We invited Roy Zimmerman, Director of Education and Scholarly Communication at Microsoft Research Connections, to our second to last class so we could share our progress. He was interested in fielding questions, comments and suggestions our designers had about the ChronoZoom interface and functionality. Needless to say, these keen eyed design students had plenty of feedback to share!
ChronoZoom is an open-source platform…so sharing feedback about the functionality, UI design, User Experience is key to developing it further. This was one less obvious learning benefits to my students, as they were initially critical of the design constraints. But once they realized the power of the knowledge sharing and became more attuned to an evolving “open source aesthetic”, they became more engaged in logging and sharing their user observations and feedback.
Our class kept a record of bugs and interface issues throughout the project. During Roy’s classroom visit, we created a log of many of the technical and interface design issues they students identified during the course of the pilot. Since CZ is still in Beta form, this feedback is proving to be of great interest to the ChronoZoom team at Microsoft.
TECHNICAL BUGS
Trouble with “save exhibit” function
• Navigational glitches
• No trackpad scrolling inside info buds
• Gmail account – sometimes not working/Hotmail account – OK
• Log in/Log out glitches • no scrolling, just zoom?
• depth of timeline limit – Our timeline became vertically oriented, since we had so many subtimelines. CZ seems to have a limited vertical orientation, as we are not easily able to access the bottom (title section) of our timeline.
USER INTERFACE ENHANCEMENT
• Cut/Paste function for creating timelines independently, then sharing on larger timeline
• More design capability (type, color background, depth, opacity, object, placement, etc…)
• Create exhibit dialogue box that lays over timeline
• More “subspace”
• Timeline within Timeline capability
• Connectivity of content in exhibits
• Wireframe Preview Mode
• More manipulation capability of info buds, subtimelines, etc…
• Zoom in/out using key command
• Ability to visually customize sub-timeline backgrounds
• Ability to create backgrounds in info buds
• Less rigid structure to info buds
• Ability to have 2 working canvases
• Ability to arrange infobuds rather than a default arrangement
• Control over line width, opacity…(graphic interface)
• Title as option inside “info bud”
• Roleover Bibliography
• Content View mode to view embedded content without moving in/out of timeline
• How to use timing on “tours”
• Connected content/asset management tool (i.e. One Note, Excel, etc…) for more fluid workflow
• Embedded Task Flow function
• color coding for content
• overall ease of manipulation of elements…
Cornish ChronoZoomers 