Uni Project Research

[Ste]

Hey guys,

First off, if this post is in the irrelevant section then please move it, and if so, I apologise.

Ok, here's the situation....In October I am entering my third and final year of my degree (BSc Multimedia) and a large percentage of my final degree mark goes towards my major project (which runs from Oct to May).

As it stands, I have an idea, although I recently found out that the idea had already been implemented to a certain extent on another website, although I havent given up hope, I still believe I can adapt my current idea and take it other areas (e.g. mobile platform) which there is a huge push for at the Uni at the moment (and rightly so).

I know that there is definately going to be an element of Flash in my project, although I do plan to implement whatever idea I have for web / mobile development.

Besides this idea I already have, I want to come up with a few more ideas to keep my options open, and when I recently spoke to my lecturer about how to go about researching or thinking of an idea his words were "research anything, look at everything". He has a point, because you never really know where your influences will come from, but I'm here to ask you guys for you help.

I'm basically looking for any resource. It can be articles / book recommendations / tutorials / websites.

I know this sounds abit vague and open ended and I apologise but I'll try and narrow it down by things I've been considering (related to my degree):

- Mobile Development ( Acessibility / Flash Lite )
- XML / PHP / Ruby on Rails / AJAX ( anything about these, what they can do, uses of them, advantages / disadvantages etc)
- Flash ( Using things like XML / PHP insides Flash )
- Contextual Aspects ( The way someone interpretates something, Colour Theory, any research articles relating to the web usage etc)
- Project Management / Planning ( mainly due to my lack of time organisation :blush:)
- User Interface
- XHTML / CSS / Web Design ( for example, I've been currently eyeing up this book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1590596145/026-1863078-6712469?v=glance&n=266239) and obviously standards)

Like I previously said, I'm sorry about this being so open ended, and I'm not asking you guys to do the work for me, but I figured the more resources I have at my fingertips the more ideas I can come up with or develop.

There could be things here that I haven't mentioned that you might think I need to look into, if so, let me know :)

My resource of choice at the moment seems to be articles, but I'm also looking to pick up some old books (cheaply off amazon market place or used, as I am a poor student :))

If anybody can lend a hand on the matter I would be greatly appreciate and it will definately help me to no end, even if it's just one suggestion.

Ste

[chaos]

http://www.w3schools.com/
Sort of the all in one answer to most of the primary languages related to web-design.

[the_pm]

How about a look at expected user interface interaction when it comes to browsers and sites themselves, how end users have been conditioned to use the interfaces that drive the Internet, how this affects new technologies that diverge from or even contradict traditional processes (AJAX comes to mind as a big one, as does Flash in certain implementations, tool-less windows with JS interfaces as replacements, etc.). The end analysis would be whether it is best to work within the expected UI contructs that exist today as the result of 12 years of commercial Internet, or whether it is appropriate to expect users to break their habits and expectations in favor of more modern technology (or the degree to which the two should take place).

I think this would make for an interesting study. It would involve surveys, creating browsing environments (mini-sites) that support either side of the coin and getting user reactions to how technology is being used.

[Ste]

Thank you Choas, I usually overlook and forget about w3schools, but they are the best when it comes to giving you plain english tutorials with examples.

Paul that is a very good idea for research, and in my interactive work it's something I try to achieve (the sense of the unknown). For example, in a project I do at Uni a couple of months ago I had the user have a start point (which was a logo) and then they had to move the mouse in any direction and find the links. So rather have a generic horizontal or vertical bar with the navigation the user had to work out and find the information themselves.

I do like that approach though, I'm mainly interested in the idea of thinking that something should be constrained to an area (e.g. a monitor screen or display on mobile device) and usually set out to create the impression that it is something bigger than just this square you have in front of your face.

What would be the best way to go about this? Should I contact some lecturers at my local University? Is there a good place on the web to find articles / research?

Thanks again for your contribution guys, it's got me thinking :)

[chaos]

Try using Google Scholar, as it can be very helpful sometimes. For instance:

To look up user interaction + web design, you go here:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=web+design+user+interaction&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Search