Console for Kids Application
Planning Document
Consoles for your Teenager
Background
As Technology continues to evolve, Kids proceed to develop an interest at a continuously younger age. As a Parent in today’s society it is of utmost importance to realize and support that interest in every way possible. One of that ways is to provide the child with a Video Game Console. Video Game Consoles have been known for, or rather seen as, being responsible for adverse effects on the child’s mental health regarding aspects such as Concentration and also consuming the child’s life with unrealistic and unimportant ideologies. This view seems to have changed in the recent times as consoles such as the Wii and the Nintendo DS are being used by all age groups for playing all kinds of games and/even include activities intended to help the person playing. From Health Boosting Games in Hospitals, Rehabs and Family living rooms to Tour guides and Drawing Simulations in the palms of hands, Gaming has evolved from a narrow-minded view (from both inside developers and people not associating themselves with games) to that what it is today.
Goals
What is the mission or purpose of this project?
To create a Tutorial Like Application which will help (especially) Parents find the right video game console for their child(ren).
To create a Product, which will help Parents recognize and support the potentials of the console best suited for the intended person.
To Guide existing console buyers through the dangers
To allow Parents to study the reasons for buying the right console at their own pace and time
Who are the intended audiences?
The End Users Are The Parents, Guardians and older relatives and friends of Teenagers.
Parents seem to be relatively clueless to what console their Teenagers want or/and what console they should receive.
Since the end users come from different social and cultural backgrounds, I am aiming to accommodate all kinds of parents with consoles which tick all boxes.
What is the audience expected to achieve from this project?
The End Users are expected to gain extensive knowledge about consoles; specifically the age groups intended, the pros and contras of recent products for those age groups, possible (accidental) hazards and their circumvention.
The End User should be able to find the right product and be able to recognize the potentials that console has for the intended person(s).
What Console to Get Your Teenager?
Aspects that I will go in more details include:
Console Types
Console Description and its place in society
Safety Issues including Side Effects and their adverse consequences
Evaluation
Constraints
There are a number of constraints,
These include:
Limiting Subject Topics to Recent Consoles instead of all possible consoles used
Keeping the Textual Content to a considerable minimum since research shows that Users are able to read textual information better in printed format
PlaNning DOCUMtation
Look & Feel (Style Manual)
The Project will be a combination of Sequential and Hierarchical Layers with optional Popups embedded into the Application.
Platforms used for this project will include Tools such as Courselab, Adobe Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver. Placing Interactivity as the focal points , users will have the choice over a variety of options and guides in the Application. Each layer or Site will have its dedicated Information Section and Descriptions about the Selected Product. In addition, Charts, Maps and Images will accompany these layers to add visual guides to the textual ones, creating a broader niche for understanding.
Content on those Layers will include:
Graphs
Descriptions
Tables
Charts
Optional Videos
Optional Sound
The Main Section will clearly outline the Purpose of this Product, including a Table of contents and Links to the Main page. The Main Page will also include an optional link to variable information about their consoles which might be written in a technical manner not intended for the Main Process, but are there to inform users who are much more in tune and familiarised to those objects. To successfully interest the User into continuing to follow the guides, I will have to create a space which will work with what they already know and ease into the unknown one step at a time. The Introduction Page is a perfect way to accomplish this.
The Introduction page will include a textual and illustrative explanation of the topic to engage the user in the application. The goals of the applications have to be clearly outlines as not to confuse, annoy or/and anger the user into leaving the application. It also has to tackle or/and state an important question the end user is familiar with and can relate to; In this Case, a question along the lines of “What Console is the right one for the right age group?” Complex Wording is going to be avoided throughout to allow an easier understanding of the project/Application.
In the main menu, in addition to links to the various parts of the tutorial like guide, there will be an optional process which enables the user to take a pre test to allow the system as well as the user understand what kind of knowledge he/she possess of the topic on hand. Questions are similar to those asked in the Questionnaire above.
Most Screen are divined into two parts, the main window and the side window. The Main Window contains the Information regarding the subject including Images texts and navigational buttons. Those are used to take the user into the next application screen in a sequential matter.
The Side screen is mostly filled by the different chapters of the Tutorials which are stacked up in a hierarchical fashion. Clicking one of those chapters will expand it and display the chapter and the headers of the sub chapters within. While one chapter is expanded it changes colour and dimensions.
Another part of the windows is the top panel which is situated above the two screens mostly filling the top left corners. The Top Panel includes links to the home menu and index screens.
After the process of providing informations, the user is given a short questionnaire to ensure the successful understanding of the subject on hand. Feedback is provided throughout and is one of the main points set out to be accomplished in this project. It is vital that the user understands the subject and what it is all about. To accomplish that every extensive topic within the application has a questionnaire and feedback section to it to ensure that the user gets the information no matter if the right answer was given or not.
Content Ideas
There are a number of content ideas the development team came up with:
Creating a fully sequential or an/video tutorial application instead of one which is a combination of hierachal, and sequential with popups
Extensive Explanations on whatever difficult language might appear
Interactive Interfaces instead of only textual content
Sound Picture Galleries, java script or/and flash multimedia content
