Project Details
Situation
It took me some time to think about the topic for my thesis project. During the first summer in my graduate school study, I visited Spain, France and Belgium. That was my first time visiting Europe and I was fascinated by the distinct architecture, culture, food and history over there, especially the southern part of Spain (Cordoba, Seville and Granada). Therefore, I decided to create an interactive travel book to share my travel experience as well as add some educational content to show the beauty of southern Spain.
Tasks
My goal was to create an online travel book where users can feel the atmosphere of southern Spain right away by immersing them into Spanish music, history, tapas, Flamenco songs and dance as well as my personal travel stories. My thesis allows users to interact with the travel book so it would intrigue them enough to keep reading and learn more about southern Spain.
Action
Research step:
I spent long hours in the library of Rochester Institute of Technology during the time I was creating this thesis. I wanted to make sure the content I put on the site was 100% accurate. I also contacted people in southern Spain to get their permission by putting some of their photos or quotes online etc and made some international friends at the time. I have also organized all my photos, videos and diaries by categorizing them into different groups in order for me to think of what content I wanted to put in this travel book. Last but not least, I spent time on what interactions I wanted to create to make it intuitive and fun for the users.
Design step:
- Black text on light background: - In order for this online book to be easy to read, I used black text on white or light background.
- Simple design: - I leaned to a clean and simple look with moving interactive elements on the page for users to interact with it.
- Delicate animation: - I added some delicate touches such as birds flying in the sky, organic animated curve lines, special photo sliding effects, smooth transition in between pages etc to make the book feel alive.
- Spainish background music: - I put traditional Spain music as soon as the users come to the site. The music control allows users to turn the music on and off. When the users enters the flamenco music and dance section, the background music stops by itself and the flamenco music starts to play. All these interactions were done via Flash Actionscript and Javascript.
- Photos to tell a story: - I used photos of Spain architecture, tapas, flamenco dance and video clips etc to tell the enticing stories in the southern Spain. An image is worth more than a thousand words so images work pretty well when it comes to a travel site/book.
- Get personal: I have provided maps, my personal diaries section and useful information section to create some human connections with the users all over the world. I received a lot of emails from international friends hoping I can give them more tips on traveling in southern Spain.
Result
To me, my thesis was a success because it connected people around the world and allowed communication to flow internationally. I made some international penpals because of this thesis at the time and I felt so happy to get so much positive feedback.