative. Some companies only have experience
with small projects while other have experiences primarily with
very large projects. If project scope falls outside your normal range
of experience it will pose a risk that should be considered.
The parameters are assessed as following:
Duration long or short
Team size big or small
Economy high or low budget
Involved departments/subcontractors many or few.
Depending on your projects profile you can grade it using the ma-
trix below. This should give you a comprehensive overview of the
projects risk profile.


External integration tools Internal integration tools
Choose external stakeholder as project
manager
Form co-ordination groups with external
stakeholders
Frequency and depth in co-ordination
group meetings
Frequency and extent of project team
briefs to important users
Include external stakeholders in project
team
Formal user acceptance of specifications
Include external stakeholders in
important decisions
Information materials and meetings
Kick-off seminar with definition of goals
and stakeholders
Informal contact to external stakeholders
Choose project manager with experience in
the field
Choose a leader with the formal status of
project manager
Frequent project team meetings and
informal contacts
Write briefs about important decisions and
changes frequently an distribute them to
project team
Frequent status meetings and daily contact
Communication and shared vision and goals
Few team changes
Choose team members with previous
teamwork experience
Involve team in setting deadlines and goals
External consultant to help with technology
and process
Kick-off seminar clarifies team member
responsabilities in the project
Courses and training
Tightly organized Loosely organized
Known
technology
Big project, low risk Big project, low risk. Could be
influnced by poor management.
Small project, very low risk Small project, very low risk. Could
be influnced by poor management.
New
technology
Big project, medium risk Big project, very high risk
Small project, medium to low risk Small project, high risk
Depending on placement in this matrix you understand your projects
risk profile. Now you can choose from the four different toolboxes
shown below. McFarlan originally developed the toolboxes. They
were later elaborated and adjusted by John K. Christiansen and
finally the authors of this book have adjusted them to the field of
digital media development.
RESEARCH 81
Pro-
ject-
types
Project
characteristics
External
integra-
tion
Internal
integra-
tion
Formal
planning
Formal
manage-
ment and
follow-up
1. Tightly organized, known
technology, big project
Little Medium Extensive Extensive
2. Tightly organized, known
technology, small project
Little Little Medium Extensive
3. Tightly organized, new
Little Extensive Medium Medium
4. Tightly organized, new
Little Extensive Little Little
5. Loosely organized, known
Extensive Medium Extensive Extensive
6. Loosely organized, known
Extensive Little Medium Extensive
7. Loosely organized, new
Extensive Extensive Little
Medium
Little
Medium
8. Loosely organized, new
Extensive Extensive Little Little
Formal planning tools Formal control and evaluation tools
Diagrams and models of the project
Plans for time, tasks, resources and
economy
Estimation methods
Distribute project responsabilities to team
members
A written project guidelines book
describing methods, standards and
procedures
Divide the project in phases
Define milestones
Quality standards for the project
Procedures for approval
Project management systems
Project briefing procedures for project start
Regular, formal status reports
Report changes in project and specications
Regular meeting and presentations of
milestones
Report any deviations from plans
Monitor progress (time, resources, economy)
Costs and quality control
Reviews and technical briefs from internal or
external evaluators
Continuous project evaluations
Formal planning tools for project
management and documentation
With your risk profile complete and with the table of the different
tools for dealing with risks, you are now ready to choose the project
tools that will support your risk areas. You can include the tools in
your project plan.

Example of risk prole and choice of tools
You have started a digital media project. The client has only
been able to specify few requirements for the product, as the
primary concern is innovation. The client wants an Internet
state-of-the-art prole and to get the target audiences
attention. The project life cycle model chosen is exploratory
programming. The product must be presented to the client
and the target audience after each iteration. You work with
a small and experienced project team. The project is due in a
couple of months but the deadline has not been specied yet.
You have a development project with the goal of producing
the best solution with the exploratory approach: a small team
familiar with the process technology, the project life cycle
model etc. The product technology hardware and software
is unknown.
Profle: Loosely organized, new technology, small project. High risk.
Recommended tools: Extra emphasis on internal and external
integration tool, very little emphasis on formal management
and planning tools.
Important: Form a co-ordination group consisting of the
client and the future users. Emphasize communication to
ensure that everybody shares visions and goals. Allocate time
for team learning in relation to technology.

If the example seems too elaborate for your project, there are other
methods for identifying and minimizing risks. A simple approach
could be to write a prioritized list of all project risks and them de-
scribe how to deal with each one.
Identification of general challenges and choice of means
Let us return to the challenges facing every digital media project.
The table below lists the external challenges explained earlier in
this book. Also listed are suggestions on how to manage these
challenges. Use the list for inspiration in your own work with risk
management.
RESEARCH 83
Detailed risk analysis and risk management
The list below shows a number of internal risks and risk manage-
ment approaches. It was developed based on a survey of risks in
system engineering in the early 90s. We have adjusted the list to
digital media development.
Challenge Means
Meeting demands for
innovation and short
production time
Scale down ambitions
Long term partnerships instead of short, individual projects
Contracts
Use situational adjusted methods or phases in the development
Being a forerunner
(accelerated evolu-
tion of technologies)
Use resources for researching and updating skills
Expose team for newest technologies (conferences, demonstrations etc.)
Use your network
Communicating
project opportunities
and limitations to
client
Educate the client early in project
Continuous adjustment of expectations
Put users and experts in contact with the client early in the project
Avoid premature and excessively detailed specifications
Finishing a project
while new opportuni-
ties constantly arise
Include economy in the contract
Write the sign-off agreement early in the project
Status meetings when milestones are met
Priority Risk Risk management approach
1. Project teams ability to
handle the development
Emphasize highly trained employees, team building
and courses
2. Unrealistic time
schedules and budgets
Detailed estimates, develop in phases, re-use software,
downscale demands
3. Development of wrong
functionalities
Analysis of field, prototyping, early user tests
4. Development of wrong
user interfaces
Prototyping, analysis of tasks/needs, analysis of use
environment/user profile. Early user tests
5. Excessively flashy design Downscale demands, prototyping
6. Demands changed
repeatedly
High change threshold, modular design, develop in
phases (postpone changes for later versions/updates
7. Hardware weaknesses Quality control, compatibility analysis
8. Weaknesses in units from
subcontractors
Detailed specifications, contracts, team building
9. Development time Compression, downscale demands
10. Unrealistic demands on
technology
Analyse technology, cost-benefit analysis, prototyping,
expert assistance
The methods are based on the approach that it is necessary to limit
risks as much as possible. To a certain extent that is a correct pro-
cedure.
In your choice of risk management you should constantly be
aware of the circumstances we described in the introduction to the
chapter on project management and digital media. We pointed out
that it is important to be aware of the relation between minimizing
internal risks, which leaves you vulnerable to external risks and
vice versa (see page 17). The risk management approaches above
indicate both possibilities when you are choosing your approach
to risk management you are walking a tight rope.
By using all or some of the above listed approaches you will get
a good handle on how to manage risks in your project. That also
means revising your earlier decision. The above listed approaches
indicate a significant number of tasks to be included in your project
plan, if you think they are necessary for risk management in your
project.
Planning project plan evaluation
When you have completed the project plan and decided how to
manage the risks in your project, the remaining process activities
consist of continuous evaluation to check if your project plan is in
concordance with the reality of your project. If that is not the case
you must adjust your project plan. In the following section we will
cover methods for project plan evaluation that you can use during
this phase of your project.
To evaluate the project plan and with that evaluate if activities,
documents and milestones are progressing as expected you need
information. There are a number of methods for providing this in-
formation.
5
These methods are self-registration, reviews, inspection,
interview and test. Some of these methods are qualitative, other are
quantitative, so you must carefully select which ones to use.
Self-registration is an obvious method for registration of quantitative
data such as spent man-hours and used resources. It is important
to establish a procedure for registration of quantitative data. Soft-
5 The methods recommended here are inspired by the Danish book Professionel
Systemudvikling by Niels Erik Andersen et. al.
RESEARCH 85
ware systems are commonly used. This could be a simple database
tailored to your needs or a standard registration program. If you are
responsible for the project schedule, your work is simply to extract
the necessary information from the database that all developers
have been using through the project.
A review is a carefully planned meeting where the quality of a cer-
tain result is evaluated. Examples of results that could be evaluated
by reviews are the golden master version of the finished product,
unit specifications and project plans to mention but a few. There are
several purposes for doing reviews:
Pointing out needs for improvements
Approving results
Creating homogeneous quality
Facilitate learning for client and project team
The active participants in reviews are typically external experts and
the client. The project team observes.
Previous to a review the participants evaluate the results from a
personal point of view and in relation to the demands specified for
the project. The participants get a limited number of hours to evalu-
ate results versus specifications. If you do not have a specification
document you need to consider what the actual results should be
compared to.
When doing reviews, appoint a chairman and a note taker. The
chairman is in charge of the process and the note taker writes the
main arguments on a board or on a piece of paper. The note taker
should also make a clear conclusion after the review.
To organize the discussion we recommend that the chairman in
advance has selected a tool for organizing criticism. The chairman
could use the PMI method used to categorize statements as positive
(P: plus), negative (M: minus) or interesting (I). The six thinking
hats is another similar tool. Both tools are covered on pages (97-
100).
The project team are observers and can only contribute statements
of a clarifying nature no excuses, explanations or solutions.
The review can lead to one of following decisions:
The result is approved
The result is approved. Minor changes are
necessary, but a new review is not necessary
The result is not approved since major changes are
necessary. These should also be reviewed.
The result is useless. The management must decide what to do.
How to hold a review:
Select experts and client representatives
Reviewers are given the specifications and presented
with results. They get two hours for preparation
Appoint chairman and note taker
Choose tool for organizing information
Conduct the review
Inform relevant stakeholders of the review decisions
Make a report that describes the further development
Inspection is a method for investigating certain conditions or issues.
We recommend that you use inspection to establish status on activi-
ties and project progression. You can inspect concept development
activities by reading the concept description or by observing a con-
cept. In the various phases throughout the project life cycle there
are many different activities and results you can inspect. The point
of inspecting is to provide the necessary information for evaluat-
ing whether your plans are still on target. For further information
on observation, see the section communication research on page
102.
Interviews can generally be defined as a structured and prepared
conversation between two parties. The interview is controlled by the
part that has the need for information. For a detailed description of
interviews, see page 103.
As a technique to evaluate if plans are still on target, we will only
add that interviews can help you investigate if the project has had
some side effects that you were not aware of in the planning phase.
These could be side effects pertaining to team work, working envi-
ronment or client relations. We recommend that you use interviews
to gather information about these issues.
RESEARCH 87
Test and evaluations are obvious techniques for gathering infor-
mation about project progression. The product-related tests are
described in the section Planning test activities on page 173. The
process is continuously evaluated by means of the above-mentioned
techniques. We will return to the final project evaluation in chapter 6.
The evaluation activities we have presented possess different
strengths. We suggest that you use:
Self-registration for gathering information
about actual resource usage.
Reviews for information about results or milestones
such as flowcharts or storyboards.
Inspections for gathering information about activities
such as concept development meetings
Interviews for information about the soft
areas such as the teams understanding of the
project goals and vision, see page 65.
Tests for establishing status for a certain
result, e.g. a prototype test.
Information about project risks, circumstances
and stakeholders can be gathered using
interviews, inspections or self-registration.
Summary
We have now described how you develop a realistic project plan. At
this stage of the project life cycle your project plan should include:

Milestones with estimates and deadlines. Milestones
should be specified in documentation so you can
evaluate milestone quality and progression.
Activities with purpose, allocated time and resources. This
includes product-related activities during the research,
design and completion phases and test of process-related
activities such as risk management and evaluation.
For each activity any subtasks or activities should be described.
If necessary allocate resources, materials and responsibility.
The individual work plans are to be developed by each developer.

Product activities
Concept development, research and communication planning are
the next three activities in HOME. Together they form the product
activities in the research phase. We have chosen to describe them
chronologically because they logically can follow one after the
other. Together they form the basis for the next step in HOME.
In HOME these activities are linked with optional iteration. That
means that the three activities can be repeated if necessary until the
desired level of knowledge is produced. The iteration is not evident
from this chapter but please bear in mind that it is an important
development principle in HOME.
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Involved: Project manager and designers
Purpose: To produce the concept and gather information for
the communication plan
Input/documentation: Process and product documentation
Activities: Concept development, communication research
and communication planning
Output/documentation: Concept description and
communication plan
Responsible: The project manager
The concept development activity emphasizes methods that can help
you generate new ideas. We do not recommend that these methods
be applied exclusively in this phase. Quite contrary we believe that
they are ways of thinking that can be applied through all the de-
velopment phases. The result your concept from the concept
development phase is to be completely specified by the end of this
phase. Your concept is documented in a concept description.
Before the step is completed you need to cover communication
research and communication planning. Communication research
implies uncovering and investigating the concepts context. These
data are interpreted resulting in a communication plan. Before
moving on to the design phase, we will conduct a concept test on
the specified target audience.
RESEARCH 89
Concept development
Every digital media project involves some level of innovation. The
level of innovation depends on the type of project you are develop-
ing. If the client specifies the project and you are working with fixed
costs and time, you adjust innovation to fit the scope of the project.
If the project emerges within the developing company, management
and guidance are vital factors in order to foster creative processes.
Innovation is an important parameter for competition in most
industries. The tendency is even more pronounced when dealing
with new technologies. So creativity is not something we plan for
because we want to have fun or to generate a nice atmosphere
in the project team. Creativity is necessary to produce competitive
concepts. Do not skip this activity even if you think your concept is
finished there is no such thing as a finished concept!
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
Involved: Project manager, designers and perhaps user
representatives and client
Purpose: To facilitate innovation and evaluation during
the concept development phase
Input/documentation: Information from the pre-analysis
Activities: Creative techniques
Output/documentation: Concept description
When we are trying to create innovative concepts and get good
ideas, we have to think differently from our normal mode of think-
ing.
Thinking is our most important asset and yet a skill we will never
be completely satisfied with. No matter how skilled thinkers we
become, we always want to improve. Our creativity depends on our
thinking skills. The more efficiently we think, the easier we can see
new opportunities.
We have chosen a number of techniques that will help you think
out of the box. Meaning they will help you break the boundaries
of conventional thinking and enhance your ability to see alterna-
tives. The American guru of creative thinking, Edward de Bono,
inspired several of the techniques.
6

The problem with conventional thinking is that it is founded on la-
belling, judging and categorizing. By naming objects and phenomena
we know, we put them in mental boxes containing similar objects
or phenomena. It is relatively easy to extract knowledge from these
boxes. It is difficult to categorize the content in the right order.
In the process of categorization, we use our perception, experi-
ence and our ability to decode signs. From minute parts of an object
or phenomenon we can infer to which category it belongs. This
mode of thinking is very effective, but it has some disadvantages.
One is the danger of gross simplification. Another disadvantage
is that our boxes are always based on past experiences. Hence box
thinking is very inefficient for dealing with the future. A third
dis-advantage is that we often build our boxes from very limited
experiences. The more boxes we have, the more efficiently can we
act in any situation. When we have difficulties understanding our
circumstances it is because we try to understand a new phenomenon
with our old boxes.
The techniques below can enable you to see new possibilities and
alternatives by crossing between existing categories.
Mindmapping
Mindmapping is based on research about how the brain processes
sense impressions and other information. Mindmapping is said to
emulate our thinking processes better than e.g. writing our thoughts
down from beginning to end, from left to right. A mindmap is a
visual pattern of interrelated ideas and thoughts.
A mindmap typically includes several elements:
The topic or problem, which is written in the middle of the paper
Keywords that are written around the topic
preferably one keyword on each line
Keywords are linked to the centre through branches
Colours and symbols are used to emphasize ideas and
for stimulating the brain to see new connections.
6 Dr. de Bono has authored many books (57 books translated to 34 languages)
about thinking and creativity. He coined terms like lateral thinking and devel-
oped the technique six thinking hats.
RESEARCH 91
To use the full strength of mindmapping you need a free flow of
ideas and thoughts that are not judged or evaluated during the
thinking process. A mindmap can be seen as an illustration of a
brainstorming process, where associations and inputs are constantly
elaborated, preferably involving several people.
It is a good idea to use colour codes in your mindmap e.g.:
Structure organize information according to topics
Presentation colours enhance memory
Brainstorming emphasis of interesting points in the mindmap
Overview different colour codes for main and sub-
branches, strengths and weaknesses, quotations etc.
Control cross out subjects as they have
been finished in the project.
Symbols and pictures are processed quicker than words so they are
effective markers enhancing overview. Because mindmapping can
be made spontaneously and through participants associations, it is
a good technique for developing new ideas and connections. It is a
good idea to start off with a specific statement or topic to be elabo-
rated in the brainstorm. Free association makes the input creative
and spontaneous and it lends dynamic progression to the thinking
processes. Dynamic progression is very important for thinking out
of the box, because the speed makes it difficult to think within
habitual patterns.
To use the full strength of mindmapping you need a free flow of
ideas and thoughts that are not judged or evaluated during the
thinking process. A mindmap can be seen as an illustration of a
brainstorming process, where associations and inputs are constantly
elaborated, preferably involving several people.
It is a good idea to use colour codes in your mindmap e.g.:
Structure organize information according to topics
Presentation colours enhance memory
Brainstorming emphasis of interesting points in the mindmap
Overview different colour codes for main and sub-branches,

strengths and weaknesses, quotations etc.
Control cross out subjects as they have been finished in the

project.
Symbols and pictures are processed quicker than words so they are
effective markers enhancing overview.
Because mindmapping can be made spontaneously and through
participants associations, it is a good technique for developing new
ideas and connections. It is a good idea to start off with a specific
statement or topic to be elaborated in the brainstorm. Free associa-
tion makes the input creative and spontaneous and it lends dynamic
progression to the thinking processes. Dynamic progression is very
RESEARCH 87
Figure 4.4 Example of mindmap.
E-mail and phone numbers Employees
Pictures
Annual accounts
Economy
Price and security policy
Monthly competition
Weekly review
News
Company profile
Website for IT-literature
01-03-00 - v9
Products
Search Shopping module
Book searching
Catalogue
Books
Order
Covers
Author profile
Prices and
delivery
Search engine
Management
philosophy

Collages used as concept development tools
Concept development connected with the task: Is it possible to
make children read e-books?
In this example, the target audience was asked to make collages
inspired by this question: What does reading mean to me?.
A group of girls, randomly picked out in the fourth grade of a
Primary School located in Northern Zealand, Denmark, were asked
to make two collages by respectively using images from the internet
and printed magazines. These images were to depict values or feel-
ings that the girls associated with reading. Subsequently, the girls
were asked to explain their choices with words. The search and
articulation process was made more conscious by asking the girls
to search the internet for images representing a feeling in that they
had to establish what feelings and values they had before starting
looking for images (key words) apt at depicting them.
In the example making use of magazines, newspapers etc., the proc-
ess became more associative and creative because the girls had to
sort out images from a restricted number of sources.
Collage using images from the internet
RESEARCH 93
The girls explanations to the collage made with images from the
internet:
Its like travelling to other worlds. You get new, brave friends.
It is exciting and always surprising to
get a new book in the series
I enjoy it so much when I read a good book, and you
can eat delicious snacks at the same time
Its not something I only do at school. I also read at home.
When I feel like relaxing a little and being
alone for a while in my room
Boys are bookworms and girls are book nerds
And the flower was very pretty.
The girls explanations to the collage made with images from magazines:
When you are reading a good book, it is nice to sit on the couch.
It is like sitting in a cloud or a bubble. You can visualize anything,
dream and imagine other worlds. It is also nice to sit together and
read a story aloud.
If descriptions are thorough, you really perceive how
the books protagonist is feeling: if he or she is sad, in a
hurry or feeling cold. You can even share this feeling.
It is great fun to read about peculiar creatures, provided
that they are not too girlish, wearing pink, glimmering
clothes and speak in a too smart manner.
I also enjoy reading scary stories because you just
cannot stop reading and you never get bored.
Many books are beautiful to look at, and when they
contain nice pictures, you can observe the pictures getting
deep into them. I like books with lots of pictures!
Summary:
Reading is a captivating experience (new worlds).
It is associated with something nice
(candy, sitting on a soft couch, in your room).
They build friendships with the characters they read
about; that is why series are so important
(new friends, looking forward to new
publications in the same series).
Noticeable aesthetic awareness
(flower, pictures and the collage as a whole)

Considerations about e-books:
The e-book platform is important. It must be possible to read it on
the couch or in bed.
The published books should be about brave girls of the same age,
who can become friends. The series principle is crucial, and e-books
have some special advantages in this respect as they are easier,
quicker and less expensive to distribute than conventional books. It
may be possible to create a community around the girls heroines
where the girls can build relationships with the dramatic world in
Collage with images cut out of weekly magazines, periodicals
and newspapers
RESEARCH 95
the books. They may, for example, write the continuation of the
stories etc., thus providing new hints about the further development
of the plot and the concept.
PO Provocative Operation
A central idea-generation tool developed by Edward de Bono is PO.
PO is derived from words such as hyPOthesis and POetry. It is an
abbreviation of Provocative Operation.
The technique is simply to provoke new ideas by means of absurd,
exaggerated, illogical or idealized statements. These statements can
be your stepping-stones for jumping from one habitual thinking
pattern to another.
Figure 4.5. From one thinking pattern to another.
Example of using PO:
A group of students have an assignment to design a game to
teach elderly how to access the Internet the group is stuck:
Elderly have no computers nor computer skills. So they use
a PO statement to bring the discussion out of the dead-end
track: PO: All TVs have touch-screens. This statement opens
new options and considerations about the elderlys media
usage:

A TV screen is big, has large letters that are easily read
A TV is familiar to the target audience
Text-TV is a possible access point to the Internet
An online interactive video available through text-TV
The remote control could be the user input device in the
absence of a mouse
Etc
The students decided that it was very important with a
familiar medium for the game. So they produced a board
game for the elderly to play with their grand children. The
board game should turn the conversation to the Internet.
PO

RAFO
RAFO is an abbreviation representing the following process:

Figure 4.5. RAFO
One of the most effective ways of developing new ideas is to be
open to the tendencies and impulses in our surroundings. RAFO is a
technique where these inputs are generated on purpose and forced
to fit with the problem at hand. The process requires:
Random information:
A random input of any kind is introduced to the group. It could be
a picture, a word, a sound, a taste or a smell.
Association:
The group share their associations and write a note of all their as-
sociations.
Then the most interesting associations are selected. Depending on
the subject you can do some extra rounds of input and association
with any new words. Finally the associations are categorized, e.g. a
family game, a dinner recipe, a Nelson Mandela quote etc. You can
formulate new categories for the random input.
When an adequate amount of associations and categories have
been generated the associations are prioritized. You could underline
the ones you find most interesting not interesting because of their
relevance for your problem, but interesting as a personal interest,
curiosity or intuition.
Force to fit:
The underlined associations must now be forced to fit, to be mean-
ingful in context with your original problem. It may seem absurd.
What happens is that you are forced to think out of the box, because
Assignment
Output
Random input
Association
Force to fit
RESEARCH 97
two unrelated words are forced to fit. Do not be deterred by the
meaningless this is purely a thinking exercise.
Output
How does the sentence: Elderly ladies dye their hair blue to make
it look white make sense in relation to the assignment: Design a
pedagogical computer game for teenagers. It could be something
in the lines of: A tradition can make sane people act insanely, it
is funny and surprising when people you consider to be conform,
act rebellious and provocative, computers are more fun blue than
grey, appearances/packing is important for your perception of the
content, when you feel smart, you feel well, etc.
The point is that by juxtaposing two completely different compo-
nents, you can see sides of your original problem otherwise invis-
ible. The RAFO exercise can also help you speeding up a slow or
blocked brainstorm, because thoughts are diverted from the dead
spot into completely new lines of thinking. Try it!
PMI
PMI is a tool for evaluation and for problem solving. P represents
Plus indicating strengths, M represents Minus indicating weak-
nesses and I represents Interesting aspects of the problem. Dividing
a problem into these categories can help you see new aspects and
solutions.
An example of using PO and PMI
A group of boys from primary school were given a PO
statement: All pupils should get money for attending school.
The boys analysed the implications of this statement with
the PMI technique. To their surprise the boys realized many
disadvantages:
Older boys in school might harass younger boys to get
their money.
Parents might stop giving gifts and allowances.
There would be less money for teachers salaries.
The school might not be able to afford the mini-bus
Etc
The example demonstrates that even rigid and bad solutions may
have positive dimensions and similarly: solutions that appear to be
good, have potentially negative side effects. The interesting points
are the ones not decisively good or bad or perhaps both good and
bad. I-points can also be questions or visions. The I-points should be
the foundation for further work with any given subject or problem,
since the overly positive or negative opinions have been cleared out
of the way.
The Six Thinking Hats
Edward de Bono developed the six thinking hats a technique to
separate our different patterns of thinking. It is a simple and practi-
cal technique used all over the world; it is used everywhere from
large organizations to families and schools.
A hat is a garment that you can easily put on or take off. I many
cultures hats are also associated with a particular role or identity
a person may assume in certain situations: I will now put on my
project manager hat
In cultures with tradition for argumentation and debates, one
person is likely to assume a certain point of view in relation to
some topic. The opposing debater attacks this position. A attacks
B and B attacks A. This approach can be seen in courtrooms,
parliaments, negotiations and family discussions.
Sometimes this is a very useful approach, but it is not the sole
means for investigating a topic. Sometimes a part may be more
interested in winning the argument rather than investigating the
topic.
When we are thinking, we are normally trying to take every pos-
sibility into consideration. We are constantly alert to any dangers,
complications or any flaws in our own mental argument. Edward
de Bono has tried to separate all our different habitual thinking
patterns by assigning a symbol to each one the hat. Consider an
organized group you are in now is there someone who will always
put on the black hat?
The white hat
White refers to the colour of paper. The white hat is about infor-
mation. Wearing the white hat, we ask questions such as: What
RESEARCH 99
information do we have?, What information do we need?, How
can we get the information we need?, What questions should we
ask to get the necessary information?

The red hat
Red indicates heat and fire. The red hat is about emotions and in-
tuition. You do not have to know why you do not like something.
Wearing the red hat, you can speak about your likes and dislikes
without having to explain your preferences. You do have feelings
and the red hat gives you the opportunity to express them.

The black hat
Black represents danger and caution. The black hat will prevent us
from potentially harmful actions. The black hat emphasizes risks
and reasons for possible failure. Without the black hat we would
constantly be in trouble. Nevertheless the black hat should be used
with caution. Over-using the black hat is dangerous.

The green hat
Green is the colour of growth, energy and life. The green hat is the
energy hat. Wearing the green hat you come up with suggestions,
new ideas and alternatives. You propose modifications or variations
of existing ideas. The green hat is a call for creativity.

The blue hat
The blue hat represents organizing the thinking processes. When
you put on the blue hat you ask questions like: What is our next
step?, What have we achieved so far?. The blue hat can be used
early in a discussion to clarify what topics are up for discussion,
in what order and with what purpose. It can be used to determine
which hats to use when and to summarize the discussion.

The yellow hat
Yellow is sun and optimism. The yellow hat sees possibilities, values
and advantages of ideas: What is good about this? Even if we
do not like the idea, the yellow hat will challenge us to find any
advantages inherent in the idea. What are the advantages?, What
is the value of these advantages?

The creative room
You can combine the above described concept development tech-
niques or you can use them individually. You can decide which
techniques to use in your team. Creative thinking is often attributed
to artists and many people find it difficult to identify themselves as
creative. For that reason it is often necessary to make a special room
for creativity. Not necessarily a physical room, but a conceptual
setting for how, when and where to think creatively. By creating
the settings for concept development you ensure that ideas will
emerge, will be taken seriously and will be brought into the project
for the benefit of both the project and the general knowledge in
your company.
When planning the creative room there are seven rules that can
be a beneficial influence:
Postpone evaluations all inputs are evaluated
when you finish the brainstorm
It is acceptable to lie there is no need
for realism or truthfulness
Openness within the team, reservations to the external
world keep your ideas inside your team
No hierarchy everybody is equal during brainstorms
Pay special attention to nave suggestions or stupid questions
Any idea is the teams idea there is no individual ownership
on ideas emerging from or discussed during the brainstorm
Always finish a brainstorm with a serious evaluation.
Concept description
When you have finished the concept development, or rather when
you have decided to finish the concept development in the research
phase, we recommend that you summarize your concept in a con-
cept description.
A concept description is a communicative and dynamic document
meant to anchor the project vision in the entire project team and
ensure that the vision is in compliance with client requirements.
The concept description is based on the product definition from the
pre-analysis, which is elaborated with the new input.
RESEARCH 101
A concept description could include:
Name of concept
General idea
What will the application be used for?
What will be included in the application?
How will the application be designed
(include sketches and illustrations)?
What needs should the application fulfil?
An example of a project description
Title: Just turn the wheel
Concept: To produce an entertaining, educational CD-Rom to
supple ment the existing theory book used in Danish driving
schools. The product must rely on communicating through other
media elements than text to empower the slow readers among the
students.
Use: The CD-Rom must be relevant for all levels of driving school
students. The typical user situation will be in the students home.
Content: Content is divided in two sections: a theoretical part and a
game. The theoretical part contains:
All text from the theory book and an index for searching
A theory test
A 3D model of a car so the student can identify
relevant parts and experiment with them
A model of a car that the student can test for functionality
and safety, e.g. play in the steering wheel and brakes.
The game is a driving game where the student is driving around in a
city. Various relevant situations should occur regularly in the game,
giving the student a number of possible actions. The game should
have different levels of difculty and a point system.
Design: The genre should be cartoonish hand-drawings with clear
colours and pronounced contrasts.
Need: The internet-based teaching process aims at making car
driving theory more attractive, thus supporting the sale of theory
books and ultimately help more students pass the theory test.
Attention: The game relies on mixing humour and trafc
regulations. The students should have no doubts about what is
right and what is wrong behaviour in trafc. All content should be
in compliance with existing Danish trafc laws and Danish driving
school curriculum.

Having completed the concept description, it is time to move on to
communication research, which will investigate and uncover the
projects context.
Research
Involved people: Project manager and key project team
members, perhaps user representatives and the client
Purpose: Ensuring a relevant, up-to-date concept description
Input/documentation: Concept description
Activities: Research and data gathering
Output/documentation: Revised/extended concept description
Person in charge: Project manager
Techniques for gathering data
Having sufficient data is invaluable for starting a project.
Before you decide which method you will use for gathering data,
you need to realize what sort of data you need. If you need knowl-
edge about teenagers perception of violent computer games, you
need a method that can reflect the emotional nuances and investi-
gate individual reactions. We call that kind of data soft. Methods
for gathering soft data are called qualitative methods.
If you need to know how many people have bought Call of Duty
or Supermario, their age and sex, and how many times they have
played, we refer to hard data and quantitative methods. Quantita-
tive methods always lead to measurable results. Often qualitative
and quantitative data are combined. If you deal with an area that
is difficult to understand, it is important to carry out a range of
qualitative investigations in order to get deeper insight into the
area. Afterwards, you can apply quantitative methods to find out to
what extent a given opinion represents the target audience.
If you need to explain e.g. how many Danish consumers would
be interested in receiving digital ads? before dealing with that
specific topic, you can work out a questionnaire aimed at revealing
the percentage of those interested. You might find that 60 percent
of women over 45 would be very happy or happy to receive
RESEARCH 103
digital ads. That suggests that the idea has a potential, but you are
not perfectly aware of the underlying reasons. Now you can use the
qualitative methods to get further insight into the issue. In a focus
group made up of women over 45, you can discover reasons such
as: Because it takes too much time to read them (the ads). Because
it is a waste of paper and they fill up my garbage bin. Because they
are not meant for me. Because I do not see them before I get home
from work, and that is the most busy time of day.
Qualitative data give you insight into various issues that the target
audience consider priorities, such as environmental safeguard, time/
effectiveness and relevance. These issues can be used to provide a
more targeted service or target the communication about the service
more appropriately so that it is perceived as relevant.
In the text below, we are going to describe a few quantitative and
qualitative methods.
Interview
Interviews can be divided into personal interviews, polls, and tel-
ephone interviews.
In the personal interview, the interviewer and the respondent
meet face to face. The result will normally be of a qualitative nature
and be relatively time consuming both in terms of preparation and
analysis.
The poll is much less time consuming because the questions of-
ten will be standardized, enabling quantitative analysis by simply
counting the answers for each question. Polls are conducted by dis-
tributing questionnaires, later to be returned by the respondents.
There is no need for personal contact.
A telephone interview is a combination of the two (replies are
oral but there is no need for a meeting between interviewer and
respondent).
Interview forms can further be divided depending on structure:
Standardized/structured or non-standardized/unstructured. These
two poles lead to respectively quantitative or qualitative data.
The standardized interview follows a set of pre-defined guidelines.
The emphasis is on conducting all interviews similarly, in the same
settings with the same interviewers. You use standardized inter-
views to gather easily categorized data. To categorize data you need
to be able to compare the data, so you need a homogenous process
of gathering the data. In standardized interviews you ask closed
questions so the answers will fall under pre-defined categories.

Closed questions are yes or no questions or they
have pre-defined categories for the respondent to choose
from, e.g. a little, average, a lot, dont know.
Open questions may involve the respondents own
formulations and attitudes. In interviews, open questions
are asked during open discussions. In questionnaires, open
questions have blanks for the respondent to fill out.
During non-standardized, structured interviews, the interviewer will
often follow a question guide with a certain order of themes and
open questions that can be modified to the particular interview situ-
ation. A question guide will normally have general headlines and
blanks for the interviewer to fill out.
The non-standardized/unstructured interviews are based on a wish
to gather nuanced, individual data. They are typically personal in-
terviews, with the interviewer asking open questions loosely related
to a very general interview guide without pre-defined questions or
order of questions. Compared to the other interview forms, personal
interviews with open questions can uncover new and sometimes
surprising information. The downside is that personal interviews
with open questions demand a more time-consuming analysis.
The model below illustrates the different interview forms.
7
The dif-
ferent kinds of interviews can be combined. An example could be a
questionnaire with blanks for the respondent to fill out.
7 Thomas Harboe-Jepsen: Indfring i sociologisk metode, Samfundslitteratur,
1997.

RESEARCH 105
Qualitative techniques Quantitative techniques
Personal interview Poll
Dialogue Questionnaire
Non-standardized Standardized
Unstructured Structured
Open questions Closed questions
Time consuming Not as time consuming
In depth details General overview
Questionnaire
As described above questionnaires are typically considered a quan-
titative method. It is not time consuming to prepare a question-
naire compared to preparation time for qualitative methods. But it
is still a considerable task to prepare a well-formed questionnaire.
Because of the closed nature of the questions, the data generated
by questionnaires may oversimplify or even distort reality because
the categories you are using may be misleading. The two general
requirements for a well-formed questionnaire is that answers should
give you relevant data about the field you are researching and that
the questionnaire should be designed for the respondent group. For
example a questionnaire aimed at tourists in Copenhagen should
not be written in Danish.
Using the Internet for distributing questionnaires is increasing
rapidly. You can find software that automatically will sort replies
into pre-defined categories in a database, and even calculate your
statistics. Using the Internet for gathering data has great potential.
You have a huge potential receiver group, it is free to distribute
questionnaires to large respondent groups and the data you get will
be digital and easy to process.
But there is a lot of competition for the Internet users attention
and time. It can be necessary to tempt the users with prizes. It is
important to inform your respondents how the data will be used, to
promise confidentiality and guarantee not to sell any respondent
data to a third party.
When you are making a questionnaire you may find the below
guidelines helpful:

The questions must:
be relevant for the field you are researching
cover the entire field
ask directly in relation to the field
ask precisely
ask one question at a time
refrain from technical or foreign words
be relatively short and composed of short words
not be composed of ambiguous words
not be leading
The questions could be:
factual (asking about facts)
cognitive (asking about knowledge)
about attitudes
specific
general
The order of questions must:
be logical in relation to theme or type
(e.g. general before specific)
begin with easy questions
Answer categories must:
be exhaustive and relevant in relation to the question
be mutually exclusive if only one answer is possible
it should be possible to establish a reciprocal ranking
of answers. Example: Very satisfied quite satisfied
neutral quite unsatisfied very unsatisfied
it should be possible to divide answer categories
into intervals. Example: 0 10 EURO,
10 40 EURO, 40 70 EURO.
RESEARCH 107
Focus groups
In focus groups, respondents inspire each other to see new dimen-
sions and to take on a critical and constructive attitude to the topic
or product being discussed. The focus group creates a dynamic
forum.
Due to the open structure, viewpoints that are unknown before-
hand, are set out. A focus group is apt at revealing opinions and
standards of a group as well as behavioural patterns and standpoint
negotiations. What is more, focus groups are exploratory so the
outcome is rather unpredictable.
Focus groups are typically arranged according to a hopper model,
starting with some open questions about the issue, continuing with
more concrete questions and finally setting out a concept that might
be useful to solve the problem the focus group has addressed.
Initially, respondents have the chance to thoroughly express their
perspectives as they are asked to describe something in their eve-
ryday lives that is related to the product or the service the product
contributes to offering. In that way, respondents get to know each
other before addressing more opinion-related questions:
A descriptive, initial question might for example be:
Describe the last time you ordered a product online!
A normative, initial question would be: What positive and
negative circumstances did you experience in that process?
Then you may ask participants to tell something about their habits
and preferences or perhaps what they find good or bad. That fosters
a dialogue where people exchange views about interesting aspects
that are important to comprehension.
Several focus groups also resort to creative exercises, such as:
Working out collages (see p. 92). In many cases, it is easier to
describe your feelings with images than with words.
A focus group may be concluded by concretely showing the prototype
being developed and asking people what they think about it.
It takes about 1,5 2 hours to run a focus group. The questioning
guide includes an overview and the order of initial questions and
exercises.
The moderator plays an important role when it comes to making the
group function. The moderator ensures that all respondents have
the chance to speak their minds and are listened to equally, and he/
she mush be good at asking further, clarifying questions in order to
obtain truly useful answers.
Observation
Observations can be used to get a first-hand impression of a specific
situation e.g. a particular task solved by a user.
Observations are divided into field observation or laboratory ob-
servation. The first is conducted in the field i.e. the natural context
of the situation, while the later is conducted in a setting designed
for observation.
Observers can be participating or passive. Participant observation
is used when it is relevant to provoke certain situations for observa-
tion. Passive observation is used when it is relevant to observe the
situation, as it would unfold unaffected by observation.
Observation can lead to both qualitative and quantitative data.
Quantitative observation will typically be structured and tailored to
observe specified situations with the intent to compare data from
different users.
Qualitative observation will typically be unstructured and will
not target pre-defined situations, but rather the full picture.
The observer will not in advance know
what to look for in particular.
Cultural Probes and diaries
Cultural probes are basically conducted by providing users with
some tools in order to account for their daily lives and asking them
to address some tasks and questions that we face them with. You
can e.g. give users a disposable camera and some postcards and ask
them to take pictures of places they are fond of and write postcards
from the places where they are at certain times of the day. This
method is, hence, apt at giving developers insight into aspects of
users daily lives, views and standards that they are unlikely to
depict during a conventional interview.
You can also ask users to send SMS and MMS messages or emails
at certain times of day.
RESEARCH 109
You can also make use of diaries to get behind the facade and
obtain a more thorough understanding of how users think, make
reflections and act as well as a detailed description of their everyday
lives. If you add pictures or a collage to the diary narration, you
will get to know even more about users, thus obtaining an insight
that you might not have achieved otherwise because you would not
have been able to ask a question revealing this aspect!
Data gathering from social media
Social media give us many new opportunities to collect interesting,
informal data. All of a sudden, it has become possible to listen
to users informal debates, and it has never been easier to establish
relationships with them.
Users relationships and socialising generate a lot of data that may
be used to interpret peoples behaviours, motivation and opinions.
Another data gathering technique involves users directly in the
development of a product by making them participate in creative
contests, asking them to provide feedback, inviting them to product
testing, panel discussions or encouraging them to dialogue in other
ways through the social media.
It is up to the designer to exploit the opportunities for gathering
data by means of listening and in a targeted manner so that it suits
the development process. If you are using social media to obtain
data and knowledge, you have to estimate what percentage of your
intended users belong to the segment using social media.
Listening to future users is a powerful alternative to the other
data gathering methods such as questionnaires and focus groups.
You can retrieve qualitative data through blogs and social media
You can retrieve quantitative data by means of programs
tracking words in searches, search engines, activity per day etc.
You can retrieve qualitative data by means of global
analysing tools that update trends and interests
Listening requires exercise and professional planning.
First of all, you can find a lot of interesting information on the
internet. When you search for a topic, you typically find a few fora
and blogs where you can register as a member or get information.
If you choose the most reliable blogs, you are likely to achieve
extremely useful, up-to-date information. Then you can track your
blogs. Some free programs such as icerocket give you information
about what words are used for searches (help for tagging), what
search engines are used (help for placing), what countries the users
come from (input for language versioning), what hits on what days
(helps establishing a connection between updating of blogs, the use
of titles and the resulting interest on the blog). You can also create
virtual focus groups by using common chat features or IP telephony
as well as a web camera. In that way, you can visualize homepages,
pictures and many other things and record conversations at the
same time.
Another listening technique resorts to global analysing instru-
ments that gather data from the internet and constantly point out
trends. Blogpulse, Google Trends, Google Alert and trend maps etc.
are apt at giving a useful overview of what most people are inter-
ested in right now in various areas and sectors.
You can also start a dialogue with users by setting up communities
where people interested in a given issue can enter and participate in
debates about matters you would like to know more about.
You should not forget that there is an unwritten web 2.0 rule ac-
cording to which the contents belong to users and not the other way
around. For this reason, it is wise to establish crystal clear clauses
about ownership and copyright.
Involving users means to create conditions and models apt at boost-
ing user innovation, i.e. to train users to come up with good ideas
and give them places where to share them.
You can retrieve qualitative data by means of Crowdsourcing
You can retrieve qualitative data through focus
groups and participating observations
You can retrieve qualitative data by establishing
relationships with users through social media
As compared with social media, you get a double advantage be-
cause innovation within networks is bound to enhance effective-
ness. Crowdsourcing is a model that has already become a classic.
RESEARCH 111
Crowdsourcing transfers the concept wisdom of crowds to an
application, where the knowledge and talent of a group of people
can be used to generate contents or solve problems. Wisdom of
crowds is based on the assumption that many people know more
than few people
A typical example of crowdsourcing, is the option Ask the audi-
ence in Who wants to be a millionaire?. Here the audience is
believed to give the correct answer every time.
Crowdsourcing is a way of investigating into/gather knowledge
and talents from a group of people, which can be used to create
contents or solve problems. The official definition is as follows: A
company or a body selects a function that has been carried out by its
employees so far and outsources it to an undefined group/network
(often quite large) as an open call. Consequently, you bring the tar-
get audience closer to yourself and make them devise products for
you at the same time. In that way, you achieve perfectly relevant,
up-to-date results.
Selecting respondents
When you select respondents for your interviews, your poll or your
observations, you need to identify the population relevant for your
research. This population will normally be identical to your target
audience. From this population you must sample a group of re-
spondents, who can represent the entire target audience. You can
make a random or a non-random sample.
A random sample of the respondent group can be made by
drawing lots. If you want equal representation of male and female
respondents, you make two lots, one for each sex. Then you draw
an equal number of respondents from each lot.
When you are working with non-random samples you select the
best representatives for the target audience. This is normally done
for personal interviews.
Data analysis
You choose your approach to analysing data according to which
type of data you have gathered i.e. hard or soft, qualitative or quan-
titative. The table below shows the approaches you can choose for
the various types of data.


Figure 4.7 Data analysis strategies
When you are analysing qualitative data you can either attempt to
quantify your data or you can proceed with the qualitative con-
tent.
You can for example quantify data by counting a certain state-
ments recurrence. You could also count non-verbal data such as
posture, facial expression, gesture or tone of voice. Quantification
may lead to an overview of your data, but most qualitative content
will not be quantifiable. To understand what motivates a certain
expression or posture you need to conduct a content analysis of
your data. A content analysis emphasizes the content and perhaps
the relation between interviewer and respondent. The respondents
reactions will often be influenced by the context of the interview
or the interviewer, so content analysis may benefit from analysis
of both the research method and the actual data gathered by that
method.
Many methods exist for conducting content analyses. Some of
these are hermeneutical analysis, textual analysis and socio-psy-
chological methods emphasizing understanding the respondents
mentality.
YES
NO
Classification
Must data be
quantified?
Non-quantitative data
What is the character of the gathered data?
Measurement
Incert in
data matrix
Content analyses
Quantitative, statistic
analyses
Quantitative data
RESEARCH 113
Validity and verification
When you are choosing what method to use for your research, you
must consider what sort of data you need. Your method of analysis
similarly depends on your research method. When you have gath-
ered your data you need to consider its validity.
As mentioned earlier you can validate or verify your project to
establish if you are making the right product and if you are making
the product right. The same principles apply to evaluating data.
Testing data validity will show if your chosen method for gathering
data complies with the field you are researching. Verifying data will
show if you have gathered reliable data.
In validity tests you examine if the test results actually cover the
field you intended to research. Validity test is conducted simultane-
ously with data analysis because we constantly compare research
conclusions to the questions we wanted answered through research.
If it becomes evident that the gathered data cannot give you the
information you need, you must conduct further research until you
have a satisfactory result.
The third research phase activity is communication planning. With-
out knowing what we want to say, to whom, how and with what
purpose, we lack the basis for further development.
You may have many brilliant ideas, but if you fail to plan how
to communicate those ideas in the right way to a relevant audience,
your ideas have little chance of surviving.
COMMUNICATION PLANNING

Involved: Project manager, user representatives and possibly
the client
Purpose: To ensure that your communication reaches your
intended target audience
Input/documentation: The concept description, target group
research, statistics etc
Activities: Communication planning
Output/documentation: Communication plan

Purpose
Your first step in making a communication plan is to establish the
purpose of your project. The formulation of the purpose from the
pre-analysis needs elaboration at this stage.
If a client is involved, it is very important to define your clients
goals with the project.
Define project purpose:
Know project background
Speak to your client
Make a prioritized list of various goals
Synchronize the goals so they can co-exist in one product.
It is not as easy as it may sound. Perhaps your client is not author-
ized to disclose project goals in details, or perhaps your client has
not fully realized the project purpose (cf. discussion of vague spec-
ifications during pre-analysis).
Often you need to understand the background for the project
to understand its purpose the background will often influence
the clients perspectives with the project. Perhaps the client has
experience from earlier or current projects that influence decisions.
Perhaps the client has conducted analyses or evaluations relevant
for the project. Perhaps you can get statistics from existing products
or you may use an existing product for initial user research.
To understand a projects purpose you need to understand its
background and you need to regard the client as a source of knowl-
edge equally important to the users you are targeting. A digital
media product can have a wide variety of purposes. It is important
to formulate each one and establish their mutual relations to make
a prioritized list of purposes. Some purposes will always be more
important than others.
RESEARCH 115
An example of several purposes:
A website for a pet food production company has as its
primary purpose to sell more pet food. To full that purpose
the company designs a large site with chat, links, pet care,
and competitions. The secondary purpose of the website is to
create a credible and personalized environment. The target
audience should feel at home and should want to come
back regularly. The users should perceive that relevant pet
information has primary importance on the site and that the
commercial aspects of the site are of secondary importance.
The example demonstrates how purposes can conflict with one
another. It is important to establish if and how purposes can be
integrated. The conflict in the example could be between credibility
versus economy.
If this conflict is genuinely important, how can we guarantee
users that information on the website is independent of the com-
panys economic interests?
One solution could be to make a clear division of the website. The
informational part of the site could also make a point of publishing
critical e-mails and articles. We could assign well-known experts
to be senders of the serious information and be honest about the
companys motivation for the site by showing openness about the
company and its products.
The other conflict demonstrated by the example, is between the
users purpose and the companys purpose. The table below shows
how such conflicts can manifest themselves on a website for a
record store.
Record store Users
Want profit from the Internet
Information about the consumers
Want to sell 6000 copies of the latest
Ray Orbison album
Want Internet security
Want to preserve anonymity
Want to buy the latest
Britney Spears album
If the development is continued based solely on the record stores
purpose, the below scenario is a possible result:
8
8 Jennifer Fleming: Designing Web Navigation, page 83.

Record store User
Make a splash screen with the Roy
Orbison offer for all users to see
Will be annoyed with the superfluours offer.
Just looking for Britney!
Will push the user through ordering
procedures
Anxiety from being at the place order
procedures point of no return without
knowing about the stores online security
policy and procedures. Feels trapped.
Will demand personal information,
preferences, shopping habits and
household income
Is offended by the demand for personal
information. Irrelevant for buying the
Britney album!
The users primary purpose for visiting the website was to buy the
Britney Spears album. The record stores primary purpose was to
relieve themselves of their excessive stock of Roy Orbinson. The
outcome of the visit will most likely be that the user will find the
Britney album elsewhere.
As communication planner you must know what your target au-
dience expect of the product and how the target audience will use
the product. Secondarily you can implement the senders purpose,
giving the sender the best possible communication to the target
audience.
Effect
A good approach to communication planning is to define the in-
tended effect. It is important to discuss the purpose with the intended
effect. Such a discussion will often be about basic values and moral.
It is rarely a discussion that will ever finish, but perhaps it can
show the basic attitudes of the project stakeholders and thus save
expensive misunderstandings later in the project life cycle.
It important to discuss:
The intended effect
What we will do to achieve the intended effect
What the purpose of the intended effect is.
Ideally you can hope to change your target audience on three levels:
Change of knowledge, attitude or behaviour. It is very rare that a
change of knowledge will lead to a change in behaviour. Most of
us know the speed limits and the legal alcohol level for driving. We
know that smoking is extremely detrimental for our health. None of
RESEARCH 117
that has any significant effect on our behaviour. So if you wish for
your product to change your target audiences behaviour, you need
to use other means besides pure information.
The problem is that we tend to protect ourselves from new knowl-
edge. If we did not protect ourselves we would find it difficult to
sustain a coherent personality.
You must be prepared to meet resistance or indifference to your
product. It must include a suitable mix of tradition and innovation
if it is to be accepted.
Sender
When you as communication planner are defining the sender role,
you must first analyse how the receiver perceives the sender. It is
important to know:

How the senders knowledge and credibility is perceived
How the senders motivation for the communication is perceived
What image the receiver should form of the
sender and if that is plausible
When that has been established you can start planning how to
present the actual sender.
On most commercial websites the company or organization be-
hind the website is perceived as the sender. In such scenarios it is
important that the communication is perceived as coming directly
from the particular companys management or employees. In many
entertainment applications it is of little consequence who produced
or distributed the production what is important is that the target
audience can identify with the characters in the digital media ap-
plication itself.
There is rarely only one sender for a digital media application.
Usually the sender role involves a complicated hierarchy of people
from board of directors, management, the marketing department,
advertising agencies and all the way down to the individual project
manager. All instances cover different aspects of the sender role.
One way of defining the sender is by splitting the role up into a
sender and a communicator. The sender is the client who supplies
the resources for the project. The communicator is the developing
company. You can also use the term pseudo-communicator. That is,
for example, the actor representing the client on the video sequence
or an Internet chat character (a so-called avatar).
Many learn and play productions have a certain character to
guide the user through the application. The target audience, often
children under 7 years of age, will perceive this character to be
the sender (even though formally the character is not sender nor
communicator).
It is possible for one person to be sender and communicator si-
multaneously in one production, but it is not possible to be neither
sender nor communicator and still be the pseudo-communicator.
The sender can influence how the message will be perceived, so
there are many potential problems with allowing a pseudo-commu-
nicator to represent the sender. If the pseudo-communicator, in the
eyes of the target audience, represents a different point of view or
a different set of values than that, which is communicated, it may
have negative implications for the communication.
Let us return to the pet food website example from before. Most
of the website deals with pet welfare and care. The company have
chosen a well-reputed veterinarian to represent expert knowledge
in an article. Suddenly the veterinarian is involved in a case where
the media accuse him of having put down an Alsatian in an unethi-
cal manner. The consequences for the sender (which in reality was
the pet food company) are that they must replace all the articles and
find a new pet expert to author their web articles.
Target audience
To define your target audience is one of the most important activi-
ties in digital media project development. From the pre-analysis you
have a general definition based on gender, age, etc. You need to
specify your target audience in more detail for the communica-
tion plan. You need to get inside their minds and understand their
values, attitudes and consumption habits.
The basic data about gender, age, residence and educational level
is not sufficient to get a clear view of the target audience. You have
to supplement this with e.g. their habits, attitudes, values, political
convictions, self-images, language and media use etc depending on
relevance.
When you have defined the target audience you must learn how
they think and feel in relation to your message.
RESEARCH 119
You may reach this understanding by means of qualitative data
gathering methods such as crowdsourcing, communities, focus
groups and observations (see p. 107f).
One target group only is rare in digital media productions. It is
more common to have a primary and a secondary target audience
to distinguish between the target audience addressed directly and
those addressed indirectly by the digital media. A commercial web-
site could primarily address the companys customers, secondarily it
could address the companys employees. Finally the company might
want to send a statement to their competition, which will then be
the tertiary target audience. It is important to consider all levels of
target audiences during the communication planning process.
You can also distinguish between receiving audience and target
audience. TV-commercials are always received by a rather large
audience not all of whom belongs to the target audience. Most TV-
commercials have a narrowly defined target audience within their
receiving audience.
Sometimes the receiving audience is identical to the target audi-
ence, at other times the target audience is bigger than the receiv-
ing audience in which case you hope the receiving audience will
influence the rest of the target audience e.g. through trendsetters
or ambassadors. Relying on trendsetters or ambassadors can be
very effective since they grant credibility to your communication.

Figure 4.8 Target and receiving audiences.
Target audience
Target audience
inside receiving
audience
Receiving audience
identical to
target audience
Receiving audience
part ot a larger
target audience
Receiving audience
different from
target audience
Receiving audience

The users needs on the Internet:
In some parts of the industry it is believed that emphasizing
gender, age and behaviour is insufcient for dening a target
audience. They claim that all users in some sense can be
found in similar situations despite differences of age or social
groups. This part of the industry has taken an interest in the
situations, where the users gratify their needs. Instead of
starting with target group analysis and segmentation, they
begin with dening the situation and the need to be satised.
In relation to the Internet four different basic needs have
been emphasized:
Entertainment games, competitions etc.
Information Internet magazines, search engines and
encyclopaedias, wikies, blogs
Relations Internet communities, social media chats etc.
Transactions trade, commerce, discounts etc.
A need priority for the website Netdoktor.dk could be as
follows: This website addresses users with a primary need
for information about health-related issues (the information
situation). Secondary, users who want to chat with other
Internet users concerned about their health (the relation
situation). Tertiary, users who want to win health retreats
(the entertainment situation). (In our opinion the next step
would denitely be to identify the target audience further, for
example as described in the next paragraph User proles).
User profiles
It can be very helpful to have a mental user representative in the
back of your mind. It is almost like having a user with whom you
can discuss the project at all times. One way of establishing a mental
user in your mind is to make a user profile.
We are moving from target audience to users now, because we
assume that the target audience has been reached and thus turned
into actual users of our digital media application. Ideally there is no
difference between the users and the target audience. The concept
user refers to specific user representatives in the communication
situation.
A user profile is a fictive and representative image of the user.
User profiles are often brief studies of different, imagined target
audience representatives, rarely exceeding one page of writing.
RESEARCH 121
The profile is used to predict the users purpose and preferences and
thereby inspire the information design.
An example of a user prole:
Christina is a 29-year-old media designer student living
in Copenhagen. She has worked for several years as an
autodidact web designer in an advertising company. She lives
with her boyfriend and their two children aged 4 and 1 1/2.
Christina supplements their economy with freelance web
design jobs. It is important to Christina to be able to spend
money on a little extra luxury in their daily lives. When it
comes to the daily necessities, she goes for the best bargain
except for food. When receiving her students grant, she
buys luxury cold cuts from the Lgismose delicatessen store.
Her friends laugh about that, but her boyfriend is not happy
about it as he nds that they spend a lot on food. As a result,
he is rather bothered when he sees Lgismoses products, and
.that is becoming an issue in their household. Considering
that these products are not even organic, Christinas
boyfriend thinks it is even more foolish to buy them.

User scenario
On that Sunday morning, Christina is sitting in the kitchen
eating the most delicious toasted bread with bitter orange
marmalade from Dutches Originals while reading a magazine.
She notices an ad for a new web food store a concept
combining superior quality with special offers. Christina
studies the website and discovers that if she places an order
before noon on Sunday, she receives her products directly at
home between 4 and 6 PM the next day. If her order exceeds
70 EURO, delivery is free of charge. She registers immediately
and nds out that she can set up a standard shopping list on
the My shopping list page, which may be modied every
Sunday. She also learns that this web store is able to sell
goods at lower prices because they buy very large stocks,
and that they have special offers for some of her favourite
food brands such as Dutches Originals, Urtekram, Lgismose,
Slagter Hjer, Peter Beier Chokolade, Sancerre wines, organic
French chicken etc. Now she knows where to buy quality food
while she will buy basic products and similar at the discount.
Thomas she exclaims while joining her boyfriend and
children playing on the living-room oor
The user scenario should be based on a realistic user situation with
a user trying to use the product for a certain purpose. Working
with scenarios can often lead to new ideas and inspiration and will
often point to problems or barriers you have not considered. The
above scenario induced the designers to set out a model making it
possible for users to compare prices with those of other common
supermarkets.
Finally, it showed that the search function should be integrated
with the e-shop module so users were able to search and shop
interchangeably.
User profiles are also called personae, and scenarios are referred
to as active personae. www.borger.dk the common public digital
access to citizen services in Denmark has generated 12 personae
representing the Danish population. You can get useful inspiration
on how to work with this technique by studying these personae.
There is also an example below showing what topics borger.dk have
considered vital to understand users.
RESEARCH 123
Message
The message is the decisive mantra in developmental work during
the research and design phases. The message is the statement that
the digital media must prove to be right or truthful. The message
will rarely be explicitly stated. It is the conclusion the user arrives
at after having used the digital media product.
A good message contains one sentence
There can be only one message
A message should not be a question
A message may very well be normative
A good message is inspirational for those who hear it.
Examples of messages could be: If I am not careful when I am in
traffic, my parents will be upset, If I stick to my beliefs everything
will be all right, If I open my heart I will be a happier person, If
I win the lottery my wife will love me more.
Something about is not a proper message for a digital media
production. A digital media application includes so many parts that
it is vital they all support the same message.
If we imagine the photographer, the sound engineer and the
scriptwriter all have something to say about art in the public
sphere the perceived message will be something in the lines of
there is a lot to say about art in the public sphere. On the other
hand if the message is defined as art in trains prevents vandalism
there is a greater chance that the product will have an interesting
story to tell.
Initially you need to test the users relation to the message. Later
you must continuously test if there is any difference between the
intended and perceived messages.
Media
The emphasis in this book is on interactive, digital media. Today,
this includes a vast array of distribution media such as: Internet,
CD-Rom, interactive television, intranet, extranet, mobile platforms,
I-pads, play consoles etc.
In the pre-analysis phase you initially considered why you should
use interactive digital media. During the research phase you can
ask the same question again to further clarify how to best use the
medium in relation to your concept, message and target audience.
Why digital media?
Your answer should justify why the best medium for solving your
communicative problem calls for a comprehensive and resource-
heavy digital media production. The purpose is to identify the spe-
cial digital media characteristics you must use to fully realize the
interactive potential of digital media. The target audience should
not end up with the feeling that they would rather have seen your
production as a movie or read it as a book.
How will we adjust the digital media to the target audience?
You should take you time to consider your target audiences read-
ing skills, technical experience, vocabulary, language and technical
equipment.
What media elements will we use in our digital media?
In the pre-analysis you established what hard and software you can
expect your target audience to have access to. Now you need to
specify this further.
The answers of this question should point out the target audi-
ences preferences for certain media elements and which media ele-
ments can be technically realized. Would the target audience prefer
an instructive text or a video that shows rather than tells? You can
read more about the effects of using different media elements in the
section about presentation design on page 153f.
Internet or other kinds of digital media
The most important feature of Internet compared to print media
is interactivity. Interactivity enables the user to modify and select
exactly the relevant information. If the user wants to place an order
or investigate a topic in more detail, interactivity makes it possible
to search for specific information or send an e-mail to the author.
On the Internet there is the possibility and the demand for updated,
relevant information. The more updated and dynamic a website is,
the more interesting that particular site is perceived to be. Updating,
changing and adding information to a website is far cheaper than
printing a magazine or burning a DVD and then distributing the
finished update.
RESEARCH 125
Communication environment
How is the target audience influenced by the particular user situa-
tion and by similar messages? Our message and choice of medium
is central for our project. The users situation is different. We have a
favourable communication environment if the user is interested in
the field or topic we are addressing in our production.
To determine the communication environment you need to ask
following questions:
How is the target audience influenced by similar messages?
How does our target audience generally
perceive the distribution medium?
How does our target audience perceive our message or similar messages?
What is the user situation?
How can we adjust our production to fit with the user
situation, the surroundings, the time of use etc?
As sender we may be inclined to think that we are the only senders
influencing the target audience with our message. But normally a
media production will contribute to an infinitely large information
ocean, where many similar products float around for our target
audience to see. The communication environment is the dominant
discourse surrounding the message and the distribution medium,
but it also includes the user situation i.e. the situation of the user
interacting with the product.
The communication environment surrounding computer games
is sometimes considered to be violent action games for teenage boys
distributed in a closed and marginalized environment. When you
are producing computer games you need to understand what sort of
prejudice you are faced with and perhaps explore different channels
of distribution if you are targeting a different target audience.
Summary
We have now covered the elements for a good communication plan:
purpose, sender, target audience, message, distribution medium and
communication environment. Below we have summarized some of
the activities you can conduct to clarify the elements of the com-
munication plan:
Purpose
Speak to people from the client organization
with relation to the project
Gather all available information from earlier, similar projects
Investigate the projects background
Make a list of the target audiences needs and
expectations the product should meet
Sender
Define the sender role and the created image of the sender
Consider user identification and find a suitable sender role
Consider the clients image will it support the message?
Target audience
Make user profiles
Gather any relevant statistics
Study interesting blogs on the web where
your target audience is to be found
Interview four to five representative with the
purpose to understand the target audiences
expectations and requirements to the concept
Invite a focus group to discuss the concept
If you want to gather materials by yourself, you can
make a questionnaire and distribute it online
You could observe target audience representatives
performing a certain, relevant task.
Message
What do you want the target audience to conclude?
You could discuss the message with the project team. It is
not easy but it is important for ensuring product quality
You could use the six thinking hats to evaluate
different proposals for the message.
RESEARCH 127
Media
It is important to clarify technological possibilities and
limitations early you need concordance with your client
in regards to economy, time and client expectations
Come to terms with the target audiences
equipment and experience
Clarify the clients wishes do they comply with
the project purpose and the target audience?
Does the choice of distribution medium depend on
economy or project team competences?
Which media elements suit the target audiences preferences?
Which features of the media elements will
strengthen the communication?
Read relevant magazines
Search the Internet for similar products
how are they compared to yours?
Study any relevant blogs and communities to investigate
the target audiences opinion of similar products
You can also use crowdsourcing or mailing lists to uncover
the target audiences opinion of similar products or messages
Analyse competing products with the purpose of
identifying room for improvements; i.e. what is it
they lack to achieve customer satisfaction
What influences the user in the user situation
field observation and registration?
The example below has been reduced in size but still includes the
central definitions. In a complete communication plan the different
definitions will be supported by references, statistics, interviews
etc. It is important to remember that the communication plan is a
crucial step to ensuring product quality. It is a document that needs
constant evaluations and revisions according to any new knowledge
you may uncover. You know your plan is finished when you can
use it to start the design phase.

Extract from a communication plan
Purpose
We will develop an informational web page targeting
start-up companies or potential entrepreneurs. The client
is entrepreneurship.dk. The primary purpose is to inspire
potential entrepreneurs to start-up companies. The secondary
purpose is to relieve the entrepreneurship.dk of some phone
calls from the target audience.
Sender
entrepreneurship.dk will hold the dominant sender role. The
communicator will only be apparent from the web page. The
client is considered to be well reputed and credible in relation
to the content. The client has recently released a new design
prole strengthening the products visual style.
Target audience
The target audience is information-seeking women and men
who have recently started a company for the rst time or
who are considering to do so. Their age range from 25 to 40
years. All of them have contacted relevant authorities for
information about starting up. The receiver group is identical
to the target audience, since the web page is only accessed by
people with an actual need for information about the matter.
Message
It is manageable to start your company with relevant and
correct information.
Media
We have opted for the Internet because it is easy to update
and nd. The web page keywords are going to be: company
start-up, entrepreneurship, starting own company.It should
be considered how to implement media elements apart from
text. A narrator could, for example, guide the user through
establishing a business plan or a project plan. Or perhaps a
YouTube-movie would be more t for this purpose.
The web pagewill be used in a home environment and
supplemented by personal interviews at one of the institutes
ofces. At the ofces there will be pamphlets, and guideline
brochures. It is important that the web page includes more
information than these existing products.
The Design Phase

Evaluation activities
Problem analysis

Information design
Interaction design
Presentation design
The further work with managing and developing the project dur-
ing the design phase builds on your decisions during the research
phase.
The process activities during the design phase are primarily
evaluating the projects progress without disturbing the product
activities too much and analysing the problems you are bound to
encounter. This may lead to regulating your project plan.
The product-oriented activities are divided into three overall
activities consisting of information, interaction and presentation
design. The design phase decisions are documented in a variety of
documents e.g. storyboards and flowcharts that can be tested on the
target audience or by experts. These inputs will form the foundation
for the next step the completion phase.
Like the previous chapters, this chapter is divided into two sec-
tions: one about process activities, the other about product activi-
ties.
Process activities
As all planning activities have been concluded the remaining
process activities are mainly to conduct the planned evaluation
activities. The evaluation activities produce a substantial amount
of information. It is your responsibility to react in due time so this
information can be implemented in accordance with project time,
quality and costs.
5

DESIGN PROCESS
Involved: The project manager
Purpose: To control the design phase processes
Input/documentation: Project plan, research documentation
Activities: Conduct the planned evaluation activities,
problem analysis
Output/documentation: Updated project plan
It has now been a while since you completed the project plan. It
is time to evaluate if your project team actually have successfully
finished the milestones they should have according to the plan. You
must decide if you can continue developing according to the plan
both in terms of process and product or if you have to repeat
activities and adjust the project plan accordingly.
9

The greatest challenge for completion of evaluation activities is
that they should not interfere with other activities. The same cannot
be said about any adjustments of the project plan since that would
bring about changes for the entire project.
When you have completed the various evaluations scheduled in
your project plan, you are faced with extensive, diverse informa-
tion. This information should be addressed at the various process
and product evaluation meetings (scheduled in your project plan),
where the entire project team participate. The information can also
be presented to your client or perhaps user representatives.
One of the most important activities is to always keep an eye on
the project plan and keep it updated as the project progresses. An
incident leading to minor changes in the project plan does not have
to be discussed with the entire team.
But sometimes a change is so important that it needs to be brought
to the entire teams attention. We recommend that any change that
would definitely lead to either unexpected delays of any milestone
or changes to the order of activities should be discussed with the
9 At this stage in the process you can evaluate the work from the research phase.
This evaluation could lead to acceptance of all the previous work and an accept-
ance of starting the design phase. The evaluation could also mean that you have
to assess the design phase milestones. No matter which phase or milestones you
have reached, the evaluation process is the same.
THE DESIGN PHASE 131
entire team. The activities forming a digital media development
project are intimately interrelated and changing one date may se-
verely influence a long list of other activities.
Evaluation activities sometimes lead to a simple confirmation
that the work is progressing according to plan. At other times that
is not the case. We would characterize any situation with imminent
change of plans as problematic. When such a situation arises we
suggest that you spend some time analysing the situation.
Problem analysis
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
Involved: The project manager and the rest of the project team
Purpose: To manage project problems effectively
Input/documentation: Arisen problems
Activities: Retrospective and prospective identication
of problems
Output/documentation: Updated project plan
Problem analysis is a tool for managing the different problems that
can arise from developing digital media.
Generally speaking it can be said that there are three develop-
ment situations with different levels of uncertainty:
Routine situations: working methods and potential
problems are well known. Very little uncertainty here.
Problem solving scenarios: general agreement
about the problem, but uncertainty about which
solution to choose. Medium uncertainty.
Problem definition scenarios: you have not established
the nature or extent of the problem. The project team
is not in agreement about the problem and do not
know methods for bringing the project back to a
familiar situation. Very high level of uncertainty.
Normally you would plan for evaluation activities. The evaluations
are scheduled and fixed but the results are not fixed. Evaluation may
lead to a routine situation or it may lead to identifying problems.
From projects with high levels of uncertainty and innovation,
unpredicted problems may arise despite your risk analyses, test
activities, evaluation meetings and the ensuing problem analyses.
Nevertheless you need to be able to respond immediately and as-
sertively.
When problems of varying nature arise it is important to have
management techniques for dealing with the situation. You should
allocate time and resources in the project plan for problem analyses
around the time of evaluation activities.
The problem management techniques can be used in planned and
unexpected situations.
Techniques for problem management
We recommend two problem management techniques that are suit-
able for projects with uncertainty about the nature of the problem.
We have called the techniques retrospective and prospective prob-
lem management.
The retrospective problem management analyses the problem
and emphasizes learning from the experience. These experiences
can be used preventive in future similar situations. The prospective
problem management emphasizes a quick way out of the problem
here and now.
Retrospective problem management
The essential point for using this technique is that you formulate a
specific contradictory problem. See table 5.1 for an example. There
are four basic questions you should try to answer:
What is the problem?
What are the causes for the problem?
What are the consequences for the project?
Which alternatives were available at the time?
Write your answers on a poster, as shown in table 5.1. The poster
brings the project problem into clear view, along with its causes and
consequences.
In the last column you should attempt to answer which alternative
approaches you could have chosen to avoid the problem.
The problem Causes Consequenses Alternatives
Project team sense that the
user inter-face could have
been much better, but more
than half the test users stated
they were satisfied
Inadequately
chosen target
group repre-
sentatives
May ultimately
influence
products success
We should
have spent
more time
pre-analysis/
research

Table 5.1 Example of retrospective problem management
Prospective problem management

Prospective problem management is a process where you evaluate
the project teams wishes and actions. This evaluation does not stop
until you are certain that a more beneficial situation can emerge
from the problem at hand. The purpose of prospective problem
management is to work around any problems relatively quickly.
This technique also use four questions for the project team:
What do we want?
What can we do?
What would the consequences be?
What will the benefits be?
Write the answers on a poster as shown in table 5.2. Show the poster
to everybody on the project team. The table below is an example of
this technique.
Wish Options Consequenses Benefits
We wish we had
a project life
cycle model that
would make it
easier to explain
the customer
when to expect
actual results
We can
switch from
prototyping
to an agile
method
The customer
contributes
to prioritizing
milestones and
tasks, and that
makes it perfectly
clear to him or her
when to expect
what results
Reviewing project life
cycle models requires
100 % client willingness.
Would this change come
across as even more
unsafe, or is increased
openness likely to im-
prove security?

Table 5.2 Example of prospective problem management

Summary
As a developer it is important that you allocate sufficient time and
resources for routine checks and problem analyses. When projects go
wrong it is often because the team failed to notice the first symptoms
or because they failed to consider the best way out of the problem. Your
evaluations should, as much as possible, not delay the development
process but it is obviously a matter of finding the right balance.
It is our experience, that if you make some room for problem
analysis in your project plan around the time of your evaluation
activities which often produce unpredictable results the project
will normally follow the course you have outlined.
Product activities
During the design phase the product activities are carried out based
on your concept description, communication plan and any other
data that gives your project content, structure and form.
The information design must result in information
briefings and an information structure.
The structure of the project depends largely on the information
structure, but emphasizes navigation and user interaction.
This activity we call interaction design. It results in a
flowchart a navigation structure for the entire product.
The user interface design we call presentation
design. This process results in a storyboard.
All design activities are summarized in a function specification.
After completing the research and design phases you will end up
with a design document. The design document should include all
relevant information that the project team will need to complete the
digital media production.
The three activities: information design, interaction design and
presentation design are described sequentially. Depending on how
you have organized or emphasized the activities in your develop-
ment method, the activities can overlap, be iterated or left out. We
have made the order of the activities based on a generic, logical,
sequential development process. You should adjust the activities to
your specific needs.
DESIGN PRODUCT
Involved: Project manager, project team, possibly client
or users
Purpose: To design content, structure and form
Input/documentation: Concept description and
communication plan
Activities: Information design, interaction design and
presentation design
Output/documentation: Content briengs, content structure,
owchart, storyboard and function specication

Information design
INFORMATION DESIGN
Involved: Project manager, designers, experts, client and users
Purpose: To select relevant information and design
the information structure. Information briengs
Input/documentation: Concept description and
communication plan, target audience analyses, statistics etc
Activities: Information design
Output/documentation: Information briengs, information
structure
Responsible: The project manager, copywriter, editor and
possibly the client
Information is a generic word. All digital media products will include
some form of information, but there will be varying emphasis on
the importance of information and its location in relation to other
content. In this chapter we will focus on selecting and structuring
information, so it can be communicated successfully to the users,
resulting in some form of knowledge.
Products with heavy emphasis on storytelling, immersive experi-
ences, action or art will treat information second to e.g. atmos-
phere, speed, visual and auditive design. For that reason we will
not go into details with information design in entertainment and
art productions. We understand information as informative content
independent of form. Presentation design is about form, informa-
tion design is about content.
The information design activities include producing briefings and
selecting and structuring information. The result from the activities
is an outline of the different headlines and their relationship. With
that outline in mind you can move your focus to seeing the project
from the users point of view. How will he/she experience, interact
with and access information.
Information design is typically developed by a so-called informa-
tion architect, but it may also be conducted by a web-editor, copy-
writer or an interaction designer, depending on the size of the project
and the development companys traditions and qualifications.
Qualifications of the information designer
The information designer must be capable of designing knowledge
databases that can accommodate varying levels of skills and many
different user profiles. As information designer you need a compre-
hensive grasp of interaction and how interaction can and will influ-
ence information.
The information design quality depends on: selection, scope,
depth, relevance for the user, speed of delivery and order of
presentation. To master information design processes you must be able to:
Decide what material is relevant
Author briefings on different levels
Organize content into detailed information structures
Understand users and the impact of user interaction
Communicate with other team workers and instruct them
Maintain a holistic overview while knowing the details.
Information design phases
There are various tasks during the information design process.
Depending on your project life cycle model these can be followed
by internal or external milestone evaluations. We have chosen to
divide information design into three tasks:
Selection
Briefing
Structuring
The first task in information design is to select the general parts or
topics and determine the relative extent and weight these should
have in the product. These general topics must comply with the
purpose and focus of the product. Decisions during this phase can
later be adjusted or revised.
The second task is to describe each main topic and its sub-topics.
Depending on your clients level of knowledge of digital media you
could finish this task with an external acceptance. The problem of
external acceptance is that the more the client sees of the product,
the more they will want to change. That is a common tendency
changing for the sake of changing.
A second problem during the second task could be that the client
contributes with information irrelevant for the medium, the target
audience or the message. It can be important to explain the client
what project life cycle model you are following, and how that influ-
ences your demand for relevant information.
The last task of information design is to organize the main topics
and sub-topics. The resulting structure does not have to be identical
to the final structure used in the production the structure the users
will meet. The structure should describe the relations between the
different topics.
Selecting information
Selecting information is different from gathering data. The informa-
tion you select will be the content of the digital media product. The
data you gathered during the previous phase where data you needed
to understand or to clarify the products concept, target audience,
purpose etc. In this phase you select information to get a better un-
derstanding of the content that will be communicated to the target
audience.
To establish what information to select and how to balance this
information you can do the following:
Speak to your client retrieve all their information about the
subject. Speak to employees who have worked directly with the
subject. Come to an understanding of how much information
the client expects. Understand the potential life cycle of the
information how often would it need to be updated
If you are making promotional digital media, have
the product you are promoting demonstrated
Interview experts
Read everything you can find about the subject
Go to the library
Search the Internet
Analyse productions with similar content
Interview target audience representatives to establish
their demands for knowledge of the subject and how
they would prefer to obtain that knowledge. Ask
also how much time they would want to spend with
a digital media application about the subject
Set up a concept test where you observe users searching
for similar information. What is important to the target
audience, what is insubstantial. Look for patterns in the
way the target audience prefer to access the information.
Users demands for the information
Information will have varying emphasis depending on which type
of digital media you are producing. In the information genre, where
emphasis obviously is on information, the information briefing,
selection and structure will be crucial for success, because the
information is the product. The users will demand high quality
information. They will expect relevant, updated, easily accessible,
easily read, easily remembered, credible, printable, saveable and
retrievable information.
When people are searching for information they generally have
purpose-oriented expectations and ask questions such as:
How can I know if this product has the
information I am searching for?
How can I find exactly the information I am searching for?
What if I do not really know what I am searching for?
Will the information fit my purposes?
Can I trust this information?
Can I save this information for later use?
These questions are general and will be relevant for most information
products. If the product deals with a specific subject or a particular
target audience, the questions will be more specific. Imagine the
questions for a website from the Ministry of Health targeting new
parents with information about toys and safety/health:
Is this information updated and correct?
Does it represent a particular point of view?
Is the information for dealers or customers?
Can I search for a particular article or threat?
Can I limit my search to my specific situation (according
to childs age, type of toy, materials etc)?
Are there word explanations?
Can I contact experts who can elaborate
or explain this information?
The questions are still general for the topic. It can easily be replaced
by another topic. Next step would be to do some further research
to investigate, for example which toy categories are relevant, which
possible dangers can be related to childrens play, which diseases/
allergies are related to various materials used in toys etc.
Within the entertainment industry the user will have other ques-
tions for the information e.g.:
How do I get started?
What will happen?
Is there a help function included in the application?
Is it difficult?
How do I know I have completed the challenges?
Within the education industry some of these demands will remain
the same. Depending on the target audience, the focus will be learn-
ing, not entertainment. This change of focus causes new demands.
They do not apply to younger target audiences that tend to focus
on entertainment rather than learning. (Notice that genuine isolated
genres are hypothetical. Actual digital media applications are rather
hybrids of several genres e.g. edutainment or infotainment).
Where do I start?
Do I need special knowledge or tools?
How can I know whether the information is correct?
How can I get the information I require?
How can I personally try it out?
What if I want to learn more (or less)?
What if I have further questions?
Within the presentation genre of digital media the user will ask
questions like:
10

Who or what can I get information about?
What are the advantages for me?
When can I use these advantages?
How can I get in contact?
Now you can decide which information to include in the digital me-
dia application. You understand the users requirements, the clients
request and any competing products. You do not have to decide
which media elements to use for communicating the information at
this stage. But now you are ready to describe the main topics and
the sub-topics of your production in information briefings.
Information briefings
A briefing is a general description of main points. During this activ-
ity you must outline the overall topics included in the digital media
applications information. The briefing can either be produced by
the client or by the developing team. If the later is producing the
information brief, the activity will be like a brainstorm based on the
communication plan and the concept description.
A briefing from the client can result in many different levels of
detail. Typically the client will focus on the intended effect rather
than the actual information. It is important that you and your client
agree about which headlines can cover the main categories that
can lead to the intended effect.
10 The questions are inspired by Jennifer Fleming: Web Navigation designing
the user experience OReilly 1998.
An example of an information brieng
Intended effect: To appear as a professional business and
increase our sale of English computer-related literature.
Main categories:
Company profle
Products
Search
Price and security policies
Sub-categories:
Companys management philosophy, history
and economy
Employees skills
Information about books: reviews, prices,
delivery, author profles
Shopping module
Search engine
Organize information
Now you must organize the information according to the briefings.
One approach to this could be to write all categories and headings
on Post-It notes and organize these into information blocks. The
notes can be moved around and combined until you come up with
a category that unites all notes in the block. This approach is like
a brainstorm in that new ideas may emerge and they can easily be
incorporated into the existing structure. You can stick the notes on
carton or posters so you can move the information structure and
present it to others.
Places and phenomena
You can also organize the information according to places where
the different information belongs. Many developers think of digital
media applications in terms of a long list of screen shots. Later in the
design phase, the making of flowchart and storyboard will enhance
this line of thinking. We think it is vital to consider user experi-
ences and situations, if you want to unleash the full potential of
digital media. We experience communication in units and interpret
what we see through our experiences. To facilitate an interesting
user experience, digital media should involve the users previous
experiences.
You can do this by organizing the information according to re-
lated phenomena such as people, things or places. It becomes easier
to think dynamically when we organize information spatially. When
we see the production as a series of screen shots we run the risk of
static and one-dimensional thinking. Page or screen-shot metaphors
are unfit metaphors for developing dynamic and interactive digital
media.
An example of a spatial metaphor for a digital media product
could be a house with many different rooms each containing differ-
ent information and objects, people or actions. Just like the different
rooms in a real house. You can organize your information spatially
e.g. inside or outside, on the table, in the drawer, on the notice
board etc. Similarly you could organize the information according
to situations e.g. work and leisure time.
Every element can be illustrated with a spatial metaphor that may
inspire the user interface design and perhaps the words chosen for
buttons and links. Describing the locations can evolve into describ-
ing the information located there.
Figure 5.1 Places on the a website
In the illustration above we have outlined five locations in a com-
pany. Those locations will be represented on the company website.
Each location is attached to information blocks relating roughly
to the companys physical organization. The information can be
defined as independent phenomena each with different properties
and relations.
The Shop
Book information
Reviews
Author profiles
Prices
Delivery
Ordering
Reception
Welcome
Security policy
E-mail
Phone
- Fax numbers
Address
Guided tour
Sitemap
Archive
Management
philosophy
History
Annual accounts
Old reviews
Conference Room
Conferences
Calendar
Chat
The Office
Employees
Phenomenon: Employee Phenomenon: Book information
Properties: Name
Title
Employment
E-mail address
Direct phone number
Appearance
Properties: Author
Title
Synopsis
Price
Availability
Reviews
Year of print
A possible relation between the two above phenomena could be that
the employee is also author of a book. In such a case one would
consider to activate this relation in the system as a link from book
information to the employee.
All sides are front pages
If you are developing a website or another net-based application,
you should be aware that many new users will reach the site from
the back door or side door. They will use keywords to search
for items and end up at a more or less random sub-page where
the entered keyword is described more clearly. When users may be
expected to pop in through the back door, your information design
must fulfil a whole array of further requirements. Users should feel
as welcome in any place as they would at the companys recep-
tion desk. In order words, all (searchable) pages of a website should
function as main pages.
You may test if your sub-pages include all information needed to
make them work as entry pages this way:
Choose a page randomly (if there are no finished pages, make a
draft), and print it.
Hold the piece of paper, your arm stretched out, and try to find the
following items as quickly as possible. Put a circle around them.
What kind of website is it- what is it about?
What page am I on what is the name of this concrete page?
What main areas are to be found on this
site - are there clear sections?
What options do I have here how do I get around?
Where am I on the website is there a You are here..?
Where can I search? (only applies for major sites)
When you have checked that it is possible to spot all this informa-
tion within a reasonable lapse of time, you can be quite sure that
your sides contain the information required for them to work as
entry pages.
Organizing information in educational products
The development of educational digital media is a large and relatively
well-documented field. We will not cover this field here; instead we
will refer to existing literature.
11
We will simply mention different
ways of organizing information for educational digital media:
Formal hierarchy the subject is split into smaller parts
that are presented according to level of difficulty
Network the subject is presented in small
independent units with no set order
Competence the subject is split into chunks
according to different competences
Competence spiral competences are merged in steps that
are divided into levels, one level one competence
Case story the subject is presented with an illustrative case
Tool the subject is generated by the
users active use of the tool.
Organizing information in presentation products
The order of questions mentioned in the section about Users de-
mands for the information, page 138, is not coincidental. The most
important information in presentation products is who or what is
presented.
If you are distributing the product on CD-Rom, this information
should be evident from the cover. If it is a website, information
about who or what should be the first information the user sees.
Secondly the user needs to know what advantages she can gain
from the information and how to use it. When this information is
conveyed to the user and she is convinced that the advantages are
relevant for her, the website should present clearly visible ways of
getting in contact with the sender. This could be achieved by listing
phone number, fax number and e-mail address for the company
11 Tom Boyle: Designing for Multimedia Learning, Prentice Hall 1997, pp. 102-
107.
and for any people mentioned specifically in the information. In
cases where some users already know the sender or the product,
the contact information should be available at the same level as the
who and what information.
These guidelines are very general and can be directly transferred
to all presentation products. I many instances a particular image or
product will demand different guidelines for organizing informa-
tion. These should be evident from the communication plan e.g. in
the sections about purpose, target audience or message.
We have chosen to describe how to organize information in en-
tertainment digital media products in the next section dealing with
interaction design, because entertainment digital media emphasize
user experience and storytelling over communication of informa-
tion.
Interaction design
The interaction design describes how the user interacts with the dig-
ital media application. During this activity you design the human-
computer interaction. The resulting documentation will consist of a
flowchart that describes the users possible paths through the digital
media and a description of the interaction form, i.e. how the user
will exchange inputs and outputs with the digital media system.
INTERACTION DESIGN

Involved: Project manager, designers
Purpose: To design the products navigation structure
and interaction form
Input/documentation: Concept description, communication
plan, target audience analyses, information briengs and
information structure
Activities: Interaction design
Output/documentation: Flowchart, navigation structure
and interaction structure
Responsible: The project manager/the interaction designer

What is interaction?
Interaction is sometimes defined as everything you can do with a
computer.
But to understand the basic concept of interaction we need to
look at something we all are very familiar with: dialogue between
people.
For a computer program to be considered interactive it must be
able to listen, think and talk just like both sides of any success-
ful dialogue between people. It is of little use if the computer is a
brilliant thinker, but cannot listen or if it is a fantastic listener that
cannot speak. A digital media application is good at listening when
it is open and receptive to all questions you may have as a user. A
digital media application is good at thinking when it can process
your questions and come up with relevant answers. It is a good
speaker if it can communicate its feedback intelligibly.
We all know the frustration of speaking to someone who does not
listen, or perhaps someone who listens but only have irrelevant or
unintelligible answers. We can often experience the same kind of
frustration in interaction with digital media.
The concept of interaction can also be defined in the mechanic
terms of input, processing and feedback as illustrated in figure 5.2.

Figure 5.2 Computer interaction.
When we call a digital media product interactive it is because it of-
fers possibilities for input, processing and feedback: Input could be
a mouse-click, a topic chosen from a menu or a question. Process-
ing is the applications analysis of the input resulting in feedback,
for example an object on the screen moves or a new screen shot is
displayed etc.
A digital media application can be more or less interactive. The
level of interaction can be described with three different param-
Input Feedback
Processing
eters: Frequency, level and meaning. The table below indicates the
different levels of interaction offered by different kinds of digital
media products.
The first row of the table shows what kind of digital media prod-
uct is described. The second row describes what the user can control
during interaction. The simplest control is simple control of speed;
is it playing or is it not playing. The most complex level of control
is direct manipulation of objects, viewing angles and the story itself.
The third row is examples of user-controlled actions equivalent to
that level of interaction.
Slide Show Interactive book Simulation Virtual Reality
Pace Sequence Media Variable Transactions Objects Direct
manipulation
From
page to
page
From
branch to
branch
Start/stop,
scroll, zoom
Database
search
Payment, e-mail,
password
Drag,
pull
Viewing angles
Story/action

We have chosen to define digital media interaction from the param-
eters of frequency, level, meaning and feeling.
Frequency how often can the user make a choice
The interaction frequency indicate how many times you can click
on any one screen shot, e.g. the number of buttons, hyperlinks or
hotspots.
Level how many different options does the user have
The level of interaction indicates what different types of interaction
the user can choose between. For example:
Click To click on something can result in many
different actions. You can open/close, turn on/
off, select, press down, animate etc.
Drag To drag an object to another object
enables the user to combine objects and thus
create new visual or auditive expressions.
Pick-up To pick-up enables the user to collect
objects and use them elsewhere in the application.
Catch the cursor can also be used to catch or move objects.
The cursor may seem a very limited tool for interaction. But inter-
action can be designed in many different ways resulting in more
or less meaningful actions, making the interaction more or less
meaningful. How the interaction is perceived depends on the users
experience from other applications and on how intuitively the user
interface has been designed. Of course it is important that interac-
tions have consequence and meaning.
The cursor itself can carry much information. When it moves over
a click-able object the cursor can change form or colour. Besides the
click function, the cursor also has a roll-over function that can
initiate action when the cursor moves over an object or an area on
the screen.
Meaning how much influence does the user have
In interactive digital media meaning can have several connota-
tions. It can be understood as our interpretation of what we see, but
also our options for controlling what we experience. We call the
two possible connotations of meaning in digital media interpreta-
tion and influence. Theatregoers actively interpret the meaning of a
play, but cannot influence the chronology of acts, scenes or which
actor should play the king. As playwright or director of a play you
have full control of what will happen in which order. Different
levels of interaction in digital media can give the user the role of
either inter-preter or director of action or both. The users position
interpretation or influence will influence how meaningful the
interaction is perceived to be.
Besides these parameters you can discuss the users feeling of
interaction freedom. You could imagine an interaction design with
relatively low interaction frequency and interaction level, but de-
signed in such a way that the feeling of immersion will come from
the visual, contextual user experience.
Let us imagine a living room with a sofa, carpets and lighted
candles. Under the coffee table lays a cat. The only possible interac-
tion is to pat the cat. After three gentle pats the cat gets up and rubs
itself against the coffee table. If we pat it again it will jump onto
the table accidentally tipping over the candles. The candles set fire
to the tablecloth that sets fire to the sofa and so forth. In four little
clicks we have started an ominous chain reaction. Here another
meaning aspect shows itself. How meaningful will we perceive this
interaction. Why should our good intentions for patting the cat
result in burning down the flat?
The feeling of interaction freedom is closely related to the possibil-
ity for physically influencing events in the story, so that the events
will be perceived as meaningful in that particular world. The feel-
ing of immersion can emerge from meaningful use of interaction
frequency, level and meaning, but also through the interaction
channel. There are a wide array of options ranging from the mouse
and arrow-keys to proper musical instruments (e.g. in Band Hero) or
weapons (e.g. light swords for Nintendo Wii).
Structures
When you have decided or at least have an idea about what level
of interaction is necessary to communicate your message you
should decide how to structure that interaction. The most basic form
of interaction is navigation.
Navigation is the tool available to the user for finding her way
around the information in the application. The navigation form will
reflect the information structure. Below we will briefly describe the
different navigation structures commonly found in digital media
applications. Later we will give you tools for designing such struc-
tures and lastly we will look at alternative structures that can be
used in storytelling digital media applications.
Linear structure
The linear structure consists of scenes organized chronologically.
This is used in the interactive childrens books Living Books or
games where one scene has to be read/won before you can progress
to the next scene. It is also used in educational digital media where
e.g. exercises can be organized after level of difficulty. The purpose
is to communicate a story or a subject in a logical sequence.
As interaction designer you control the order of events. Interaction
is limited to the individual scene. The result may be that interaction
is mere ornamentation or something that illustrates what happens
in the story. There is nothing wrong in that, but it is not a form of
interaction that involves the user as co-producer of the story or as
explorer of the topic.
Hierarchical structures
Most digital media applications are hierarchical: a structure that
begins with a main menu and branches out into an increasing
number of scenes or screen shots. Most digital media applications
have a persistent menu bar so all items on the menu are accessible
from any point in the production. Often this is supplemented with
hyperlinks that connect information from different menus.
When most websites are generated from databases there will be
fewer pages in each hierarchy. But the individual pages will link to
large databases of information. The hierarchical structures are good
for communicative applications, whereas immersive applications
such as games will benefit more from other structures.
The arena structure
A good game structure could be an arena structure. Its name derives
from the Roman gladiator fights. In the Roman arenas there was
always a fixed story; one of the fighters would live, the others
would die. But there were many different weapons and ways of
killing.
In the arena structure there are one or more constants and a
number of variables. A main villain has to be killed but where and
with what weapon may depend on the users choice. Scenes in an
arena structure represent alternatives to scenes that already exist in
the narrative.
The freeworld-structure
In the freeworld structure the author creates a kind of map of the
physical location where the story will take place. If the story unfolds
inside and around a house, the map must account for which scenes/
rooms are linked and which objects and actions are related to which
rooms. Each room has an independent story that is tied to a theme,
a goal, a mission or something similar. To explore these worlds is as
important as reaching the goal.
Narrative freeworld structures often include non-interactive
movie sequences that are played when the user meets certain cri-
teria. In this way the freeworld structure can be combined with
a narrative drive when the user collects objects and thus triggers
action. When you use the freeworld structure you should aim to
create a world adequately complex to trigger the users curiosity
and sufficiently logical so the user will not feel lost in an apparently
fixed and closed world.
Dynamic structures
In the information design activity, we experimented with structuring
information according to phenomena and places. These phenom-
enas relation to various situations can similarly create interaction
structures. Consider narrative phenomena like places, things and
creatures in a game. Their mutual relationship will create an unpre-
dictable structure in the game application. Planning the structure is
to decide what situations or settings with which objects will trigger
what action. Highly detailed games, such as World of Warcraft or
Sims, allow the user to interact realistically with the simulated spe-
cies and environments.
Figure 5.3. Structures complexity and linearity.
In the model above we have ordered the described structures in a
matrix showing their structural complexity and linearity. We have
included an extra structure in the model, the web structure. That is
the traditional hyperlink structure used on the Internet.
When you have chosen a structure for your media product, you
can describe it graphically in a so-called flowchart.

Hierachical
Arena Freeworld
Dynamic
Web
Linear
Linear Non-linear
Complex
Simple

Building flowcharts
Flowcharts are the primary documents for interaction design. The
flowchart gives overview and can have a variety of functions. It can
be used for client presentations and for the design document for the
developing team. The flowchart describes the organization of infor-
mation and the paths the user can take through the application.
It is a good idea to have a shared language for understanding
the different dimensions of flowcharts. You can use different shapes
and lines to indicate different types of information and navigation
in the digital media application. You can use software specifically
designed to produce flowcharts or you create your own symbols
as in the example below. It can be an advantage to use standard
symbols such as the Microsoft Word flowchart symbols

Screen shot or sequence of screen shots
Video or animation sequence
Directional arrows
If....then (indicating that some action is needed for
access)
Initiale action (e.g. play sound, set time)
Page reference (number referring to a hyper jump that
breaks the structure)
Notes (describe content not accounted for a flowchart
Database
The information blocks accessible to the user are based on the
information you have gathered and organized during the informa-
tion design phase. It is not imperative to have gathered the actual
information yet, but you must have a fairly comprehensive view of
the information blocks content from your information briefings.
The flowchart is an important tool for both internal and external
communication. It is often extended by using illustrations, icons
and tentative screenshots and displayed on posters.
Presentation design
We have organized this activity under the product activities of
the design phase because presentation design is about presenting
content and interaction the best way possible. Presentation design
is the concrete expression and an elaboration of the interaction
design: information and structure become communication and user
experience during this phase. Specifically it is about choosing media
elements and technology related to these elements and designing
the user interface. Presentation design is about the look and feel of
the digital media application.
PRESENTATION DESIGN
Involved: Project manager, designers, client and users
Purpose: To design the form of the application
Input/documentation: Concept description, communication
plan, target audience research, information briengs,
information structure, owchart, navigation/interaction form
Activities: Presentation design
Output/documentation: Storyboard, function specications
Responsible: Project manager/designer
As we have mentioned earlier the focus on respectively information,
function or form depends on what type and genre of application
you are developing. Usability is a concept more closely related
to information applications than to entertaining applications. We
have chosen to describe the presentation design activity with all
the central questions we believe are related to the process. User
interface design is not just about colours, fonts and buttons it
is about creating immersion and communicating information and
moods independent of genre.

How to choose media elements
Through which forms of expression and technology should content
be communicated? This section is not about the practical/technical
design of media elements. It is about the choice and composition of
the individual media elements from a communicative perspective.
In the next step we will choose exactly which format, compression
and resolution we will use to present the media elements.
An important parameter when choosing media/technology is the
target audience. The better you understand your target audience,
the better your design can be.
Following aspects of the user situation can influence choice of media:
Time and place
Experience and skill
Equipment
Economy
Time and place
Time is an expression of how much time the user will spend with
the application. Place is an expression of where the user will spend
time with the application.
Both these questions were investigated during the research phase
and written into the communication plan. Both questions can point
to the users patience for e.g. playing a video clip or searching for
items. It goes without saying that the more relevant the user con-
siders the message, the more time he or she is willing to spend.
Nevertheless, in case of time pressure, video and sound are rather
unsuitable as it takes time to play them.
If you are developing a console game for home use, the user can
be expected to be more patient and expect surprise and stimulation
which points to a more advanced and varied use of media ele-
ments. Both time and place have significant influence on the choice
of media elements regardless of genre and platform.
Experience and skill
Experience is an expression of how the user have received similar
information and skill is an expression of the users ability to acquire
new skills.
The users experience with similar topics or media influences the
demands he/she will have for the application. It also influences our
expectations of our users.
Equipment
Equipment is an expression of which equipment the user has access
to. The users equipment is critical for the choice of technology.
That choice also influences the choice of media elements. Monitor
size, resolution and colour depth influence the choice of graphic
formats, palettes and resolution. Speaker quality, sound card, video
card, browser type/version if relevant, modem speed and plugins.
If the users equipment does not fit the requirements for the de-
sired media elements is it plausible that the user will upgrade her
system what are the arguments for that upgrade?
Economy
Another very important parameter is economy. The more media ele-
ments integrated in the application, the higher production costs. For
this reason, it is important to explain the price and production time
for the different media elements and to make it clear to your client
why they are indispensable. Economy is also crucial to the end user
because production costs can influence either the retail price for the
end user or the clients approach to financing the production.
The media elements
We have chosen to characterize the following as media elements.
Each one could also be called a media in its own right. But when
they are integrated and digitalized they become parts of a greater
unit while retaining their unique forms of expression, strengths
and weaknesses. Below you will see that some of the media ele-
ments strengths and weaknesses are the same as when they are
used traditionally, while other strengths and weaknesses are related
exclusively to the digital, interactive platform. We will discuss fol-
lowing media elements:
Text
Images
Animation
Video
Sound

Text
Features:
The written word has authority and can
be used to emphasize seriousness.
Static text can be read repeatedly
Text requires that the user direct her
attention towards the screen.
We are more likely to scan texts than to read them closely.
It is strenuous for the eye to read from a monitor
because it projects light directly into the eye
instead of reflecting it as paper does.
It is boring to read long texts.

Rules of thumb:
Basically, you have to consider that your text is not going to be
read word by word. The reader shall scan the uppermost content
blocks and move a little downwards, but typically he or she
only reads the first couple of words. For this reason, you should
make sure to begin all titles, sentences and bullet listings with
words that the reader is likely to find relevant and interesting.
Individual pages must be short and concise so the reader
quickly can get an overview. It is a good idea to keep one
text chunk so small that it can be seen in its entirety in one
screen shot. Because the reader can select relevant information,
there is no limit to the amount of information you can make
available through text as long as individual chunks are clearly
divided and sorted according to topic. Longer and more detailed
background information can be referred to secondary pages.
Organize the text with two or three
levels of descriptive headings.
Emphasize keywords in bold. Never use italics
they are difficult to read from screens.
Write short, concise and lively. Avoid difficult words and
explain any technical terms used. Use metaphoric language and
active sentences not formal language and passive sentences.
Because of interactivity, readers may have accessed your text
over the Internet without reading any front pages or list of
contents. Therefore every text should be self-contained.
On the Internet, updates and relevance is both a demand
and a possibility. The more relevant and dynamic a website
is, the more interesting it is perceived by the reader.
Update your text and write when it was last updated.
As default you should choose a sans serif font
such as Arial or Verdana, both of which were
specifically designed for on-screen viewing.
It is a good idea to produce two versions of all long
documents; one optimized for on-screen reading i.e.
separated into shorter chunks and with clear headings
and hyperlinks, and one optimized for print. The
print file could be in Postscript or PDF format.
Pop-up text can be used to give immediate feedback on user
input, to give further explanations or to offer help and hints.
Images
Features:
A picture can say more than 1000 words.
Pictures are easier to memorize than text.
Illustrations can make a user interface inviting and interesting.
Photos show reality and are commonly used to support a
message. Photos are (still) perceived as credible. It is often
better to show a photo than to explain something in words.
Graphics can be used to emphasize and
underline text or illustrations.
Graphics can illustrate the essential message different
than a photo. Illustrations can simplify reality showing
only what is relevant in the particular context. You can
also illustrate objects invisible to the naked eye.
Icons have replaced text menus because of some obvious
advantages: they take less space on the interface, they are
more inviting, ideally they need no explanation and can be
understood intuitively and they are not language specific.
It is increasingly common to support icons with text e.g.
on mouse rollover. This compromise is used because it is no
easy task to design icons that can be understood intuitively
and many topics are not easily compressed into one sign. As
a supplement for icons you can use picons, small realistic
photos, and micons, animated icons. In both instances the
existing icons are elaborated to carry more information.
Rules of thumb:
Any screen shot should contain an illustration
of the message carried by that page.
Whether you choose to illustrate your message
with graphics, photos or both, you should
consider the function of the illustration.
Should it be descriptive show an object/person.
Should it arouse emotional responses from the users.
Should it instructional.
Should it describe a process.
Should it be used for its aesthetic or compositional value.
Should it give the user a quick overview.
Animations
Features:
Animations can add meaning to digital media applications.
An animation can bring a message to life.
Animations can entertain.
Interaction with moveable objects immerses the
user and can be used for virtual learning by
doing scenarios in educational applications.
Many and irrelevant animations can be tiring. Rules of thumb:
Informative information should be so simple that it is
understood, yet so complex that it communicates the intended
information (you could use colour to guide the users attention).
Before you use animations, consider what you are
hoping to achieve. Many users find animations
distracting and tiring, despite your good intentions.
Video
Features:
Generally, video is used to communicate messages quickly
and effectively through a wide sensory appeal.
Video is the medium that comes closest to reality. Therefore
we have a good understanding of communication with
video. When we are watching video there are low demands
on our perceptual ability to interpret or to construct
meaning. We understand the moving, realistic form of
expression without difficulty and conscious decoding.

Rules of thumb:
With interactive video filtering becomes more active
and conscious. Video sequences can be chosen actively
from preferences. 20 minutes of video can be cut
into chunks of 2-3 minutes according to topics. The
user can browse and choose among the topics.
Video is expensive and time consuming to
produce consider that before use!
Video tends to dominate the stage use it wisely!
Do not trap the user in a long video sequence. As a
minimum the user should be able to start, pause and stop
the sequence (perhaps also skip it). Another method is
to insert key frames in the video track enabling the user
to choose only the relevant scenes. Insert the key frames
according to the context you Do not move the camera
when you are filming unmoving objects. The computer
uses a lot of power to render background movement.
Avoid full-screen video if possible. The user will normally
be close to the screen. Dramatic video requires a quality and
format that will render all details, making it difficult to cut
the sequence into smaller chunks (note that this may obstruct
the interactive potential). Video for kiosk systems must at
least be half the screen size, because the user is comparatively
farther away from the screen and often several users view
the system simultaneously. It is a good idea to divide the
video sequence into chunks organized according to topic,
giving the user access to quick and interesting information.
Make an aesthetic frame for the video to be displayed in.
Quality demands for video depends on the user and the
user situation. File size and image quality are mutually
dependent. The bigger images, the bigger file size.

Sound
Features:
Speak can be very applicable when the users attention is
diverted to other elements e.g. animated illustrations.
Speak can create moods, emotional value and atmosphere.
It can give the communication a human touch.
Speak can underline, supplement and
elaborate texts and illustrations.
Sound can be a good way of giving feedback to user input.
Background sounds can add authenticity and
atmosphere to the production (e.g. on-location
interview with real-time background sounds).
Sound can have emotional appeal and can
influence the listeners reactions.
Rules of thumb:
Be careful of many and repetitive sound
effects they lose impact over time.
The user must be able to start, pause,
repeat and interrupt the sound.
Speak must be integrated with other sounds.
Sound allows the mind to wander. This can both be an
advantage and a disadvantage: You can supplement the
information with other materials or illustrations without risking
loosing the users attention to the sound or the user may lose
her attention completely. Therefore it can be a good idea to
supplement speak with keywords while the sound is playing.
The user should be able to adjust sound volume etc.
Consider any background noise in the user situation.
The user interface
The user interface or simply the interface is the look and feel of the
application, i.e. the aspect of the product that the user can sense.

Figure 5.4 The user-interface.
To design a user interface requires insight into both the supporting
systems functions and the users mental models and expectations for
the application. The user interface is the means to enable communi-
cation back and forth between the two entities user and computer.
For those reasons, user interface design is a complex discipline, the
full scope of which falls outside the focus of this book. We have
chosen to narrow the field down to pragmatic guidelines regarding
composition, navigation, style, colours and typography.
It is important to design the interface in harmony with the users
understanding of the digital media applications structure and inter-
action in relation to the content. During interaction the user forms
a mental model of how the application works. This mental model
must be consistent with the developers model, i.e. the structure
and interaction form of the digital media application. If the two
mental models are inconsistent a breakdown of interaction is likely
to happen.
To ensure that you design an interface that will generate the
right mental model in the user, you can design the interface so
that it actually offers the possibilities it appears to offer. For ex-
ample the user will expect that the steering wheel of a car can be
turned and that the car will respond to turning the steering wheel. If
the steering wheel in a digital media application acts inconsistently
with the users mental model of steering wheels, the user will be
confused and disoriented.
Composition
Composing the interface is about combining, creating and grouping
the chosen media elements. It also entails composing the overall
structure of the digital media application, i.e. how the user can
User System
User interface
navigate between the integrated media elements. We discussed this
in the previous section. Later during this section we will return to
a discussion of how navigation can be expressed in the interface.
For now we will describe composition narrowly in terms of the
individual screen shot.
Composition must, like the individual media elements, meet three
types of quality demands from the user:
Functional demands, which is an expression of the
users demand for relevance and overview
Aesthetic demands, which is an expression of the
users taste and expectations regarding style
Technical demands, which is an expression of the users
technical equipment, their skills and knowledge.
There is not one correct procedure leading to good composition. If
you are an experienced designer, or have an experienced designer
on the team, that person will most likely have a preferred approach
to interface design. The following guidelines are helpful tips for
interface composition.
Attention levels
Our information screen reading behaviour is governed by conven-
tional composition rules and reading habits. Eye-tracking studies
have revealed that people reading web pages that contain text as
well as pictures focus on the upper left corner to begin with, con-
tinuing reading according to a zig-zag pattern across or down the
page (figure a). Afterwards, they start looking at the right side of
the page. Web pages prevailingly containing text are scanned in an
F-pattern whereby special attention is paid to the top and the left
side (figure b). According to these studies, users are likely to look
more at the upper, left section of the page because that is where they
expect to find the most important information.
By now, users expect to find determined items in determined
places on the page. Today 20 years after the creation of the www
there are some clear page composition trends. Interface designers
and researchers have carried out studies on where users expect to
find standard components, and user expectations were found to be
absolutely univocal as far as the positioning of the various elements
was concerned.
Users have definite expectations as to the positioning of common
contents and interface elements. The figures below clearly shows
where users for example expect to find search options and navi-
gation links. If you decide to break away from these expectations,
you have to be aware of the potential impact on usability.
For further reading, we also refer to http://webstyleguide.com,
from where the illustrations on this and the next page were taken.
The first elements to get our attention are moving images and ani-
mations objects that move. Secondly we will see colour images
(especially faces are bound to attract our attention), then black and
white images, illustrations and vignettes. Then we will notice head-
ings if they are emphasized, then smaller entities of text such as
quotations, introductions, text fields and picture texts.
According to eye-tracking studies, readers pay special attention
to texts placed in the contents box above furthest to the right. Pic-
ture texts texts describing photos or other illustrations are always
interesting so it is a good idea to use picture texts in a conscious way.
Design a rough layout
A rough layout is a simplified version of the basic elements of the
design. A heading could for example be represented with a long,
narrow rectangle. The navigation buttons could be represented with
five small squares. Two large rectangles of differing colours could
represent the text field and an illustration. Perhaps you need to place
a logo on the screen that could be represented with a circle.
Figure 5.5 Rough layout.
These elements you can move around within the frame you have
defined as the screen size. You could make the elements as stickers,
so they will stay in the position while you show the layout to other
team workers.
The gestalt laws
The gestalt laws originate from perception psychology that deals
with how we perceive coherent units so-called gestalts in im-
ages. We have chosen to rely upon the gestalt laws as guidelines
for composing the elements. In their general form the laws can be
used as rules of thumb, not necessarily as ultimate truths. The three
gestalt laws are:
Figure 5.6 The gestalt laws.
The Danish usability expert Rolf Molich writes about the three ge-
stalt laws:
12

The law of proximity says that symbols placed near each other
are perceived as belonging together. Objects are considered to be
near each other when they are significantly farther away from other
objects. You can achieve distance and proximity by using lines and
spaces in your design.
The law of closure says that symbols placed within a frame are
perceived as belonging together. Tables, windows and text fields
are frames that indicate that the objects inside the frame belong
together. Objects very close to the frame will also be included be-
cause of the law of proximity. The law of closure is about enclosing
clusters of objects to separate them from other objects.
The law of similarity says that we have a tendency to organ-
ize figures on a surface according to their similarity. The law of
similarity deals with organization. Even though icons are placed
near each other in the top menu bar, their mutual similarity or dis-
similarity will show which icons belong in which groups.

This is a menu bar from Microsoft Word . Here we can see the law
of similarity supplemented with the law of closure. There are lines
separating font type and size from font style and from text align-
ment etc.
Besides the gestalt laws Rolf Molich also refers to the law of
alignment, which states that we should aim to have all elements
aligned with other elements on our interface.
12 Rolf Molich: Brugervenlige edb-systemer, pp. 76-81
The law of proximility
The law of closure
The law of similarity

Contrasts
Besides the gestalt laws you can also consider contrasts when you
are designing your rough layout. Contrasts add dynamics to the
interface and can guide the users attention in the desired direction.
There are four basic contrasts: contrasts in size, emphasis, shape
and colour.
13

Contrasts in size means that one or more elements on the inter-
face are significantly bigger than the other elements. The biggest
element will attract the most attention and indicate to the user that
the biggest element is the most important.
A similar effect can be achieved by a contrast of emphasis. Ele-
ments on a lighter background can be emphasized by making them
darker or by adding a more richly saturated colour to the element.
In this way you can emphasize headings, certain passages in the
text, graphic elements etc.
Contrasts in shapes refer to the contrast between e.g. a round
versus a square object or a tall, narrow element versus a short, wide
element. According to the law of similarity, similar-looking shapes
will be perceived as belonging together while being perceived as
separate from any contrasting shapes.
Colour contrasts can be used in the same way: to separate or
underline elements or to build tension between elements. Comple-
mentary colours
14
have maximum contrast. If they are juxtaposed
they will produce a flickering image enhanced even further by the
flickering of the monitor.
13 Kim Pedersen and Pernille Hansen: Design til skrmen Forlaget Grafisk Lit-
teratur 1997, p. 91
14 In our colour system colours are divided into three primary colours: red, yellow,
blue and three secondary colours: orange, green and purple. The complemen-
tary colours are red and green, yellow and purple, blue and orange. Computer
screens use RGB colours (red, green, blue). Increasing or decreasing the intensity
of small lamps showing these colours produce colours on the screen. When all
lamps are turned on the screen will display the colour white. When all lamps
are turned off the screen will be black. Therefore white is strenuous to the eye.
In theory, screens can display 16,8 million different colours. It is a theoretical
number because the screen is not big enough to show them all and the human
eye cannot distinguish between that many colours anyway. See also the section
about colours in the completion phase chapter, p. 188.
Choosing colours
Colours can be used for a number of different purposes in the
presentation design. They are some of the most influential com-
municative means available. There is a wealth of knowledge about
colours covering technical, perceptive and socio-cultural aspects.
All of these areas are subject to scientific research and fall outside
the scope of this book.
One of the crucial aspects to consider when displaying colours on
a screen is that it is very difficult to ensure that the chosen colours
are displayed on the end-users screen as intended. Colours are dis-
played differently on different monitors, platforms and by different
browsers etc. So your communication with the client regarding
colours is very important.
Some clients have a design manual specifying how certain col-
ours may be used in relation to the company logo and other official
graphics. Design manuals are often produced for print productions
and the colours are specified in PANTONE codes. PANTONE colours
cannot directly be transferred to the screen so it is important to come
to an agreement with your client about how to deal with colours.
One approach is to inform the client that you will use the nearest
colour from the palette you are using (e.g. one of the 216 web safe
colours). At the very least you should inform the client about the
limitations on choice of colours imposed by hardware and software.
A more abstract problem to consider when choosing colour are
cultural differences. Now you need to consult the documentation
you made in relation to target audience and message. If the target
audience belongs to a different culture than the developing team
(which is quite common for online productions) it is important to
investigate how that particular culture will perceive the colours
symbolic value and aesthetics.
Style and mood
How the interface is designed is determined by all the choices you
make through the design phase. Media elements, composition, col-
ours and typography accumulate into a style and a mood, preferably
in harmony with the target audience and message. It is easier said
than done.
It usually requires years of experience before you learn how to
make the optimal mix of content, design and technology while ac-
commodating the communicative goals. One method for building
up this knowledge besides experience is to test the decisions
made in each development phase. Testing can ensure quality while
generating knowledge to the project team (test methods and strate-
gies are discussed on page 73).
It is a good idea to consider which style to aim for, before you
get started on the actual production. When you choose a style you
should consider the target audience, the message, the type of ap-
plication, the genre, existing similar products and the client.
The age and gender of the target audience may greatly influence
the choice of style. Are you looking for a young, techno-inspired
style using the most recent trends in typography, colours and lan-
guage (e.g. slang words). Or are you looking for a mature, simplistic
style expressing purity, functionality and overview. Should the
style be academic or should it emulate a certain artistic genre for
example abstract lines and coloured fields as opposed to a colourful
tabloid style.
Based on your communication plan you can decide which mood
best presents your message. But the seemingly most suited mood
may not be ideal for your application. You should end up with a
style and a mood that clearly distinguishes your application from
any competing digital media applications or similar products. Per-
haps you can surprise and challenge your target audience by break-
ing the conventions within the genre. Sometimes it is important to
distinguish one particular digital media application from the clients
existing style perhaps the clients image does not correspond to
the message of the application.
Below we have shown examples from three different websites.
We have chosen different genres to emphasize that the guidelines
for the design phase should grow out of the communication plan
and the chosen genre. The target audience has, as described on
page 118, various expectations to information depending on the
genre of the application. Common genres are information, enter-
tainment or presentation (or a combination such as infotainment or
edutainment). The target audiences expectations are crucial for the
presentation design.
The examples are not chosen because they represent best-case
scenarios, but because they each illustrate some of the main points
we have emphasized for the presentation design phase.


Composition
The composition has a classic function/navigation field at the top,
the logo is placed above to the left, there is a horizontal main menu
and a search field placed to the extreme right together with the
log-in field. On a function-oriented portal like this one, users may
be expected to look for specific information: when, where and what
can I see in the cinema?
The layout is typical on a portal front page where many different
contents boxes compete to get users attention.
Navigation
Changing colours on buttons and texts highlight selected menu
points. Moreover, there are arrow-shaped buttons used to point at
dropdown menus and at the teaser box on the front page.
The Gestalt laws
According to the law of similarity, the arrow-shaped buttons indi-
cate that their functionality is the same, but they are both used to
highlight the three main navigation boxes Select movie, Select
day and Select cinema and to tease for the latest movie. The pur-
pose is clearly to ensure a uniform design, but that risks fostering
wrong expectations from the contents or moving users attention
away from important information because the contrast is reduced. It
may also very well be that the numerous boxes drown each other
because they are impossible to distinguish.
Media elements
It goes without saying that Kino.dk focuses on visual effects. The
images are supposed to sell the message. That is why texts are
usually very short and supported by film posters, photos of actors,
video clips and trailers
Colours and contrasts
Violet colour is used for the menu and titles while the menu, buttons
and titles that are directly connected with ticket sale or reservation
are orange. That creates a contrast between the background and
action.
Furthermore, green colour is used in the log-in and newsletter
fields even if they are not directly connected with each other.
Oline
Composition
This composition clearly communicates that it is a place where to
explore rather than to get information. All elements are interactive
and cause immediate reactions, thus encouraging users to go on
clicking. Main access points are not explained by means of text but
highlighted with recognizable cut-outs with a circle around them.
The Gestalt laws
On the downmost island there is a flower that seems to attach the
four buttons to the island, according to the laws of Gestalt and
proximity. As there does not appear to be a close content-related
connection, this detail is probably the result of an aesthetic design
decision rather than being a functional feature. Due to the explora-
tive interface, that may not be expected to be a problem, but it is
however interesting to notice that the Gestalt laws influence our
perception in that way.
Media elements
Speak, animation and video are the most pre-dominant elements.
Speak is used here instead of text because many users are not
able to read.

There is no doubt that a rich variety of colours is a suitable choice
for a website addressing children. The light blue background creates
an effective contrast to the buttons that are floating on the top.
There is also a contrast between the background graphics with its
clean colour surfaces and sharp lines and the small cut-outs on the
buttons with more details (a contrast between vector graphics and
pixel graphics). Users unmistakably perceive that they are not mere
ornamentation, but real buttons.
Novo Nordisk
Composition
The composition is perfectly classic as the logo is placed above to
the left, there is a vertical submenu to the left and a horizontal main
menu. The search field is positioned in a very visible place, which
actually makes good sense as the average user of this site may be
expected to have specific key words in mind.
Navigation
The selected menu point is highlighted with changing colours and
closure (in this case around the menu point Vksthormonbehand-
ling (Growth hormone treatment).
The Gestalt laws
The page is made up of fields, each of which encloses a determined
kind of contents; menu, picture, information text, navigation/func-
tion field (header and footer). The empty fields to the right are used
for supplementing text, links etc. on other pages. Just like Kino.dks
main menu, this one applies all three Gestalt laws to show that it
is a common navigation block. The text size and type are the same
(similarity), the various points are close to each other (proximity)
and they are enclosed by a special colour field (closure).
Media elements
Most of the text provides information, and it is usually short and
precise. That underscores the senders seriousness. In several places,
texts are supplemented with photos serving a merely aesthetic
purpose they do not tell anything about the product or the mes-
sage of the text, but are meant to create an atmosphere of cheerful
enjoyment of life and quality of living, far away from medicine and
illness
Basically, one colour only is used, i.e. light blue coloured texts at
selected menu points. That creates a contrast between the neutral
text and the colour photos expressing cheerful enjoyment of life.
The storyboard documentation of presentation design
We have attempted to present you with concrete guidelines for the
presentation design phase. In the following we will cover one way
of documenting this activity. We have chosen to call this part of the
presentation design documentation a storyboard.
The storyboard originated in the world of film. In its original
context it covers many sketches for the different scenes of a movie.
These sketches are often pinned on a wall, so the overall flow of the
movie can be seen and adjusted. This general overview is not as im-
portant when storyboarding digital, interactive media productions,
because such production rarely have one fixed course, but rather
independent scenes that can be experienced in arbitrary order.
The purpose of the storyboard is to sketch each individual scene
described in the flowchart. The sketches can for example show
where the buttons should be placed and where which photos should
be placed e.g. in relation to a text. The storyboard is a conglomerate
of rough layout, choice of colours, style and the information brief-
ings describing where to place which information.
Depending on the size of the production, the storyboard can be a
poster with sketches and comments for each scene. If the production
too big for one poster, it is a good idea to make a formal template
that covers all scenes. Later the storyboard can be elaborated to
include function specifications, which also describe how to navigate
between scenes and precisely which functionality is found on what
scenes. The function specification will be the final and concluding
document from the design phase, because it includes storyboard,
flowchart and the specifications for all functions.
Function specication documentation of information,
interaction and presentation design
The function specification indirectly contains both the storyboard
and the flowchart. It describes every scene in details about layout,
purpose, possible user input and system output, media elements,
buttons, links etc. The function specification can have different
levels of technical information.
It is important to include all system functions in the function
specification if it is one of the main documents for the comple-
tion phase. You can also use the document to describe how scenes,
navigation and interaction have been organized. Because all possible
interactions are described, you can conduct a user test based on the
design documentation (see more about tests on page 73).

Figure 5.9 Function specification as template.
Project title:
Scene name:
Purpose/desciption:
User interactions:
Media elements: Rough layout of scene
Figure 5.10 Example of function specification.
The main page of the websites shopping module
must appeal to users and inspire confidence. It
should introduce the available categories and
books. It needs an index, a description of forms of
payment and the user should be able to access the
overall menu bar for the site
Project title:
Scene name:
Purpose/description of scene:
User interaction:
Media elements:
IT books on the net
The main page of the shopping module
Search, overall navigation
Text Navigation Graphics Effects
Menu bar Introductory text about
the security policy,
forms of payment and
available categories of
books
Search fields: title,
year of print
Picture of main office Rollover
highlight
Search engine Database
Rough layout of scene

The Completion Phase
The production team
Managing the completion phase
SCRUM
Sign-off and evaluation

Sound, video and graphic production
Integration of media elements
Maintenance and updating
Digital media development will often call for a different form of
management in the completion phase. Tight control and detailed
planning can be a necessity. The product-oriented activities are
about implementing the design decisions. You need to ensure that
media elements such as sound, video, animations etc. are produced
in due time. This chapter is divided into two sections: One about the
process activities, the other about the product activities.
Process activities
COMPLETION PROCESS
Involved: The project manager
Purpose: To control the development and evaluate the project
Input/documentation: Design documentation
Activities: Recruiting production team workers, controlling
the process, nishing the project, evaluation
Output/documentation: Evaluation report
The transition from the design phase to the completion phase strikes
most as a radical change, as the work at times becomes rather hectic.
The cause is that many activities of are carried out simultaneously
6
THE COMPLETION PHASE 177
while still being closely interconnected a little change in the ac-
tivity plan at this stage can have catastrophic consequences for the
project deadline.
For these reasons the completion phase calls for tighter control.
Generally speaking, you can say that it is essential to allow ample
time for the process activities, as both evaluations and risk analyses
should be conducted regularly during this phase.
Besides the changes in the working environment, you must also
consider the activities related to finishing the project and the sign-
off, at which point you and the developing company relinquish
project responsibility.
The production team
Before the project enters the completion phase you must recruit and
sign on the developers that will help you with both in-house and
outsourced completion activities.
Deciding whether to hire developers or outsource certain aspects
of the production is difficult; both alternatives have strengths and
weaknesses. If you outsource, communication will typically be dif-
ficult which is unfortunate at this stage. On the other hand, if you
decide to keep the entire production in-house, you may be facing
new technologies or disciplines, which require new skills and new
equipment.
Production of specialized media elements such as sound,
video, large animations and advanced 3D modelling is normally
outsourced. To minimize possible communication difficulties it is
very important to describe these elements in minute details, so no
uncertainties concerning the production can arise.
Parallel and subsequent operational tasks such as graphic adjust-
ing and updating, text production and program extensions are often
kept in-house.
Obviously, the elements produced out-house should be compatible
with the formats, programming languages, development platforms
and any server set-up used to run and manage the digital medium.
No matter if you are dealing with an out-house or an in-house
production, you need to ensure that your documents are detailed
and specific about quality, deadlines and costs this includes
delivery format, copyright and immaterial rights pertaining to all
media elements. In the case of outsourced production, you should
decide beforehand how you could sanction the contractor in case
of delays.
In the case of in-house production, you should check that all
relevant software and hardware have been acquired and installed
and make sure to have a development staff with the needed compe-
tencies. Periodical operational tasks are often envisaged for a very
long period of time so you have to consider whether it is wiser and
cheaper to complete them in-house or out-house.
A lot of out-house productions take place in other countries
where it is cheaper to have various parts of the product developed/
programmed by people with the same competence as their rates are
far lower. In this case, you will face many of the usual challenges
connected with out-house production plus the challenges derived
from having different cultural backgrounds and speaking different
languages. A lot of projects go wrong because we take it for granted
that developers are familiar with expressions that are closely con-
nected with our own culture and that we therefore neglect to explain
to them.
That might for example happen in design descriptions contain-
ing the definitions red as a mail box and like the Novo Nordisk
brand. It does not go without saying that mailboxes are red in the
developers home country, and very few people outside Denmark
know Novo Nordisk. Furthermore, communications often take place
in a rather poor English making it difficult to comply with the
above-mentioned need for details. In this case, contract manage-
ment is crucial, and agreements related to outsourcing abroad must
be particularly detailed.
Completion phase management
Tight control during the completion phase will have more or less
impact on the working environment depending on which form of
control it replaces. Projects with detailed schedules, fixed goals and
a hierarchical organization will not benefit from a tighter control
during the completion phase.
We recommend tight control during the completion phase regard-
ing following up on plans, activities and tasks. This we do because
it is difficult to monitor progress for outsourced activities, but also
because delays in the project plan at this stage will impact the entire
project exponentially. A small mistake can cause months of delay or
lead to a compromise in regards to quality, time or costs.

Example of consequences from minor changes!
Today at 12 oclock we realized that the sound studio is out
of order. The computer with the sound programmes that you
had planned to use for recording and digitizing the sound
is unreliable. Computers with other sound programmes are
available. However, these do not suit our needs as well as
the original conguration which is expected to be ready
tomorrow at 4 pm. But the hired narrator is not available at
4 pm tomorrow as he is narrating a manuscript elsewhere
tomorrow. You are now faced with three options: (1) you
can hire another narrator, but you can only nd less reputed
actors at one days notice. You are risking to lose the target
audiences identication with the main character and the
product will lose crucial marketing value. (2) The other
option is to record the sound with the original actor today,
using the available software. This will mean lower sound
quality in the nal production. (3) The third option is to
postpone sound recording three weeks. That will give you
sufcient time to re-schedule an appointment with the
actor and the sound studio will have xed the problems.
This delay will inuence the video contractors deadline
because they are waiting for the sound les to get started
on the nal shots where the speak will be used.

The above example illustrates how fast things can go wrong, be-
cause you have little influence on your subcontractors. It is crucial
for your project plan that the subcontractors meet the deadlines
specified in their contracts.
Regardless of your chosen project life cycle model, the challenge
during this phase is communication and transparency.
Advice for the completion phase:
Make all plans, including the subcontractors,
available to all stakeholders
All significant deadlines should be clear to everybody involved
Emphasize the critical path in your project plan
Plan meetings with pre-determined agendas at regular intervals

Standing meetings
A standing meeting is an efcient method for holding
meetings during times of crises. Everybody can squeeze in
5 to 10 minutes for a meeting. The procedure for standing
meetings is:
Formulate a concise problem you could use either
retrospective or prospective problem analysis
Gather all relevant persons and stand in a circle
(hence the name)
Everybody present the problem from their point of view
The project manager summarizes
A decision is made
Managing processes by breaking the work down
into minor tasks - SCRUM
Within many companies, the implementation work is split into mi-
nor tasks that are completed by small-sized teams. That speeds up
the overall project and makes it more dynamic in that it is gradually
put together by adding the completed tasks. This approach offers
the advantage that it is possible to take changing user requirements
into account in progress. Such a system, made up of small items to
be developed within a short lapse of time on the basis of updated
user requirements, ensures validation as well as verification.
Many refer to this working procedure as SCRUM, a term derived
from the article written by Ikujori NonakaThe new product-devel-
opment game in Harvard Business Review, 1986. In this article,
Nonaka advocates for breaking away from product development
processes based on waterfall structures divided into stages. He de-
fines development processes as holistic, agile and iterative.
This agile and iterative process approach is bound to ensure a
constant development of optimal products both from the markets
and the organisations viewpoint. The markets (consumers) expec-
tations for the product change so quickly that it makes no sense to
divide activities into stages implying a noticeable interval between
requirement specification and the result. In that case, you may very
well end up realizing that the markets requirements have changed
in the meantime. The Scrum working process implies breaking
activities down into small, appropriate items that cross-functional
teams work on iteratively with strict deadlines and with access to
knowledge and resources.
Scrum is applied in many different business areas as it both aims
at achieving perfection and speed during working processes. Scrum
is above all widely used in object-oriented programming where it
makes good sense to divide the work into minor tasks (objects) to
be finished before the next task is started. That both shortens and
improves the implementation stage, thus ensuring validation and
verification during the process. See the figure showing the Scrum
process below.
From Schweber et al.: Agile Software Develoment with SCRUM
Scrum is an iterative process made up of so-called Sprints. A Sprint
is a period of time ranging from one to four weeks where the devel-
opment team commits to solving the tasks having top priority on
the product owners Sprint Backlog.
Scrum is based on a product vision, i.e. a Return On Investment
for the company, a date of issue and deadlines. On this foundation,
a list of product requirements/characteristics is written and entered
in the Product Backlog. The project team picks one item at a time
and works on it during a sprint lasting one to four weeks. Daily
meetings are held with the Scrum Master.
Throughout a sprint, the product owner cannot add any changes
to the products the development team has signed up for through the
Sprint Backlog. According to this theory, the company has a prod-
uct that can be introduced on the market or within the organisation
Sprint Backlog
Daily Scrum
Meeting
Product Backlog
As prioritized by Product Owner
Potentially Shippable
Product Increment
Backlog tasks
expanded
by team
24 hours
30 days
(Potentially Shippable Product Increment) as soon as the Sprint is
over.
That ensures continuous development of products that can be
marketed or contribute to the organisations development.
During a Sprint, there is a daily event called a Daily Scrum Meet-
ing where the team, the Scrum Master and the product owner come
together. The purpose of this event is that the development team
have the chance to tell about the work done the day before and
any problems/challenges encountered. The Scrum Masters task
is to facilitate meetings and make sure that the team have all the
needed resources, knowledge and competencies to complete the as-
signments as specified by the product owners in the Sprint Backlog.
Another purpose of these meetings is to ensure that the team, the
Scrum Master and the product owner continuously inform each
other about how the work is proceeding. We believe that it would
be an advantage for you to get insight into this working process and
apply its principles during the implementation stage.
You should use the same principles even if the production is imple-
mented by means of outsourcing or out-house. Video conference
and co-operation tools indeed make it possible to arrange meetings
online and delegate tasks.
Signing off and evaluating your project
When you plan your project you should allocate time for signing off
and finishing the project. Signing off a project means to deliver the
completed digital media application to your client. Include docu-
mentation that validates and verifies the application when signing
off. Finishing the project entails the final file management and also
includes a formal and a social event with the project team and
perhaps the client and target audience representatives.
It is important to evaluate the project for learning purposes and
for documenting project team learning. It is invaluable to document
what you have learned, so it can be used in future projects. We
recommend that you produce an evaluation report.
Your evaluation report can deal with specific incidents and a
thorough evaluation of the projects process. This includes eve-
rything from client relations, suitability of the chosen project life
cycle model, internal communication and working environment.
You should also evaluate the product. The conducted tests are the
documentation you need for this evaluation.
The evaluation report can be directed to the client, the project
team and you companys management. The report should include
a section for the client this would typically be product-oriented.
The section for the project team could deal with process and the
section for your companys management can evaluate both process
and product.
On page 73 we have briefly described how you test preliminary
results and final digital media applications. We recommend a very
pragmatic approach for evaluating the process.
For each topic you wish to evaluate you ask the following questions:
What was bad?
What was good?
What should we avoid next time?
What should we do next time?
Product activities
COMPLETION PRODUCT

Involved: Project manager, programmer,
15
experts
(photographer, scriptwriter, sound and video producers), you
could also involve subcontractors and users.
Purpose: To produce the application
Input/documentation: The design document
Activities: Production and integration
Output/documentation: Prototype(s), nished application
Responsible: The technical developer
The basic assumption for this chapter is that you are not directly
producing the elements for the digital media application or inte-
grating them, but that you are responsible for a major part of the
documentation and planning of the actual production. Therefore,
15 Programming here covers everything ranging from HTML programming through
database programming and various scripting languages (such as JavaScript,
DHTML and Lingo) to low-level programming languages (C++).
you need to understand the principles for the actual production
of media elements. You also need insight into development tools
(e.g. Flash, Adobe Director or web tools) and different programming
languages.
High quality and many different media elements influence the
design and completion phases and possibly also the production time.
Knowledge about the problems that may arise from these dilemmas
is necessary for successful developers.
In this chapter we will deal with each media element separately.
We will describe:
Formats, which express how information and nuances are stored
Resolution, which expresses how much information
and how many nuances are stored
Compression, which are technologies for reducing byte
size of media elements. We will describe compression
and its consequent loss of information and nuances.
Special considerations regarding running
the media element online
What you need to know about sound
Sound is a powerful medium for creating atmosphere. Sound can
add spaciousness and depth, and sounds excel in evoking certain
emotions and memories. In this paragraph, we shall refer to sound
in its widest sense more specifically audio, which covers speach,
music as well as sound effects.
Sound quality is measured in sample rate and bit-rate. Music CD
audio is 16 bit with a 44.1 kHz sample rate. The sample rate is the
interval in which the computer reads the sound. A high sample rate
such as 44.1 kHz means that the computer reads the sound 44.100
times per second.
CD audio has a very high quality and therefore it is quite heavy
in terms of kilobytes. 1 second of stereo CD audio requires 176
kilobytes, the equivalent of approximately 7 pages of text.
Digital sample rate and required disc space
Sample rate
measured in kHz
Disc space required for 1
second of digital sound
Sound quality
8-bit
11 kHz
22 kHz
44 kHz
11 k
22 k
44 k
Very poor
Slightly better
Acceptable, but better with 16-bit
16-bit
11 k
22 k
44 k
22 k
44 k
88 k
Adequate, medium setting
Very high quality
Best CD quality if recorded in
stereo

Source: Richard Grace: The Sound & Studio workshop, Sybex 1996, p. 6.
File formats and compression
Uncompressed audio for Windows PC will normally be in WAV file
format. For Macintosh it will be AIFF. Both formats are universal
and most platforms can read the uncompressed formats.
If the audio is to be played on the internet, compression is always
required due to download time. There are several audio compression
formats, and a specific compression program is needed. A player,
e.g. Windows Media Player, is necessary to play the sound.
When you compress your files, it is very important to remember
that you cannot uncompress your files to the original form and
resolution. So be sure that you have finished editing the files before
you compress them. If you lose information you cannot restore it. A
good advice is to save a high quality version of the file in uncom-
pressed form.
Below we will describe how sound can be treated for online pro-
ductions and what you should be aware of.
Online audio
To play audio on the internet, the audio file is downloaded from
a server to the users own computer, There are two download op-
tions: In the first case, the user waits until the whole audio file has
been downloaded and after download, the user can play the file
an infinite number of times, The alternative option is streaming
download allowing the sound to be played while the rest of the file
is downloading in the background. A streamed sound cannot be
repeated before it is streamed again.
Downloading takes time, how much time depends on
the files size measured in kilobytes. Many of the recent
compression formats require a special player or a plug-in,
which have to be downloaded from the Internet. Once the
sound has been downloaded it can be repeated indefinitely.
When audio is streamed, the original format is converted to a
streaming format that can be played by the user in a special
player. The original audio file is converted using sound-editing
software. Shortly after the streaming has been started, the audio
will play, thus reducing the waiting time considerably. Streaming
audio requires a server configured to process streaming.
General consideration about audio production
Ease of use how easy is it for the developer
to produce the audio file and how easy is it for
the user to download and play the file.
Quality and file size how much can the file be
compressed without significant loss of quality.
Functionality how many operative systems/
browsers support the format.
Read more about communicating with sound on page 160.
What you need to know about video.
Video is a powerful medium as it can combine audio, images and
movement. It can be used for interesting and entertaining visualiza-
tions of many different things.
In very few years, video portals like YouTube have grown enor-
mously, and video sharing and upload have turned into entertain-
ment and advertising media offering a completely new potential.
The video production process looks like this:
Record digital video > Editing > Compression > Play
In the editing phase you normally work with the highest quality
possible to get the best possible end result. Uncompressed video uses
approximately 20 megabytes (mb) per second. It can vary according
to what equipment you have been using and how you grabbed it.
For CD-Rom or Internet productions that is far too much. The DVD
medium was developed to have storage room for several hours of
digital video. When you are producing video, you need to consider
storage room, performance speed, performance flow and download
time, all depending on what distribution medium you are using.
Spatial frequency compression is a form of compression that
deletes superfluous data from low frequency areas such as a back-
ground area with many similar looking pixels. Spatial compression
deletes some of these nuances. This means that the file takes up
fewer kilobytes, which gives a better performance. So if you are
working with spatial compression, you can help yourself by filming
on backgrounds with few details and refrain from moving the cam-
era around unnecessarily. Such video sequences can be significantly
reduced in file sizes using spatial compression.
Another form of compression is called temporal compression. This
method deletes superfluous frames (delta frames) between key frames.
On the market you can find a number of standard compression
methods that will use both compression and decompression soft-
ware and hardware. These methods are called codecs. One of these
international standards for video compression is MPEG.
Many other codecs exist. The qualities of the different codecs
depend on so many factors that the developer will have to test the
different codecs to identify the best choice for the specific case.
Below is merely a set of general guidelines.
MPEG codecs
MPEG is used for compressing both audio and video. It comes in
three variants. MPEG for video requires special hardware and a fast
processor:
MPEG 1 is an older format primarily for
compressing audio and images for CD-Rom.
MPEG 2 produces higher quality and requires higher
bandwidth. It can be used for both digital TV and DVD.
MPEG 4 is targeted at delivering online interactive video.

Online video
The latest technological developments have made video a powerful
online medium.To reduce download time, video is typically com-
pressed to display 10-15 images per second (fps) with a 160 x120
pixel viewing area (see next paragraph to read more about pixels).
To avoid the long download times, streaming video technology was
developed. Instead of downloading the entire movie before playing
it, streaming video can be played simultaneously with download.
Like streaming audio, streamed video sequences can only be viewed
once. To be viewed again, it needs to be streamed again.
Compression for streaming is made with specialized
software (e.g. Media Cleaner or RealSystem).
Streaming video requires a compatible video
player on the users computer.
General considerations about video production
Ease of use how easy is it to produce the video and how
easy is it for the user to download and play the video.
Quality and file size how much can the file be
compressed without too severe loss of quality.
Functionality how many different operative
systems/browsers support the format.
See also page 158 to read more about communicating with video.
What you need to know about graphics
In this section we will discuss graphics in the widest possible sense,
covering pictures, images and various other graphic elements.
Graphics for digital media are usually displayed on computer
monitors. All computer monitors have a limited number of fields
that can display a colour. Such a field is called a pixel. The normal
resolution for computer monitors is 72 pixels or dots per inch
(dpi). The monitors resolution is always 72 dpi.
For developers it is important to understand how the computer
deals with colour. Two general colour systems exist one for colour
on screens, one for colour on print. These are called respectively the
additive and subtractive colour system.
To render digital colour pictures on print, the picture must be divided
into 4 primary colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK these
are the 4 CMYK colours. Coloured ink is sprayed on to the paper in
varying intensity through tiny jets, thus creating a wide range of
colours. The same approach is used on the computer monitor, but
light is used instead of ink.
Computer monitors display colours by displaying varying inten-
sities of red, green or blue light through each pixel. This is called
the RGB system. Full intensity of all colours produce a white light.
In other words: white is produced when all colours are added, there-
fore this system is also called the additive colour system. On paper
white is produced by the absence of any colour this is called the
subtractive colour system.
Most computer monitors can display 256 colours in each pixel
ranging from the darkest to the lightest colours. This adds up to a
total of 16 million different colours (256 red nuances x 256 green
nuances x 256 blue nuances = 16,777,216 colours). But even though
the RGB system is capable of producing millions of colours, it re-
quires substantial computer power to display them all. To display
256 different colours on the screen, the computer needs 8 bit. To
display all 16 million colours the computer needs 24 bit. Normal
screen bit depths are 8, 16 or 24 bit.
Graphic files can either be vector format or bitmap format. Vector
graphics are produced by lines and curves defined by mathematical
formulas called vectors. The vectors describe the graphic object in
relation to its geometrical features. If you scale a vector object you
change the entire object without reducing resolution.
That is not the case with bitmaps. Bitmaps are produced through
a specific composition of pixels. When you enlarge a bitmap it
will often pixelate (i.e. become jagged and blurred). That happens
because the details of the picture are now shown using more pixels
without adding new information. It is like looking at the picture
through a magnifying glass smooth details become coarser when
magnified.
Images can be saved in various formats with different attributes. The
most commonly used compression formats are GIFF, JPEG and TIFF.
When a graphic file is edited using image-editing software, you
will typically be working in different layers all containing different
information about the same file. The software will have a file format
that can save all the layers along with the file. In Adobe Photoshop
this format is called PSD. The layers can only be accessed individu-
ally from the image editor. When the file is compressed e.g. in GIF
format, all layers are merged to one making it difficult to edit the
file further.
24 bit or 32 bit graphic files are heavy and time consuming for
the computer to generate. For that reason it is a goal in both online
and offline productions to minimize file size. A common goal is
to compress all images to 8 bit graphics, which do not take up
much of the computers memory. To get an acceptable result with
so relatively few colours you can use a custom colour palette only
containing the colours used in the individual graphic file. 24 bit
images are reduced to 8 bit by associating an 8 bit colour palette
with the image file. The reduction is that each of the 16 million
colours in the file will be replaced by the closest approximate colour
represented in the 256-colour palette. A colour palette is a simple
table of colours assigned numbers running from 0 to 255 the
colours RGB number. Each pixel on the screen is assigned one of
those numbers and then the pixel knows which colour to display.
When you display images with different palettes on a computer
screen you may see flashing. Flashing occurs when one image with
a designated colour palette replaces another image with a different
colour palette. The computers colour palette has to be flushed to
produce the new palette and that is why flashing occurs.
To work around flashing you produce a super palette that covers the
colours you need for the entire production. Super palettes are only
helpful when you are using images with relatively similar colour
palettes. If that is not the case you might as well use the system
palette your operative system uses by default. It contains the most
regularly used colours.
Graphic file size 640 x 480 pixels
Bit depth File size in kb
8 bit
16 bit
24 bit
300
400
900

Compression is the key to lightweight graphics, but as was the case
with the other media elements, it means a loss of quality. The most
commonly used compression formats are GIF and JPEG. JPEG was
developed especially for photos and richly coloured illustrations.
However it is not good for compressing logos and line art (for ex-
ample like the table above). JPEGs are compressed with an image
editor and decompressed for example by the users web browser. So
JPEG is only compressed during transmission. Even though JPEG
can produce 24 bit images it is always lossy, meaning some data
will always be lost resulting in loss of quality.
GIF is a lossless compression format if the original file does not
exceed 256 colours. GIF is especially good for line art, areas of flat
colour and abrupt transitions.
General considerations for graphic production
Always save the original uncompressed files, so
you have all layers and image data saved.
If you are using many images for the same
production, save them in the same bit depth.
Integration of media elements
Product-oriented completion activities include producing the media
elements as we have covered above and the integration of these
elements. The tools for integrating the elements undergo constant
development and refinement. Here we will briefly mention how the
various principles differ.
Integration and implementation of digital media applications can
be made in so-called authoring tools, such as Flash or Adobe Direc-
tor. These tools have a complex graphic user interface and pre-made
behaviours or actions that can be attached to the imported media
elements at the click of your mouse. You can also integrate the me-
dia elements using so-called scripting languages, e.g. HTML, Java
and C++. Flash and Adobe Director come with their own scripting
languages that are respectively called ActionScript and Lingo.
The difference between authoring tools and programming lan-
guages is typically that authoring tools themselves were developed
using a programming language. Macromedia Director is an author-
ing tool because it was developed with a low level programming
language. When developing with C++ on the other hand, you write
your code directly into the programming language compiler.
Authoring tools and programming languages
Authoring tools and programming languages can be
categorized according to their complexity, ranging from
complex machine code at the bottom to almost natural
languages in the top.
High-level authoring tools:
Flash, Adobe Director, Dreamweaver, Java
Scripting language:
ActionScript
Lingo
HTML
JavaScript
Low level programming language:
C++
C
Lowest level of programming language:
Assembler
Machine code
Generally speaking, the digital media applications potential capac-
ity increases with lower level development tools. The computer
processes applications developed in low-level languages faster,
because the computer needs time to translate high-level language
to low-level instructions.
Most authoring tools for Internet applications, so-called editors,
have a graphical user interface allowing the user to manipulate
media elements directly (so-called WYSISYG editors What You
See Is What You Get).
A good authoring tool or editor must include a scripting lan-
guage, so developers can expand the tools functions. But choice of
authoring tool also depends on the developers previous experience
and the other software used in the production of the project. Some
developers prefer authoring tools with technical interfaces while
other developers prefer tools with graphic interfaces e.g. Microsoft
SharePoint or Adobe Dreamweaver.
Maintenance and updating
Maintenance covers many activities. It depends on the type, genre
and platform off- or online.
Continuous contact with users can result in continuous
maintenance, documentation and debugging.
Maintenance, if an error is suddenly
identified in the application.
Maintenance and updates managed by the client.
Today, most offline productions are connected with online updating
features. Depending on the digital mediums business model, main-
tenance and updating are often integrated in the product in that
users can buy program extensions, more boards and other related
contents.
Most websites have a dynamic character and using the application
often implies changing and updating information. The developing
company may be involved in updates. The updates can be said to be
maintenance of the application. To update can be to replace media
elements or posting new input in the database.
If the client is in charge of updating, the developer is responsible
for producing an application that the client is capable of updating
or to teach the client how to update the application. A maintenance
task at this level could be to develop software enabling the client/
user to upload new information to the digital media application and
to test that the update does not conflict with the existing digital
media application. If the client is going to manage updates and
adjustments with software developed for that purpose, it can be a
good idea that the client is not only taught how to use the software
for updating, but also actually involved in making the software.
(See also chapter 7 Case Implementation of a project management
model).
As described earlier the plans for maintenance are made when
choosing project life cycle model, so the necessary documentation
for the client will be ready, if the client chooses to manage updates
and maintenance.

Summary
Even if you are not going to produce all media elements, it is impor-
tant that you understand the problems within the respective fields
we have described in this chapter. Understanding is important for
meaningful dialogue with subcontractors and the internal develop-
ers. Understanding is a prerequisite for asking the right questions
for the right people.
We have described the basic principles included in the completion
phase above. For a greater understanding of the individual areas we
refer to literature dealing specifically with the individual media ele-
ments, software manuals, tutorials and user groups on the Internet
that cover the different software and media elements.
7
Case implementation of a
project management model
It is our conviction that a development method like HOME is
meaningful only when it is adjusted and applied to real projects.
It relies upon open and holistic principles. It should be understood
as a dynamic model, not only to be adjusted for each individual
company and project, but also to be adjusted as the developers learn
from their experiences with the model. In this light HOME becomes
a basic mould for the specific company or project team to fill out
and adjust. To underline this point, we have found it beneficial to
supplement the book with a case story of a concrete implementa-
tion of the method. The case describes the Danish e-learning com-
pany Vizion Factory and its process of adjusting and implementing
HOME as its basic product development method. The case story was
written for the second edition of this book in 2003, unfortunately
Vizion Factory no longer exists. The text has been translated but
not revised for this edition.
Vizion Factory e-learning A/S
Vizion Factory e-learning A/S was a Danish company producing
e-learning solutions since 1995. Vizion Factory had solid know-
how of e-learning solutions ranging from standard products like the
Danish PC-drivers license
16
to specialized applications developed
in close collaboration with clients. Vizion Factory was involved in
projects from the early beginning through to final implementation.
The project teams consisted of software developers, pedagogical
consultants, scriptwriters, digital media designers and a project
manager.
The decision to implement a project management model was
made by the top management in 2001. Employees in sales and
production departments had long asked for methods to reduce and
clarify the working processes in sales, production and implementa-
tion. The need for transparency, guidelines and procedures grew out
16 PC-Krekort
of Vizion factorys development moving from production of stadard
solutions towards specialized solutions each with new demands for
content, technology and project life cycle models. The complexity of
the developmental processes and the feeling of having to start from
scratch every time, led the employees to ask for standard procedures
and tool boxes and a way of accumulating experiences. HOME was
chosen as the basic model because it was tailored to digital media
development and the special needs involved in working with digital
media. The way HOME was adjusted to Vizion factorys needs was
an expression of the companys accumulated know-how.
The background for implementing HOME was:
A wish to save time and thus money
A need for greater transparency in sales,
production and implementation processes
A wish from the individual employee to see his/
her place in the greater scheme of things
To heighten quality and hence sales
Better opportunities for sharing knowledge
through documented experiences
Improved ability to match client expectations and ambitions
A need for a tool to support internal
and external communication.
In the following we will outline the adjustments Vizion factory
made to HOME. The internal name for the model was The project
management model.

CASE IMPLEMENTATION OF A PROJECT MANAGEMENT MODEL 197
Client meetings
Sales presentation
- demos/application types
- solutions
Sales
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Project presentation
Estimate
Standard terms
Project plan
Register client
Register order
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Present application type
Planning
Project start
Contract negotiations
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Analysis
Concept and system description
Test plan
Contract
Adjusted project plan
Analysis
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Team building
Status meetings
Quality control
Sign-offs
Flowchart, storyboard
Media elements
Golden master
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Documentation and
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Sign-off contract Sign-off contract
Production plan
Project log
Implementation
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installation, integration
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Evaluation
Implementation
Presentation of application
Effect test
Home
2000 Marie Oosterbaan og Louise Harder Fischer

Evaluation report
Follow-up
Sign-Off Possible exit
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Sales production
Activities: Contains processes/procedures
Documentation: Templates and descriptions of templates. Often
documentation pertains to both process and product. Phases overlap.
The dotted lines should be read as dotted lines. It is still important to
focus on processes because documentation of good processes leads
to good products.
The primary adjustment of the model is to add the sale phases.
Notice also a generally higher priority of client orientation. Vizion
Factorys experience is that the initial phases of establishing the
collaboration and formulating the first project outlines, are essential
for the remaining project life cycle.
Workshop
Everybody has an opinion about e-learning but very different no-
tions of what e-learning can do and what it takes for e-learning to
be successful.
Therefore the workshop phase is central.
It creates a common ground and a shared knowledge, which will
be the reference for all impending decisions. Matching expectations
sets the ensuing assessment parameters at a realistic level.
Julie Weiss, Head of production
The workshop normally lasts 3-4 hours involving 2-3 people. It is
conducted over 1-2 days including preparation and follow-up. This
step has been added partly to save time, partly to give the client
a realistic basis for making decisions about content, extent, costs
and time. At this time in the project life cycle the client has not
yet accepted the project and Vizion Factory effect all expenditure.
The cost of three people working fulltime for the pre-analysis is
high if it does not lead to a sale. So in the client-oriented project it
is important to generate significant information and inspiration in
little time. The client needs to decide whether to go ahead with the
project or not. One of the most important parameters in this process
is to see how an e-learning solution can add value and what it will
cost.
The workshop is a quick, inspirational learning process where
the client gradually realizes what e-learning is really about. Vizion
Factory is represented with a person from sales, a project manager
from production and a person from HCI.
17
The three profiles are
assigned to sell an e-learning solution, clarify the need, target audi-
ence and project and assess the technological perspectives for the
project. Vizion Factory propose that the client is represented by a
person who is legally competent to transact business, a person who
has insight into the field of the project, a person responsible for
pedagogy and possibly representatives from the target audience and
from the clients IT department.
17 HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) in Vizion Factory are responsible for product
quality in regards to the learning process and the user situation, including peda-
gogics, technology and functionality. HCI has furthermore focus on e-learning
as a strategic tool.
The workshop should be informative and inspiring so the client is
left with a realistic basis for making a decision. We can look back
to table 1.1 on page 18 The project managers dilemma. Vizion
factorys workshop phase can be seen as an approach to quickly
work up the knowledge curve and ensure that decisions are made
on adequate basis. There is also another dilemma the relation
between the wish for closing a sale on the one hand and a critical
assessment of the project opportunity on the other. According to
Vizion factory, that is one reason for striving towards making the
workshop phase positive and inspirational while removing unre-
alistic expectations for the project. Vizion Factorys purpose with
the workshop is to uncover the clients ideas and needs, present the
client with an approximate price and opportunities and above all
else to balance expectations.
Procedure
Vizion Factory begins with presenting the workshops purpose. Then
the client describes the problem for which they need a solution. The
client explains expectations for the application, its functionality,
what it should teach the users and who the target audience will
be. The explanation outlines the clients thoughts, ideas, notions,
expectation, demands etc,
After this introduction Vizion Factory takes over the rest of the
workshop by illustrating and explaining possible solutions based on
information about:
The target audience, their motivation and knowledge
Technological infrastructure/platform.
Target audience definition and technology definition forms along
with topic, level and purpose the basis for discussing suitable
pedagogical means and digital media possibilities. The workshop is
completed with an outline of a learning concept, possibly outlined
in relation to other elements of a learning process such as classroom
teaching, follow-up seminars etc. The project brief, which in rela-
tion to HOME can be seen as the documentation for the workshops
product level, along with an estimate illustrates:
Who to teach.
What to teach them.
Why they should be taught.
How they should be taught.
Where they should be taught.
When they should be taught
The headings of the project brief
will be the basis for the ensu-
ing analysis phase. The project
brief headings form an analysis
disposition that should lead to
a completed document after the
research.
The project brief is normally
around 10 pages. The project
brief is written during the sales
phase so according to Vizion
Factory the client should be met
with short, concise messages.
Risky projects
Vizion Factory works with three types of products: standard prod-
ucts, customized products and customized standard products. Vizion
Factory points out that the standard products and the customized
standard products do not require long workshops. The purpose and
the price are fixed. Minor adjustments do not pose the substantial
risks a unique, customized product does, unless the client is unfa-
miliar with digital media projects. If we look back to the section
risk management, we can see that working with new technology,
even in small, tightly controlled projects calls for internal integra-
tion tools e.g. a start-up seminar and frequent status meetings.
In HOME, the clarifying questions are organized in the pre-analysis
questionnaire about the process definition e.g. specification of
demands/requirements.
Examples of headings for
the analysis disposition:
Introduction, purpose
and bachground
Executive brief
Introduction af
analysis
Target audience
Topic
Purpose with
teaching
Level
Motivation
Pedagogical means
Multimedia means
Test
Distribution form
of teaching
Design and graphics
Storyboard and
structure
Example
Technology
Implementation
Risk factors
Vocabulary
Analysis
As we can see from the project management model, Vizion factory
insert a Go/No Go between workshop and analysis. That means
the analysis does not begin until the client has accepted the project
brief and the estimate. Sometimes additional research is required
before the client can make a final decision. Typically, such research
is billed to the client. This is specified during the contract negotia-
tions. When the client accepts the project brief and the price, it is
time to generate commitment to the project so that the rest of the
projects life cycle evolves securely. Vizion Factory often experience
that clients are surprised by project complexity and extend, espe-
cially with regards to the amount of work expected from the clients
employees responsible for the project. Because the client is often
unable to understand what they buy until very late in the project,
security and trust are the most important factors. Analysis and the
research that documents it builds the clients trust for the project
team, a trust that causes easier processes.
Vizion Factory has extended the
concept test in HOME to include
concept test and system verification.
Because the client cannot see the
product until very late in the process,
there are a number of sign-offs built
into the project life cycle to ensure
that Vizion Factory and the client
keep in step with each other. Vizion
Factory often uses a kind of prototype
and shows examples of animations,
graphics and sounds to ensure that
the client and the developers have a
common understanding of e.g. sound
quality, graphics, layout and the level
of interactivity. If a client wants e.g.
better sound quality, the developers
will early explain the bandwidth and
system requirements necessary for better sound quality and thus
avoid unpleasant surprises in the final stages. Furthermore Vizion
Factory aims at testing the technological situation. 1-2 animations
are tested in the clients production environment and on a typical
end-user computer. It can, as mentioned earlier, be very costly to
Example of validation:
An organization wants to
teach Latin Americans,
Asians, French and Germans
in English. Research showed
that the target audience
understood 3-9 messages
formulated in professional
English in a 60 second
animation sequence.
The client had expected
the target audience to
understand 36 messages.
Now the client can go back
to the analysis and see
documentation stating that
36 messages will not reach
the target audience.
uncover technological limitations
late in a projects life cycle, for ex-
ample due to extensive conversion
and compression. It is Vizion Fac-
torys experience that clients who
participate in the analysis and see
the results, better understand the
basis for decisions made through-
out the project. These clients find it
easier to accept the final solutions
even though they may not fit the
clients initial ideas.
Vizion Factory has added an Exit
option after the analysis. Research
may demonstrate that the problem
cannot be solved with an e-learning
project or that the idea is impossible
to realize. The exit option can be
placed elsewhere in the process de-
pending on the client and the task.
Typically it is placed immediately
after analysis, at which time the
knowledge needed for the decision
should be available.
Production
Vizion Factory work with two different scenarios in their team
building: One where Vizion Factory is responsible for all develop-
ment and one where the client to participate actively in the client
is intimately involved throughout the project life cycle. Vizion fac-
torys clients generally have very little experience with digital media
development, so normally most responsibilities are given to Vizion
Factory. In these scenarios the client is only involved for sparring
and sign-offs, so only internal team building is necessary. It is not
uncommon for Vizion factorys clients to wish full responsibility
for later updates. In these cases the employees from the client are
involved during the project and are taught how to use Producer, a
special authoring tool. The client would in these cases be invited
to take part in some of the actual production. Here, the project
Example of team composition:
Vizion Factory, internal:
Sales consultant
Project manager and assistant
Script writes
Pedagogical consultant
Digital media developer
Graphic designer
Programmer
External:
Sound engineer
Narrator
Additional consultants
Editor
The client, internal:
Project manager/decision taker
Content expert
Technical supporter
One or more employees from
the production process.
The list is not necessarily
indicative of team size, as one
person will often have several
responsibilities. A digital media
developer could also be the
project manager assistant.
management model becomes really important for communication,
overview of the project progress and for specifying where in the
project life cycle the clients input are due. In the production phase
there are many minor sign-offs. These include script (language and
factual content), speak (speaker and sound quality) and/or graphics
(style, choice of colours, house style). A sign-off in Vizion Factory
typically involves sending e.g. the script to the client along with a
contract stating, when following specified corrections have been
made, the document is approved. The client specifies a number
of corrections and sign the contract. This procedure saves time
because it ensures that the script is not read in its entirety over
and over again. Reading a script in its entirety, in our experience,
always leads to new corrections. The sign-off contract is mutually
legally binding. It gives the client security and it ensures that the
client gradually assumes responsibility for the application as it is
developed.

An example of a sign-off contract.
Script approval
Undersigned hereby approves the following script on
behalf of name of client:
Animations:
xxx
xxx
xxx
The approval of the script is valid only when the
specied corrections have been accomplished. When
Vizion factory have updated the script according
to the specications, the delivery is considered
approved.
Date/Signature
Follow-up
One of the first elements Vizion Factory implemented from the
project management model was the evaluation report. The evalu-
ation is prospective and points to concrete proposals for improve-
ments. Particularly the project start template was improved (for ex-
ample concerning assigning roles). The project management model
involves continuous assessment, improvement and development of
the model itself.
Internal and external learning
It is Vizion Factorys experience that developing customized e-
learning applications requires a close co-operation internally as
well as externally with the client. Close co-operation also means
critical sparring and assistance from consultants. For example dur-
ing the project it may become evident that the client suffers from
internal communication problems or that the client should allocate
more money to training employees. The client will gain intimate
knowledge about the target audience through the research in the
analysis phase. New insights may arise from communication with
employees and experiences may be reaped from managing the de-
velopment processes.
The workshop is inspirational and eye opening. At the same time,
according to Vizion Factory, the client will gain knowledge about e-
learning at the strategic level, directly applicable to a larger training
strategy. In this way we believe that a development method such
as HOME or the project management model, is a tool generating
knowledge for both developer and client. The knowledge gained
from a project is an extremely good basis for future projects.
Level of implementation
Vizion factory estimated that the project management model was
60-70 % implemented in their working procedures at the time of
writing this book. They further estimated that it was only 30-40 %
implemented in the minds of the individual employees. It was not
that motivation was lacking; employees used the tools from the
project management model very actively (especially the templates
relating to the analysis and production were thoroughly tested). The
employees did experience the benefits of saving time and gaining
overview.
It required active use and commitment from all involved parties
to implement the model 100 %. A tool to reach this goal could be
to establish teams that carried out specified steps of the way to full
implementation. Full implementation should, according to Vizion
Factory, also be expressed in additions and adjustments of all docu-
ments pertaining to the project management model. Documents and
templates should be dynamic and active commitment must help
everybody learn.
Individual employees experienced resistance to using the tem-
plates, e.g. in the case of script writing. There should be room for
individual approaches to the work, but very often the tight sched-
ules demanded routines. On the one hand the template defined a
procedure that could be estimated with regards to time that might
be experienced as pressure. On the other hand the template was
based on many years of experience and thus represented a qualita-
tive outline for the process.
According to Vizion Factory, their next step was to strengthen
communication between Sales and Production. At the time of writ-
ing, information was communicated through oral briefings leaving
room for loss of details. If the employee responsible for a briefing
was ill, the information was at the very least delayed significantly.
Through the project management model, the sales department had
realized that their part in the initial phase was very important. We
believe this was an important lesson: from increased transparency
and communication came new needs for more knowledge and
progress. The model instigated internal dialogue about the signifi-
cance of communicating production tasks to the client early in the
process. Here the sales department again played a vital role.
Our focus is that everybody constantly and continuously finds
solutions that are profitable for the client and meaningful to the
learner in the specific user situation!
Nanda Aabye, senior e-learning developer/HCI

Perspectives
Now you have read through the four phases of our development
method HOME. We have presented you with a number of different
tools and have given you many recommendations. Your challenge as
a developer is to use what you have read. The world of digital media
is turbulent and chaotic and a daily challenge to project managers,
designers and programmers. You must be innovative and ready for
change as you can read in most job advertisements and company
profiles we have based our recommendations on these needs.
HOME is an open method. In the chapter about the theoretical
legacy and the new perspectives we have tried to give you a theo-
retical basis for adjusting HOME to your reality. Through the books
description of the process-oriented activities we have selected the
tools we consider appropriate to planning in unpredictable con-
texts. We have advised you to focus on the projects uncertainties
and manage those risks continuously. At the same time, regarding
the product-oriented activities, we recommend you to think out
of the box and involve your target audience as much as possible.
Both recommendations may prolong the process and are difficult to
fit into the budget. But on the other hand they ensure quality and
originality in your digital media applications both parameters are
vital in this business.
In 10-20 years we have developed a culture and a technology
which will define the next centuries cultural development. It is
now, that the new civilization is born. The positive prospects are
enormous. But their realization demand that we approach the tasks
ahead of us with equal portions of seriousness and delight and
that we do not leave progress to engineers, merchants and nerds
alone.
18

18 Translated from Tor Nrretranders Stedet som ikke er, Aschehoug 1997, p. 9.
Thus wrote the Danish science journalist and author Tor Nrre-
tranders about the Internet in his book Stedet som ikke er. The
last sentence refers to the necessity of a holistic approach to the
new media. The development should not only be determined by
technology or economy. Our society needs developers who can lead
the process while respecting creativity, dialogue and aesthetics.
It was important for us to include these facets in this book now it
is up to you to take them serious in your work but remember to
have fun while you are working seriously!
INDEX 209
Index
A
Acceptance process 54
Agile methods 34, 36, 37, 38, 53
Animations 158
Arena structure 150
Attention levels 162
Authoring tools 51, 191
Avatar 118
B
Belbin, Dr. Meredith 67
Bono, Edward de 90, 95, 98
C
Case 195
Choice of media 154
CMYK 189
Collages 92
Communication environment 77, 125,
127
Communication planning 23, 113, 116,
119
Communication theory 21
Concept development 28, 86, 89, 100
Concept test 74, 88, 138
Contrasts 166
Control 17, 39, 41, 47, 49, 91, 147,
148, 176
Crowdsourcing 119, 127
Crowdsourcing 110
Cultural Probes 108
D
Data analysis 111
Data gathering 109
Design 129
Developers 15, 22, 25, 38, 40, 43, 66,
108, 141, 177
Development 15
Development method 15, 26, 27, 30,
45, 134
Development process 22, 25, 27, 36,
38, 42, 44, 54, 109, 180
Diaries 108
Digital media 14, 17, 20, 21, 25, 44,
124
Documentation 36
Dynamic structure 151
E
Essential terminology 14
Evaluating 182
Evaluation report 182
Exploratory programming 32, 35, 36,
37, 38, 71
Eye-tracking studies 162
F
Field trials 77
Final tests 78
Flowchart 47, 87, 129, 152, 173
Freeworld-structure 150
Front page 143, 156
Function specification 134, 174
G
Gestalt laws 164
Graphics 157, 167, 188
H
Hierarchical structure 150
Holistic 14, 17, 42, 136, 180
HOME 12, 15
HOME development method 42
I
Information briefing 140, 173
Information design 121, 135, 143, 151,
152
Inspection 84, 86
Integration and system test 77
Interaction design 134, 145, 153
Interview 86, 103, 111, 112, 126, 138
L
Lasswells 24
Linear structure 149
M
Maintenance 50, 193
McFarlan 80
Media elements 47, 124, 127, 154, 167,
174
Message 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 118, 123,
125, 126, 137, 145, 149
Meta-development method 15
Milestone 49, 70, 78, 84, 130, 136
Mindmapping 90
MPEG 187
Molich, Rolf 165
N
Navigation structure 134, 149
O
Observation 25, 108, 111
P
Paradigm 15, 26, 30, 31, 34
Peer review 75
Picture 91, 157
Planning 70
Planning project plan 84
PMI 85, 97
PO 95
Pre-analysis 45, 49, 63, 67, 71, 100,
114, 118, 124
Presentation 129
Presentation design 25, 46, 153, 167,
168, 173, 174
Problem analysis 131
Problem management 132
Process activities 64, 129, 176
Process definition 50
Product definition 50, 100
Production team 177
Programming languages 177, 191
Project description 45, 59, 64, 69
Project goal 19, 39, 45, 49, 65, 69, 78,
87, 114
Project plan 19, 45, 63, 70, 81, 129
Project start 53
Project team 15, 40, 44, 57, 64, 65, 85,
89, 100, 126, 130, 134, 168
Prototype test 74, 87
Prototyping 35, 36, 37, 38, 52, 71
Q
Questionnaire 105
Questionnaire, product definition 51
R
RAFO 96
Research phase 45, 63, 74, 154
Reviews 37, 40, 84, 85, 87
Risk analysis 78, 83
Risk management 17, 35, 78, 83
Risk profile 79, 80
Rough layout 164, 173
S
SCRUM 180
Selecting information 137
Self-registration 84, 87
Sender role 117, 126
Sign-off 28, 31, 47
Social media 26, 109
Software engineering 25, 30
Sound 160, 184
Speak 160
Sprints 181
Stakeholder analysis 55
Storyboard 46, 87, 134, 173
Style and mood 167
Success factors 64
T
Target audience 21, 22, 38, 45, 47, 50,
58, 74, 77, 88, 102, 111, 116, 118,
120, 126, 129, 137, 154
Team building 53, 67, 70
Test 22, 28, 33, 34, 37, 45, 73, 84, 87,
113, 123
Text 156
Thinking Hats 98
Time and costs 27, 39
U
Usability test 75
User interface 43, 75, 134, 142, 148,
153, 157, 161
User involvement 38, 72
User profiles 120, 126, 136
V
Validation 26, 33, 38, 50, 77, 180
Verification 26, 37, 50, 77, 113, 180
Video 47, 158, 186
W
Waterfall method 31, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
Waterfall model 71
Workshop 58

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Structure organize information according to topics

Presentation colours enhance memory

Brainstorming emphasis of interesting points in the mindmap

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2000 Marie Oosterbaan og Louise Harder Fischer

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