videoresearch.org
CREATE Lab at New York University brought me in to redesign a web application that they developed, which enables their in-house video researchers to collaborate on their video data. Over a time span of one and a half years, I worked with Prof. Ricki Goldman and CREATE Lab researchers to develop the new strategy for and redesign VideoResearch.org and Orion Video Analysis Tool. In the new design, I repurposed Orion as a social collaboration tool for video based research projects.
Orion provides a valuable tool for researchers who uses video to record, observe, and quantify the once-qualitative information. It also enables researchers to collaborate on their video analysis projects and share different points of views through marking, commenting and data embedding on video elements. The version of their website didn’t meet today’s design and usability standards, didn’t include the features to enhance functionality and wasn’t extendible to serve for public use.
Mainly serving for communities on learning, research, and teaching, we revisioned the project being not only a product but a service. Orion would stand as an information and communication tool through each stages of a research. My work in the project spanned interaction design, strategy and development lead.
Design Process
In this project, I had the chance to observe closely how researchers were using various tools to organize their data, including the way they work with pen, paper, and the previous version of Orion website. On this website, users could create a ‘galaxy’ (a project), upload a ‘star’ (a video), and other users can add ‘descriptors’ (weighted tags) for these projects and videos. I conducted focus groups to understand the value of the application and its features. I researched the similar products in the academic area.
In the concept development and wireframing phase, I combined the patterns found in generic video sharing tools (youtube, motionbox, etc.) and multi-user project management tools (MS Project, MindShare, etc.), I cleared the unnecessary jargon used in the current website and created a structure based on videos, collections and projects, to create a more user-friendly experience.
To improve the social aspects of the application, I implemented user profiles, easy-invite tools, wiki-based project management (less administration, more freedom), support for muiltiple video sources (users can add a video to their projects from youtube, vimeo, etc.). Also, I implemented many Ajax/Javascript functionality to provide on-the-fly editing, tag organization, tag quantification.
This project is partially funded by National Science Foundation, USA.
Published on November 19, 2007 and tagged with
social, videoresearch