Stregth of the application
We developed a graphic style which recreates an dreamlike atmosphere with a lot of effects that recall the twenties; the images evoke a Surrealist collage and immerse the user in a suggestive ambience. We are pleased with the name “Madeleine” because of its evocation of French style and the Proust effect—when eating, listening or seeing a particular thing brings back a memory.
Thinking about our scenario we explored and discovered new interactions that might seem old-fashioned from our modern point of view, to make Madeleine possible and believable for the period. For instance, the menu isn’t represented by icons, because we thought that our users couldn’t have familiarity with this kind of visualization, but we used written words and a typewriter to insert textual input.
We developed the scenario very deeply to immerse ourselves and the audience as much as possible in the period. We played the roles of our personas and tried to reproduce, by physical settings and a physical prototype of the G-Phone, some places and situations useful to record the video. This performances allowed us to focus attention on the mood and the possibilities of the service.
two of our setting a
What could be improved
A part that could be improved is the sharing. The paper airplane, which represents a memory sent by someone else, would be better shown by the icon of that memory (a marble or a cookie) but this representation isn’t intuitive and doesn’t work very well. Another element of the sharing that we didn’t develop is the blowing. We thought it would be more poetic if the user could send a memory to another by blowing on the microphone. We had not enough time to explore this intimate way of sharing so, in the prototype this part seems a rather ordinary way to send a message.
An incomplete but potentially interesting part of the service is the secret room. We thought about a simpler interaction than the attic but at the same time enigmatic and ambiguous: by moving the oil lamp on the wall, the secret pictures of the user could appear in a random way inside the old frames. We imagined the sounds inside a vase which would start randomly by turning the G-Phone). The secret room would be protected by a password to keep the memories private.
At first, we thought to start the application with a short animation of a Madeleine tin to recall the brand name and the idea of memory but we didn’t elaborate it. You can see the sketch of the animation under this paragraph.
We would have liked like to use dust to represent time: the amount of dust on the image (more or less opacity) would indicate how long since the memory had been recalled.
What we have learned
Madeleine give us the possibility to use and learn some functions of ActionScript 3.00, the mechanism of the timeline and how animations work.
With the scenario studies we learnt a lot about historical and cultural aspects of 1920s France and also the technology research and developments of that period.
Finally, a very important aspect of our presentations to the class and for the videos we made were our permormances. We learnt to stage different characters in different settings to explain the mood and the meaning of Madeleine.
screenshot of the ActionScript 3.0 of Adobe Flash CS3
Madeleine | Concept | Design | Interactions | Interactions 2 | Code | Process |
Critical reflection | Teamwork | Downloads