Summarization – 3 Academic Articles of Visual design and Animation 2D

1.How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation

My Summarization:

Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles (the “heuristics”). Different people can look for disparate usability problems because it’s not easy for single individual to find all the usability problem in an interface. Heuristic evaluation needs individual evaluator look over the interface carefully. After that when the whole evaluations are completed by the evaluators who allowed to communicate and have their findings aggregated. This procedure is significant because it will ensure independent and unbiased evaluations from each evaluators. The author described difference between heuristic evaluation and traditional user testing, and how does heuristic evaluation do in user interface design. The benefits from heuristic evaluation are the findings of usability problems to increase their understanding by comparing their own evaluation reports.

The author conducted this research to show the heuristic evaluation was very important and widely used in user interface design. As the software to be used in-house and sold on the open market, the values which were found in each problem  can be fixed before the software ships.

In my opinion, I think the heuristic evaluation is necessary being used in user interface design. It is not only can fixed the problem which was found by evaluators but can effect the level of sales. In addition, the users and other evaluators will have a better experience by using the applications and give them a great review rating.

( The problems, for instance, during the process that users were using the software, some potential problem would come out, such as some buttons are wrong or even the operation is no reaction etc. Before a product came into the market,  experts should test the product many times and then it could be sold to the customers.)

References:

Nielsen, J. (1995, January 1). How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation. In nngroup. Retrieved November 29, 2016, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/

The following part is for some people who didn’t undertand the professional defination and want to know more details about Heuristic Evaluation.

My explaination:

A. Defination:

Heuristic evaluation is a method that used to assess the usability of the software, this way uses a set of relatively simple,general, instructive and heuristic rule to proceed an availability of evaluation.

B. This method has several characteristics:

1, Interactive experts use the heuristic rules as the guide to evaluate the element of the user interface whether or not approprite to the principle.

2, Interactive experts use a method of role playing to simulate the circumstance that the users are using the product, and during this process, they can find out the potential problems.

3, The number of the interactive expert are not fixed.

4, The cost of this method is relatively low, and it’s very effective.So,it also has another name called”Economic Evaluation”.

5,  But the accuracy is not high.

 

C. Process:

1, The observer explain the object of evaluation .

2, The evaluator understand or use the object of evaluation.

3, Proceeding the evaluation

4, The group discussion.

 

D. Common Heuristic Rules:

1, The system State is visible.

2,The system matches to the real world with users.

3, the users can control with freedom.

4,Consistency and standardization.

5,Error prevention.

6, cognization rather than memorization.

7, The flexibility and efficiency of uses

8, The design with refinement and Beautifulness.

9, Helping the users identify,diagnose and correct the mistakes.

10, helpless and documentation.

 

2. Walt Disney improves on J.R. Bray in Animation Production 

My Summarization:  

During the period of the Animation industry industrial, Bray’s studio brought new processes in animation production to light, by adopting a scientific management model. Bray’s studio was not unlike a factory, as Crofton mentioned on, “assembly-line,” animation. Bray achieved improvements in production efficiency and cost reduction by clarifying divisions between management and labor. Bray was the boss and the others were his lower-status workers. Bray also advocated the divisions of labor, specified boss and “inspectors” who supervised the rest of the staff. At the top of the management hierarchy were the skilled animators, and below them were the “cheap men.” Effective management, was considered knowing what you wanted your workers to do and seeing they follow through in the “best” and cheapest way. Adopting the management style into the animation industry also exposed many shortcomings, in the quality and in the lack of artistic innovation. However, Walt Disney, a man with a revolutionary vision and his animation studio would challenge many of Bray’s methods by  more focused on the quality of  animation and improve his company’s structure through dividing the employees into different departments according to their own specialties and skills. Besides the development of a new management method, Disney also found new innovations to improve the quality of his animation by brought “pencil tests” and storyboards into the workflow.

Although Walt’s studio system was based on Taylor’s scientific management, his goal shifted from increasing profit to improve quality. Walt accomplished this hiring more skillful labor and specializing them into specific departments according to their talent. His positive-participation leadership also helped unitize and motivate his employees. He did those improvements on Bray’s management because he had different objectives comparing with Bray. The quality of the animation for him was as important as the efficiency so that he could never sacrifice it. In fact, without these innovations and Walt’s insistence on the quality of the animation, Disney would not have become the influential force it is today.

The author wrote this paper was to show the development of Disney’s process from the Bray process he learned from Lutz’s Animated Cartoons as well as how Disney solved the problems introducrd by the Bray process.

 

 

References:

Deng, K. (2016, April 5). Walt Disney improves on J.R. Bray in Animation Production. , 1-3.

 

3, Animation Cartoons of Warner Brother

My Summarization:

Warner Brothers’ short cartoons began to dominate the animation industry in the 1940s while Disney’s focused on feature-length films. The way of Warner’s cartoon became successful was brilliant as it created more lasting star characters like Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, The Road Runner, etc., than any rival studio.  Warner’s success was due to the unique comic personality of their shorts, which mainly depended on topical humor and contemporary themes, making their cartoons more humorous instead of just cute. A second part of their success were creative directors such as Chuck Jones, who pursued the extraordinary, and created their own style in the late 1940s. The last but not least point was the budget strategy at Warner Brothers, were directors played with their budgets, which departed from Disney’s own management style.

Although Walt Disney had dominated the American cartoon industry during the 1930s, Warner Brothers, who initially imitated the more popular studio experienced a process of evolution to create their own style. Undoubtedly, Walt Disney is an excellent artist and leader who constantly made innovations and took risks to bring about a higher quality in his films. But Schlesinger was not an artist so he gave his directors more space to make their own funny and creative cartoons. The most talented and innovative director, Chuck Jones, used his smart budget strategy and creative direction of film that allowed Warner Brothers to surpass Disney in the creation of funny and innovative shorts. Warner Brothers’ style of entertainment, film direction and budget strategy helped them change from another common imitator to the unique history making studio that it is known for today.

The author was trying to explain how did Warner Bros do to devlop their funny cartoon style based on Desiney’s through the perspective of companies’ s structure, personnel as well as budgets.

References:

Deng, K. (2016, April 5). Animation Cartoons of Warner Brother. , 1-3.