MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE

1. MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE

2. MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE • Multimedia software development is similar to any other kind of software development • Is complex • Involves a large number of people • Takes a long time to develop • Has deadlines to meet • Has budget limitations • Has user requirements

3. MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE • Multimedia software have a life cycle • Media production • Involves producing graphics, audio, and video material • Has a media production timeline • Software production • Involves putting various components and media together • Has a development timeline

4. MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE

5. Design • Brainstorming • Storyboarding • Flowchart design • Paper design • Prototyping • User testing

6. Development • Media production • Programming • Debugging • Final debugging

7. Multimedia software life cycle Why apply software engineering principles and practice to multimedia application? Think about your estimates per e-learning unit or chapter… Many real world projects have cost overruns Many projects fail altogether Software engineering seeks to find ways to build systems that are on time and within budget

8. Software engineering defined Software engineering is “multi-person construction of multi-version software” What is the relationship between the size of a program & the time it takes to develop it? Real world software projects involve teams of developers What’s the relationship between program size and the number of people involved? Is it linear (N developers == N time speedup)? Or is it exponential (N developers = NN speedup)? How does multimedia affect the life cycle?

9. Classic waterfall life cycle Cascades from one stage to the next only after previous stage is complete Gravity only allows the waterfall to go down; it’s very hard to swim upstream Why would corporate manager types like this development model? Is something like this more realistic?

10. Rapid prototyping model 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. For a project, we developed a prototype user interface Potential users and domain experts reviewed the prototype Review panel summarized findings and made recommendations We then developed an alpha version of the interface Allow time for prototypes and improved versions Multimedia authoring tools facilitate prototyping

11. Multimedia and the life cycle Lisa Lopuck’s timeline: What’s different? Why brainstorming instead of analysis? Why build in prototyping & user testing? What’s different during development? How might e-learning further change the life cycle? (See Driscoll’s ADDIE model.) Another view of e-learning milestones

12. Analysis (needs/requirements) Lopuck calls this stage “brainstorming”: who, what, why, where, when & how? Audience analysis: Who is it for? Needs analysis: Why develop it? Content analysis: What will it cover? Resource analysis: How and how much? Estimate: When will it get done? Where: platform, marketing and distribution? Use cases can help understand requirements

13. Brainstorming • Involves • A group of 3 to 7 people • Design, programming, marketing • Presenting all ideas • Good or bad • No criticism or judgment • Free flow of ideas

14. Example use case(from Fowler and Scott, UML Distilled) Use Case: Buy a Product (A behavior that accomplishes a user goal) Actors: Customer, System Customer browsers through catalog and selects items to buy Customer goes to check out Customer fills in shipping information (address; next-day or 3-day) System presents full pricing information, including shipping Customer fills in credit card information System authorizes purchase System confirms sale immediately System sends confirming email to customer Alternative: Authorization Failure (At what step might this happen?) 6a. At step 6, system fails to authorize credit purchase Allow customer to re-enter credit card information and re-try Alternative:Regular customer (At what step might this happen?) 3a. System displays current shipping information, pricing information, and last four digits of credit card information 3b. Customer may accept or override these defaults Return to primary scenario at step 6 Each user function (button or menu choice) can be modeled by a use case

15. So, how will you do requirements analysis for your multimedia project? By Sunday: email me a tentative project title, subject teacher, team members and their tentative roles By next Thursday noon, February 7: 1. Brainstorm who, what, why, when, how questions 2. Write a high-level requirements specification 3. Write 1 or 2 uses cases describing sample behavior(flesh our more use cases for your UI design in March)

16. Design What’s the difference between analysis and design? Storyboards: design content as sequence of scenes or screens Scripts: design content in textual form Flowcharts: show navigational structure Why design in detail before programming? User interface—why a paper prototype?

17. Storyboarding • Serves the purpose of illustrating a concept • Inspires people to think about possibilities • Doesn’t need to be fancy or accurate • Should show all the key screens or places • Places are a series of environments • Places are not static like single frame screen shots • Each key screen should have a brief description of • The scene • User interactions • Dynamics, such as sound

19. Template | • Multimedia Storyboard.............................................................................................project: date:.............................................................................................screen: ___ of ___ links from screens: links to screens:screen description: .............................................................................................functionality/interactivity: • background:color schemes:text attributes:audio:video:stills:

20. Flowchart • Flowcharts are used to design the structure and user interactions • Storyboard shows the initial picture • Flowchart links all the places • Organisation • Navigation • Flowchart complements storyboards

22. Paper design • Paper design is the blue print for a multimeida title • Paper design covers • Structural design • Software strategy • Media production requirements • User interface design

23. Paper design • Paper design consists of the following documents • Storyboards • Flowcharts • Indicating the architectural structure • General navigation through the title • Functional specification

24. Functional specification • It is a walk through each scenario of the title • Frame by frame • Details the action on the screen • Illustrates how the user interacts with it • Describes the buttons • Names various media • Sound, video, animation, graphics • Describes the graphics in abstract terms • Concentrates on functionality

25. Implementation How is multimedia development different from systems programming? Why is prototyping a good idea? Programming uses authoring tools Media development involves special tools for graphics, sound, video, etc. User testing, user observations and focus groups

26. Prototyping • Prototype allows seeing all the design ideas and solutions in action • do the storyboards and flowchart work • separates good and bad ideas • Gives real-world feedback • Allows making changes before development starts • There are different kinds of prototypes • Mock-ups • Partially developed

27. Mock-up prototype • Are developed using a friendly authoring tool • E.g. Macromedia Director • Not necessarily the one used for final development • Different tools perform differently • To show • User interaction • Graphic style • Are developed quickly • May eventually be thrown away

28. Partially developed prototype • Small cross section of the title developed fully • Are developed using the intended authoring tool • The one used for final development • Allows checking if the authoring tool is suitable • Different tools perform differently • Some are better at handling animation • Some are better at database funtions • Can be used as part of the final product

29. User testing • It is an important part of design and development • Should happen throughout the lifecycle • Is particularly important for checking the prototype • Should involve a focus group • Group randomly selected ordinary users • Not the programmers themselves • Should be videotaped/recorded • Users’ interactions and reactions • May be intimidating for some users

30. Development • Development begins with media production • Production of sound, video, animation, graphics • Must happen to some extent before programming • Stand-in media may be used • Not the final media but something suitable • Takes time to create • Not used in the final title • Production of all the media has to be coordinated • Media production timeline needed

31. Development • Programming begins when there is enough media • Usually an authoring tool is used • Involves assembling all the media into a structure • As described in the paper design • A title is feature complete when all the places and actions are functioning • Followed by alpha, beta, and the golden master

32. Development • When a title is feature complete, it is considered I alpha • It is testing time • All the major features should be available • Quality assurance testers find all the bugs • Media production and programming continues • All the crashing bugs are fixed • Bugs that freeze up or crash the system

33. Relative costs to fix errors:What can you infer from this graph? Cost Design Testing Maintenance Requirements Implementation Cost to fix an error increases as it is found later and later in the software lifecycle

34. Development • When there are no more crashing bugs the title enters the beta stage • Testing continues • There should only be minor bugs left to fix • Bugs are identified • Priorities • Fixed and fine-tuned • Final media production and programming is done

35. Development • When there are only a few minute bugs left in the title golden master is cut • Master CD/DVD is created • CDs/DVDs are produced, packaged and distributed • Minute bugs are fixed for the next release

36. Delivery and maintenance CD-ROM/DVD/memory stick versus Web delivery? Corrective: fixing errors after delivery Adaptive: new environments Perfective: improving behavior or performance Preventive: improving maintainability

37. 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 Document as you go (not after-the-fact) Use cases, scripts, well-commented code, delivery manual (with use cases as a starting point)