Color . . . What Does it Mean?Final Project Documentation

By: Justin MorrisINST 6245

INTRODUCTION This document discusses the various psychological and physiological effects of color.

This document also discusses the various effective and ineffective uses of color in interior environments. This presentation was created using Flash CS5.

PROJECT SUMMARY This educational presentation of “Color . . . What Does it Mean?” is a hypothetical

project. It was created with the intention to be used by students who want to have a brief taste of what color can do psychologically and physiologically speaking. It is intended to be an introduction to a more in depth study of color and its various effects. The project is a Flash-based instructional tool and includes instructive slides, and interactive “drag and drop” quizzes to test the comprehension of the presented material.

CREDITS Thanks to Dr. Andrew Walker for making available several pieces code from past

student projects.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OR NEXT STEPS 1. Test the program’s instructions on the attended audience and make any necessary

adjustments.2. Add depth of instruction to each of the “color” pages to add complexity and intricate

value to the project.3. Take time to develop the Aesthetics and functionality of the project to appear more

professional.

TIMELINE STRUCTURE Scene 1 Layers

Scene 1 is the top level of the project. Scene 1 has the following layers:

1. The Actions layer holds the action script for the main timeline. The Action script is found in frame 1, frame 10 and frame 11. Frame 1 contains the script for the navigation buttons, and frames 10 and 11 contain the action script for the embedded items.

2. The Navigation folder contains all of the buttons used on the project. Each button is a BUTTON rather than a movie clip. Sound was included on the timeline of each button as seen below.

3. The Text layer contains all of the instructional content for each frame throughout the whole program.

4. The Dragger layer contains all of the items to be dragged in the embedded items. In order to organize a little better, the text that was also used as draggable objects in the embedded items was removed from the “Text” layer and added to the “Dragger” layer.

5. The Target layer contains all of the items used as targets for the embedded items. In order to organize a little better, the text that was also used as targets was removed from the “Text” layer and added to the “Target” layer.

6. The DynamicText layer contains the dynamic text boxes used in the embedded items.7. The Image layer contains all of the images used throughout the project8. The Background layer contains only the gray background used throughout the project.

FLOWCHART The flow of the project follows a very organic model.  During the design of the project, it

became apparent that it the material needed be presented in a way that allows the student to learn at their own pace. This organic model allows the student to go from one content page to another, in a random order if they desire and as many times as they wish until they are ready to take the “Fun Test” or the “Real Life” application. The mind rarely works in a linear fashion, so it was imperative that this project work how the mind works. This organizational set up also allows the student to revisit the various pages he/she desires to very easily without having to go back through a string of pages to get the desired content.

NAMING CONVENTIONS The naming convention that was used for naming layers, library items, instant names,

movie clip names, and variable names is camel case. Each beginning word starts with a lower case letter and any additional words following start with an uppercase letter. Buttons end with _btn, the movie clips were used only for the embedded items so they either begin with “drag” or “drop” to differentiate between the draggable objects and the targets. Images begin with “img”.

IMPORTANT VARIABLES All of the variables are defined within the action script of Scene 1 frame 1. Each variable

is important by passing or identifying information so the program will run correctly. The start X and start Y variables record where the draggable objects begin. The activeAlpha variable

describes the value at which the embedded item begins while it is active, or rather it keeps it at is regular coloring. The inactiveAlpha variable causes the draggable object and the target to be grayed out after the correct response is found. The dragBounds variable describes the boundary at which the draggable object can be dragged.

CRITICAL CODE SEGMENTS All of the action script for this project is labeled in the “Actions – Frame” window in

the .fla document. The action script is separated “Listeners” and “Functions” in Frame 1. In Frames 10 and 11 the action script is separated by color, and then by “listener for start drag”, “start drag function”, “record start location”, “start dragging”, “check for correct target”, “check for incorrect target”, and “assume invalid target”.

KNOWN BUGS Overall the project functions as it should and as it was intended to. However, there is a

small hick-up with the drag-and-drop functions for the “Fun Test” and the “Real Life” application. Sometimes when the draggable object is dragged to a certain spot it tends to stick and not snap back.