aisyalam

It took a lot of effort over the past few days, but a great breakthrough on the interface front today. Yesterday I identified a picture (taken in the hills outside São Paulo in 2003) that I though might work well as a mapped image to present materials on the CD-ROM and e-book, and today I put it to the test (also tested my long unpracticed html skills). Using Dreamweaver and Photoshop I managed to formulate a design that works really well, embedding mp3s, wmv, and Flash into a hypertext mix that surprised me with its quality. OK, it is not as good as a hypermedia wonder that totally inspired me this afternoon, Chris Landau’s (a UMich student) “The Flocking Party,” which is exquisite in its layering of imagery and media (and has a great narrative to boot), but still very pleased with what is happening here. I was only able to map out 3 of 24 files thus far, but in a few days should have a decent enough new prototype to show to my colleagues, who I’m hopeful will help it to become further refined. This work demands such concentration, and I can’t express how lucky I’m feeling to have the space to get into it so deeply. Hypermedia Writing indeed! What’s remarkable is the number of pages of paper that are actually part of the process: making lists, flow charts, diagrams, notes, and so on…