CSC 484 Lab Notes Week 4
Discussion of the Storyboarding Paper (Truong, et al)
Further Details of Assignment 2; Evaluation Criteria for Poster Sessions

We'll spend some time in Friday lab discussing the general concepts of the two papers, specifically in terms of the kinds of questions that will be on Monday's quiz.

Important Ideas from Storyboarding Paper

The paper does not apply exactly to all teams in 484. In particular, the kind of story that the paper focuses on is for presenting a new interactive tool.

For some 484 teams, your stories revolve more around presenting ideas from existing tools, and/or presenting the story of how tools will be evaluated. We'll have another round of team meetings today (Wednesday), to clarify what each of your "stories" is.

Some Example Storyboards from CSC 484, Winter 2007

To provide you some very rough ideas for what storyboards can look like, I've posted examples from the 484 class taught by Franz Kurfess in Winter 2007. The examples are located at

http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~gfisher/classes/484/examples/w07-storyboards

NOTE WELL: These examples are presented 100% "as is", with no evaluations whatsoever. Note further that the Winter 07 storyboarding assignment was not exactly the same as this year, so these examples do not represent precisely what is deliverable by you this quarter. Consider these examples fodder for your thoughts.

Some Further Details on Assignment 2

The primary physical display of your storyboards for assignment 2 is on a poster, of maximum size 3'x4'. This imposes some physical constraints on your storyboards that are not specifically addressed in the storyboarding paper. Recall from the assignment 2 writeup that you will also submit a website, with navigatable storyboards. This is the kind of of presentation that more directly relates to the paper.

The paper and book both talk about storyboard "panels". A panel is one element of a set storyboards, a "board" if you like. A panel presents a part of your overall story. There is no fixed size for a panel, but a normal 8- 1/2'' x 11-1/2'' sheet of paper is an OK measure. If we go with this, then a 3'x4' poster can fit at most 15 panels. Around 10 is probably a comfortable fit.

The storyboarding guidelines presented in the Truong paper are largely independent of the physical presentation medium. You should consider all of their guidelines carefully. Not all of them may be appropriate to your particular story, and so need no be applied.

The evaluation criteria presented next are based quite directly on the guidelines in the Truong paper.

Poster Session Evaluation Criteria

Listed below are nine specific evaluation criteria you will use for next week's poster sessions. These criteria are based on the "best practices" presented in the Truong paper.

During the poster sessions, you'll take notes on what you see. Then on Friday May 2, you will submit your evaluations via handin, as pdf files. I'll provide details of the evaluation submissions, as soon as the names of the teams are finalized.

These evaluations are in addition to the questionnaires you will fill out for each team. The team questionnaires will ask more specific questions about the concepts and ideas presented in the posters.

1. Level of Detail
Did the poster have the appropriate level of detail? If too much or too little detail, give specific examples where this occurred. Provide constructive criticism for how to remedy any problems you observed in the area of too much or too little detail.

2. Text and Graphics
Did the poster have an appropriate mix of text and graphics? If too much or too little of either, give specific examples where this occurred. Provide constructive criticism for how to remedy any problems you observed in the area of text and graphics.

3. Environment and People
Did the poster include depictions of environment and people appropriately? If there were no such depictions, and they we not necessary, then say so (i.e., it's OK that environment and people did not appear). If environment and people where shown in an unhelpful way, or were not shown but should have been, give examples of where this occurred. Provide constructive criticism for how to remedy any problems you observed in the area of environment and people.

4. Passage of Time
Did the poster include depictions of the passage of time appropriately? If there were no such depictions, and they we not necessary, then say so (i.e., it's OK that time passing was not shown in the poster). If passing time was shown in an unhelpful way, or was not shown but should have been, give examples of where this occurred. Provide constructive criticism for how to remedy any problems you observed in the area of depicting the passage of time.

5. Team Presentation
Were the presenting team members helpful? Did they answer your questions well? Did they make the topic sound interesting? If there were any problems in these areas, provide constructive criticism for how the poster session could have been better presented by its design team.

6. Layout, Aesthetics, and Design Quality
Was the poster well put together, was the quality of the artwork and prose good? If there were any problems in these areas, provide constructive criticism for how the design quality of the poster could have been improved.

7. Enjoyment
Did you enjoy the poster session? Provide specific examples of what you enjoyed, and/or constructive criticism about what you did not enjoy and how it could have been made more enjoyable.

8. Other Remarks (Optional)
Provide any other remarks that were not covered above, or in the team questionnaires.

9. Overall Rating
Rate the poster session overall on a 1 to 10 scale, 1=poorest rating, 10=best rating.