Multimedia software life cycle

What can you infer from this chart?

Many real world projects have cost overruns or fail

Software engineers need to learn how to build systems that are on time and within budget

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Cost overrun Successful Cancelled

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A software life cycle is a process

Involves activities, constraints and resources that produce an intended output.

Organized in some order or sequence to show the structuring activities as a whole

Uses resources, subject to constraints (e.g., a schedule or a budget)

Each stage has milestones and deliverables: project managers can use them to measure how close project is to completion

Each process activity, e.g., design, must have entry and exit criteria—why?

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A software process requires resources

What is the moral of the story about project managers and resources?

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Development Lifecycle stages

1. concept development2. requirements specification3. design4. prototype5. production6. testing and evaluation7. delivery

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1.Concept Development: A typical approach

Begins with an idea (Initial concept), refined by outlining its messages & objectives

Identifying a relevant theme for the multimedia title.

Brainstorming: who, what, why, where, when & how? Who? Audience analysis. Who is your audience?

ages, genders, backgrounds, experiences, attitudes, etc. Do you want to include or attract a wider audience? If so, be more

inclusive. What can you assume as background? What limitations might some of the audience have that need to be

overcome? What? Goals and Content Analysis

What material do you want to teach? What are the key concepts/skills that you would like the user to

master? What is the desired performance level for learning these

concepts/skills?

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Concept Development: A typical approach

Why? Needs Assessment What are the current

sources/methods/practices by which users learn these concepts/skills?

What are the results of these practices? How can these practices be improved by multimedia?

What areas of difficulty are users having? How could multimedia help?

Describe one or more scenarios for how learners will interact with your multimedia as use cases.

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Concept Development: A typical approach

Where, how and when? Deployment, resources and timeline. Where will your module be deployed?

Via CD-ROM or via the Web or both? How will your team utilize the

available resources? Schedule: when do you expect to

complete a design, a prototype, a testable program?

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Concept Development: A typical approach

Conceptualization involves availability of content Feasibility study

Plan what media types to be involved Estimate the time to do all elements ensure it is on schedule and within budget Locate and obtain permission for use of any materials created by others

Project briefWork a proof of concept that enables customers and developers to examine some aspect of a proposed system and decide if it is suitable for a finished product

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2. Requirements Specification System constraints:

Will run over the internet or on PCs under Windows or Unix/Linux.

Stakeholders: Identify, negotiate agreements with, coordinate, and

supervise any subcontractors Project schedule and milestones: use PERT or

GANTT chart? Individual assignment: Develop use cases that

show overall system behavior. Team assignment: the analyst will then develop a

requirements specification that satisfies the customer and show overall system behavior and its more interesting features.

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3. Design

Design is thinking, choosing, making and doing The design phase takes its input from the

specifications created in the analysis phase, and will output a detailed description so that the program may be physically created.

During the design phase, the objectives, presentation style, delivery platform, and the overall approach are finalized.

Details such as the design of each screen, the type of navigation to be used, the structure of the presentation, and the interactive characteristics of the interface are worked out.

Continue

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Story Board I

Never begin a multimedia project without first outlining its structure and content. How? Using story board

Story boards: is an expression of everything that will be contained in the program. That is a graphic outline describing the project in exact detail using

words and sketches for each and every screen image, sound, and navigation choices. Also describe colors, text, buttons,.....

Two approaches to create an interactive MM Design Detailed story board: used if another team will work out the

implementation Les detailed story board: used if the same team members

will be implementing the project The more planning on paper the better and easier it will be to

construct the project.

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Story Board II

project: date: screen: ___ of ___ links from screens:

links to screens: screen description:

functionality/interactivity: background: color schemes: text attributes: audio: video: stills:

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4. Prototype A prototype is a partially developed product that enables customers and developers to examine some aspect of a proposed system and decide if it is suitable for a finished product.

So it is a visualisation tool helps reveal problems at early stage helps clear up any misconceptions between designer and

customerNotice clarification works both ways – implies your commitment

to what the customer has seen

Different approaches paper based sketches computer based screen mock-ups شاشات نماذج interactive demos

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5. Production Activities in this phase include:

Content Research In-house development (photoshop, soundedit etc) External (commissioned or clip media?)

Copyright clearance

Graphics Development Selection of musical background and sound

recording Development of computer animation Production of digital video

Authoring tools (or programming) Media Integration director, frontpage, java etc

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Continue Production

Monitor all aspects of production to ensure it is on schedule and within budget

Organize review and testing of the product throughout development process

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Documentation

User documentation is a very important feature of high-end multimedia titles.

This includes:

Instructions for installing System requirement Developing acknowledgments Copyrights Technical support and other

information important for the user.

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6. Testing

Testing: make sure that the MM project meets its objectives and work as your client need User testing, user observations and

focus groups Correct minor errors revealed during

testing Make slight modifications needed for

running the production on other platforms

Burn the master and distribution copies of the CDROMs

Continue

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Continue Testing

Test schedule milestones: alpha, beta, acceptance Alpha:

Testing conducted internally by the manufacturer Takes a new product through a protocol of testing

procedures to verify product functionality and capability.

Beta: The second-stage test-version, which is distributed

free to a limited sample of users so that they can subject it to daily use and report any problems to the manufacturer.

After the "bugs" are fixed, the final version of the program is released to the general public.

Acceptance: Once the application is tested and revised, it enters the packaging stage. It could be burned into a CD-ROM or published on the internet as a website.

Continue

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Continue Testing

black box testing (functional testing) aims to test a program from the

specification

white box testing (structural testing) aims to test a program by concentrating on

the implemented code

Adapting to changing need revision and update documentation

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7. Delivery

Arrange for packaging, advertising, and distribution

A golden master (& packaging) is prepared and sent to the disc duplicator for replication.

Delivering: package and delver to end user

Settle any remaining details with the client

Continue

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Continue Delivery

Create an installation program, read-me files, user guide, and other documentation such as Installation information

Associated software Installation shell, Quicktime, fonts, adobe

acrobat etc Configuration management of the end user’s

machine

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Maintenance

What is your ultimate goal? Why should you plan for maintenance?

Would you like to see your project used?

How do you plan and develop for maintenance? Do the analysis and design right

85% of the cost of real world bugs occur during analysis/design

Why document as you go (not after-the-fact)? Use cases, scripts, well-commented code, delivery

manual (with use cases as a starting point) Why put your document on a web site?

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Continue Maintenance

This phase continues until the end of the project life cycle.

It includes user support, modifications and upgrades.

Maintenance must be: afforded high priority planned for from the earliest stages

of the development assigned to competent, motivated

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Continue Maintenance Maintenance: can take one of the following ways:

Corrective maintenance: Users will notice performance problems with software, such as

error messages coming on the screen or the program freezing or crashing

involves developing and deploying solutions to problems ("bugs") that arise during use of a software program

error correction (fixes) are provided by means of “patches” Adaptive maintenance: alterations to meet new specifications in

both Hardware (example change the speed of the processor) and

software developments. Software interacts with other software programs on a computer

or network, meaning changes in one program can require changes in other programs.

Perfective maintenance: No software program contains zero areas for improvement. Thus programmers will be working to improve the way a software

program functions or how quickly it processes requests.

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Evaluation of Educational Project I

Why evaluate multimedia educational materials? Depending on the nature of the evaluation you conduct, evaluation satisfies different goals:

To improve the multimedia product

To help assess the effectiveness of the instructional material 

To improve your skills or the skills of your team in instructional media development

To improve the multimedia development process

To comply with requirements

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Evaluation of Educational Project II

Types of evolutions:1. formative evaluation

Evaluating in order to make improvements carried out during the development cycle information gained is fed back to influence the development

2. summative evaluation Judging the effectiveness of your instruction normally done on completion of the project to answer the

question have aims and objectives been met?

3. integrative evaluation carried out once application is being used has system as a whole been improved ?

Evaluation can be qualitative and quantitative

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Rapid Application Development

Design

RequirementsSpecification

Completion

ReviewEvaluate

Implement

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Relative costs to fix errors:

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Cost

Cost to fix an error increases as it is found later and later in the software lifecycle

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Summary

Multimedia is a team effort and requires cooperation from the team member.

It also includes the step by step phase from start to finish to make sure the development runs smooth according to the time constraint and dateline.

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