Fall 2006

CMSC 434 Human Factors in Computer and Information Systems

Flash Projects

Flash Project 2: Interactive Shuttle Route Guide

Due

October 10th (postponed from 5th) before class, submitted to Blackboard under Assignments.

Description

To serve the transit needs of its community, the University of Maryland operates a network of shuttle buses in and around the College Park neighborhood. Currently, information on the shuttle routes and schedules are available as a separate PDF document for each route. In some cases, getting to a destination requires taking two or more routes. Looking up the correct routes requires a manual cross-referencing process between each PDF, which is somewhat inconvenient.

The University of Maryland would like to address this issue by by providing an interactive guide of all shuttle routes. To this end, the University is accepting design proposals for an interface that would allow users to explore various bus routes on a map. The user must be able to (on the sample routes):

1. display one or more routes on the map (three check-boxes for Red, Green and Blue);
2. find a shuttle stop either by name (a pull-down menu of seven names), or by clicking on a map (option buttons);
3. given a time, determine the next arrival time of all routes at a stop (selected previously); the user should input the time as hours (text-box), minutes (text-box) and AM/PM (pull-down menu), validated as appropriate (i.e. either warn or disallow invalid times).

There are additional requirements on the interface:

1. the name of the interface, and the name "University of Maryland" must be prominently displayed;
2. the interface should be no larger than 640-by-480 pixels (to be displayable on most computer displays).

Design Guidelines

This assignment is designed to allow you to learn how to use Flash and ActionScript to develop an interactive application. For the purpose of this assignment, make use of the sample shuttle routes and schedule in the Appendix.

Here are a couple of maps that you may use for your interface:

• Flat Map
• Perspective Map

Grading Criteria

The grading for this assignment will be based on:

1. Completeness: (50%) Does your program fulfill the three design requirements?
2. Coding style: (20%) Is your source code commented? Do you make good use of layers and symbols?
3. HCI Principles: (15%) Was your interface designed according to the Eight Golden Rules (or other principles from class)?
4. Aesthetics: (15%) Was your use of fonts, colors, animation, and so forth aesthetically pleasing (e.g. readable text)?

Resources

I've provided a quick guide to ActionScript (PDF).

Appendix: Sample Routes

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by khooyp