Feb 10, 2009

Human Subjects

The Flash interactive I am making is meant for a purpose, and that purpose is to be a visual reference, especially for medical and scientific illustrators, that can provide them with answers to questions about microscopic size relationships. The only way to find out if it is accomplishing its goal is to ask them if it is working.

In order to get off to the best start, I have sent out some surveys to find out how much of a need there is for such a reference, as well as to get feedback from members of the target audience. So a big thank you! to everyone who has responded. Already, the feedback is helping me to target my efforts in the right directions. For example, the surveys are indicating that medical illustrators want to see molecular structure. Based on this finding, I have added an area to the "Organelles" tab to display molecular structures of organelles, such as showing DNA when the user rolls over the nucleus.

After more of the project is established, I will open up a web-based survey for all users. This will hopefully tell me information about how usable the site is, and give people a way to give feedback.

Coming soon: a tutorial on molecular structure visualization. There are a lot of free programs out there that can display molecular structure. The choices can be a little overwhelming at first. I am going to compile a list of them, and what to expect when using them.