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Outline Plan and Project Progress

S/W/Date	Objective	Achieved
1 / 1 (0) 3/10/2006	This week will naturally be a little up in the air.	Continue with literature review in my field.
1 / 3 (0) 17/10/2006	Begin to think about how I may begin to start developing my research along practice as well as theoretical lines.	I've begun. There's not much progress yet but that's to be expected.
1 / 4 (0) 24/10/2006	Continue with above. I also want my response project finished and ready to present at this point.	Continued with literature review in my field. Completed response project.
1 / 5 (0) 31/10/2006	I want to be presenting my first ideas regarding the direction my practice may take within my research with my supervisor at no later than this point. This should open the dialogue. Need to have the research methods piece selected, read and written up (300 wd version) by now.	This week I : Continued with literature review in my field. Completed the response project. Completed the critial review piece for David
1 / 6 (0) 7/11/2006	Continue.	Got the project log up on the web.
1 / 7 (0) 14/11/2006	Research methods research. Revision (20/11/06) I've finished Robson's "Real World Research" as reccomended by David. I now have a much better idea what options are open to me when considering testing methods. I will need to re-read pertinent sections around this time next year when this will actually be needed. I'd like to be begining to sort out what form my research project might take.
1 / 8 (0) 21/11/2006	I want to have a clear idea by this point what kind of form my practice will take in my research. (I'm possibly being a little conservative putting this as late as here). Revision (20/11/06) I've drafted my first revision of my question, research aims and thesis. These will quite possibly change (almost certainly infact) but for now are a good start. I've also re-designed the menu on the left to accomodate a new section which will house my research question.	I have a much clearer idea what form my practice will take and what form my project will broadly take. I've written the first draft of my question, aims and objectives.
1 / 9 (0) 28/11/2006	I want a technology framework in place to contain the practice response. If this is in the form of a web-host (as I presently think it will be) then it may well be best to publish all aspects of my work to it. This log will now find itself up there.	Get a technology framework in place to contain the practice response.
1 / 10 (0) 5/12/2006	I did originally want to have the original design for the interface well underway by this point. Now that I'm here (3rd) it's proving that that was fairly unrealistic. If this interface is to be centered in the task in question then I will need to design from the back out. That is to design the data layer, then design the views, then design the logic that sits inbetween. The views are there to facilitate the retreval and possibly addition / modification of the data by the application user.	Get the first design for the interface completed. (Revision 3/12/06) Get the design of the interface underway. (Revision 5/1/07) This is impractical. As the interface needs to grow from the research both as a practice and what that practice uncovers, the design of the interface needs to be one of the last stages attempted. The data design can be begun though as that is clearly defined at this stage.
1 / 12 (0) 29/12/2006	I will have scaled my research area to a point that locks down exactly (well, maybe not exactly) which terms I will be using and which areas I will be discussing. I will have highlighted any remaining literature which needs consultation by this point. Create a plan detailing any significant gathering exercises needed (technology, knowledge). Have a solid theoretical framework within which to continue research. (Revision 5/1/07) I'd hesitate to say it's solid but it is kind of defined. It needs drawing up and all the subsidiary elements linking in but for now it's sketched out at least. The core idea, that of the comic book medium having something significant to impart to the field of interface design is solid enough.	Well I'll always need knowledge and there are some specific technological issues I'll need to address as I move forward (logging etc). That said I have a good idea where this is going and by writing the question down my research has become much more focused.
2 / 1 (2) 9/1/2007	I want to have my investigation into various comic and cartoon styles underway by this point. I want to have a map of what sort of functionality the resultant application may contain. This can be on-going and run alongside the data collection and the practice review elements. I'll also need to complete. I need to think of a data structure I can slot this research into. I'd like to have a good portion of the literature review completed by here. Revision: 13th Feb 07 This seems to be working out well. The data structure has keyed me into building the applicaition. At this point the literature review is almost complete. I still need to re-review some texts and to read a couple of interface pattern design books that look good as well as the last of the comic art technique volumes (of which there is now more than a few).	The review of comic and cartoon styles and techniques is underway. Also I am planning to proceed with the codification of the data structuring. (Revision: 15th Feb 07) This data structure has successfully drawn a line around the perimiter of this application. It's also fed naturally into a close observation of my own research practice as I've added functionality to make the data visible.
2 / 2 (3) 16/1/2007	Kick off my practice review. Attempt to examine my culture of research practice and reflect on where and how eletronic storage and presentation of this material could aid me. Revision: 13th Feb 07 In hindsight this is happening naturally through the process of applciaiton development and is not in need of close scrutinty beyond being critial of all and any features which are added to this application.	Revision: 13th Feb 07: Rendered invalid for the moment. Revision: 15th Feb 07: Rendered invalid as, as discussed with Theo yesterday, the application development has already relected upon my own research practice. At this point I have: A webhost and domain. A barebones applicaton with some data to work with. The following functions built due to a need I have for them in my research practice: Search (keyword or phrase) Compare Fairly fine grained sort filters at object and list level An established reference number convention. XML parsed with custom tags to allow easy includes of all reference material in other areas of discussion using only a serial number convention. A number of resource objects constructed and their controllers also constructed. These are: Books Web based articles Images I still need at least: Book based articles Magaxine articles I may need: Music Video Multimedia My log included (this page, although it needs refactoring). A feedback form which sends email. An access log (necessary for later reflection, more than likely). A login proceedure which allows the inclusion of an enforacble non-diclosure agreement. A glossary of terms.
2 / 4 (5) 30/1/2007	I'd really like to have my literature review complete and accounted for by this point. Revision: 13th Feb 07 Crikey, did I really think that was realistic? Certainly it is largely formed but there is always more to read, the list will continue to expand to fill the time available.
2 / 5 (6) 30/1/2007	I'd like a solid evaluation strategy in place and ready to go by here. Three weeks to test and reflect upon the test results seems ok at this stage (5/1/07) but may and indeed probably will change. Revision: 13th Feb 07 Likewise, having this nailed down at this point is a bit premature to say the least. I do have a good idea how this may be undertaken and have begun recruiting participants from the software industry to help with the eventual evaluation strategy. I don't anticipate needing to have this defined until Oct / Nov this year.	Complete literature review. Revision: 13th Feb 07 Very naieve.
2 / 8 (9) 27/2/2007	I'd like the first draft of research proposal complete.	Stage one application development is now complete, all peripheral and resource data is being served and logged. A feedback mechanism is in place. I've completed the first draft of my research proposal. It's rough and in need of more than a little polishing but it's a start. It's nice to see the argument down in black and white in what is a somewhat coherent form. I've refactored all log pages into an XML parse format which will ensure all are correctly sorted and presented. It also lets me utilise all the auto hyperlink generation tags I've coded for the other areas of the site. This has somewhat squashed the styling of the orginal log pages although these do serve the new data I think backfactoring the CSS for this is a waste of time.
2 / 9 (10) 6/3/2007	I'd like a polished first draft I can sit down with David and discuss. I need to check his availability for next week.	28/2/07 I've completed a solid first draft of the proposal and have booked a meeting with David next week (6th) at 2pm. In the meantime I'll run it past Rachel, Florence and anyone else who will read it.
2 / 11 (12) 20/3/2007	I've had an idea for a way to integrate Theo's video project with my research. If I shoot videos, import them into flash, output them as jpeg sequences, batch them in photoshop to greyscale and posterised to 2 colours then import them back into flash and loosely trace them then the result should be a video in which detail is removed and subject is implied through motion. They also have the added benefit of being scalable to any size at all being completely vectored. It might be an interesting way of examining Gestalt from another perspective.	28/2/07 Tried this technique out briefly on a short video of myself walking up a corridor. I think it may work. It results in interesting stills in any case. This may be of some use in the application navigation design and also in the detail reduction research.
2 / 12 (13) 27/3/2007	By this point, I'd like to have most of the development work complete on the application architecture and to have made significantly larger in-roads into my comic book practice development. I'd like to have completed a review of web-comics and their navigational devices and would like to have a good idea of how, if at all, they may benefit my research.	Development work largely complete on the application architecture: Revision: 13th Feb 07 looking likely. Revision: 1th Apr 07 Complete. Significant in-roads into my comic book practice development: Revision: 13th Feb 07 looking less likely but still reasonably realistic, however there's no need to rush this. Revision: 1th Apr 07 Well, it's definitely begun. There is a loooong way to go here. Completed a review of web-comics and their navigational devices: Revision: 13th Feb 07 next on the to-do list. Revision: 1th Apr 07 I've begun this in a fairly unstructured way. I need to sort out a structure for this review and continue. I have at least a good idea of what's out there at the moment.
3 / 0 (41) 9/10/2007	By this point I would like to be at the following positions: Finalise comic and cartoon investigative practice, including: Have a suitable body of practice with which I have become sufficiently familiar with the practice of comic and cartoon creation. Investigated traditional and web based comic navigational styles. Considered ethnographic differences in approach to the reduction of detail. Completed a first draft of comic and cartoon investigative practice report. Complete comic book practice report. Application development: Have begun navigational design work applying principles from the review of comic stylistic and navigational techniques. Haved finished up any remaining core development. Added all remaining resource data. Finalise, design and implement the resultant interface. Complete development practice report. Continue contextual review.	Update 10/10/07 I have finalised the comic and cartoon investigative practice. I've not been thru absolutely all of these objectives but I do feel I have aquired enough knowledge to proceed with the interface design, which was the point of this part of the project. Aside from adding the last few bits of core data and finishing the development report, the application development objectives have been met. This should be polished off in a week or two and ready to move into reflection. Update 06/11/07 All development was completed on schedule.
3 / 0 (44) 30/10/2007	By this point I would like to have designed the specifics of a reflective strategy. This will involve at least the application of Neilsen's Heuristic evaluation and potentially some use-case based user acceptability testing. "The design of sites" will be of considerable help here containing a lot of information about website reflective strategy.	1/4/07 I know what I'd like to do and I know where to investigate it. I can leave this alone until October I think. Update 10/10/07 Getting there, the project is taking shape and another week or two should see it ready to have the refelction begun. Design of the reflection may begin then. This may slip to one or two weeks after the above date but the project has the flexibility to allow for this at this point. Update 06/11/07 As before it would have been a bit silly to have the final testing ready by this point. Today I have finished writing the first round of reflective data, 5 Heuristics and as many use-cases. These will be tested with 1 evaluator at first to iron out chinks in the testing method. When complete these will be rolled out the the other 5 evaluators.
3 / 0 (48) 27/11/2007	By this point I would like to have conducted at least one stage of testing (Heuristics first I think as usuability is at the heart of this research) and be in the process of collecting results.	?
3 / 0 (51) 18/12/2007	By this point I would like to have the project complete. All presentational material written. I would like to have a solid idea of where the case study will point and where further research may begin.	?