Union Station Timeline (FINAL)

From this project I learned a few things about motion, but dominantly I was schooled in the art of User Experience. Eli and I struggled throughout the project to limit the media and options we were trying to throw at our viewers. We started out wanting to allow the viewer to search through the different media we had to offer, check out a graph of train travel and usage, represent this usage with moving elements on the screen, and other things that just weren't necessary. Really it would have created  a chaotic mess for the viewer to navigate through. So we stripped it down and left it as a swiping timeline that offered two sets of "stories" per decade. Then these stories could be expanded and viewed. Simple and clear. Really easy to navigate, which we needed to be aware of. We didn't want to overwhelm the viewer, we wanted to make their experience more accessible and in doing so (with the media filter, and the graph and such) we would have made the experience more difficult and probably overwhelming.

In animating the tutorial of the timeline, we also had to really think about what needed to be shown in order to show off the function of the timeline. We had to write a script, use the script to base the animation on, and then record the script in a clear and concise and steady way that didn't run together. Basically the timing had to be precise in order to show off the functionality. 

Finally, when it came down to our narrative, we really had to rack our brains and search the Union Station book we had in order to find a story that people were engaged with, could relate to, and would remember. So we picked a testimonial from the book, a real live story that did occur at Union Station and was told from a particular person's point of view. Also with our narrative story we learned (after the first critique) that showcasing one image and revealing aspects of the one image over time, helped move the narration of the testimonial better than having one or two images sit still on the screen. 

Overall, I learned a lot. User experience, understanding the importance of a compelling story when conveying information, planning (when it came down to narration), and learning how to convey clarity in a sequence of information and narration.