On Wireframes & Spec Docs

Building an app is like building a house. You need property, plans, contractors, materials, decorations and a time line.  You start with an idea that turns into a vision, but unless you are also a programmer – which I’m not – you will need to be able to communicate that vision. That’s why there are wireframes and specifications documents. 

A wireframe is the sketch of a work of art before the paint is applied; it’s the model sheet of a cartoon character before the succeeding thousands of drawings, each varied slightly from the other, result in animated movement. The wireframe communicates the basic architecture and component parts of your future app and how they will interact with each other as well as interface with the your future user.

On paper the wireframe will look much like its name implies: boxes containing words in block letters and linked to other boxes, or not.  So once your wireframe is built you need to apply color and animation, or content and design. You need to provide the materials that will ultimately guide and define your user’s experience. You do this with the spec doc.

There is no industry standard for creating an app spec doc, what some prefer to call a storyboard. But the advantages of the spec doc are clear:

• It allows the app creator to both solidify and communicate her vision.

• It enables the building contractors, in this case the art designer and program developer, to move forward in lock step with the creator to realize that vision while avoiding unnecessary surprises.

• It provides a common language for the creation of both app and team.

A well-crafted spec doc will define the project purpose, outline its features and functionality, and provide the content so that the contractors can set to work building the foundation, raising the roof beams and walls, and decorating them, both inside and out.  Together, the wireframe and spec doc function like architectural blueprints.

The spec doc for Beware Madame la Guillotine is now 87 pages long and contains a dozen colors, each one related to a different app feature or element. I say “now” because although the spec doc we started with was fairly complete going in, it has continued to be refined and updated as both Art Designer, Beth Lower, and Program Developer, SmartyShortz LLC, have made suggestions and improvements and sought clarification to the original along the way.

Progress Report: The proverbial house is built and we’re busy painting walls, hanging fixtures and tending to the landscaping.

Be the first to try Beware Madame la Guillotine: Click Here

Stay tuned for interviews with Beth and Chris, coming soon…

Image: Sneak preview of task #1 of the Time Traveler Tours Treasure Hunt at Le Café Procope. Design by Beth Lower.



To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish?

Advice, direct from the trenches:

I was lucky to have discovered, though not without pain, that my Time Traveler Tours interactive StoryApp itineraries were never meant for print. As they are to be used on the go, carried about through bustling cities, they are perfect for mobile environments, such iPhone, iPod Touch and eventually Android. So although the publishing industry stands with trepidation at a historical crossroads, I think authors are fortunate to have so many publishing options available. Writing need no longer be confined to the page, but can go audio, enhanced eBook, app and mobile. First and foremost, therefore, be certain your project lends itself to the format.

If your chosen format is digital, take your time to unearth the programmer that’s right for you. The ugly little secret, in iOS development anyway, is that there are a lot of programmers but not a lot of good ones. I fired two before I finally undertook a hiring process that included identifying the right networks, sending out an RFP (request for proposals) and interviewing multiple candidates. Even then, I got estimates ranging from “we’ll give you the world for nothing” to “we’ll bleed you dry and then take your first born”.

If you do set out to self-publish, no matter the format, be ready to be more than a writer. In producing an app I have become an entrepreneur, creative director, techno-geek (well, relative to where I was a year ago, anyway), manager and marketer, all with an enhanced appreciation of copyright law. Believe me when I say this was no small feat for someone used to spending hours alone with her thoughts and characters and favorite caffeinated beverage. And I continue to be faced with the need to learn a new skill on a near-weekly bases. No kidding!

Finally, and this is true for all writers these days, be prepared to be your own marketer. The Internet is a noisy place. It’s not enough to have great content. You have to make that content known to others. Fortunately, this can be done, and inexpensively, thanks to social networking. But it costs a lot in time to get your ideas to go viral. So if you’re not into blogging and tweeting and facebooking and potentially developing a transmedia campaign to promote your project, you may be better off extending your search for the perfect agent and publisher who will do these things for you.   

To prove my point, I can't help but add:

Like Time Traveler Tours on Facebook!

Follow Time Traveler Tours on Twitter @ParisAppTours!

I'll be happy to like and follow you back!

I wish you all good luck, but most of all, I wish you a very good time!

Beware Madame la Guillotine title screen by Beth Lower © Time Traveler Tours, 2010-11.

Let the Beta Testing Begin!

Time Traveler Tours took to the streets on Wednesday, 20 April, with a live family-friendly tour to pilot some of the treasure hunts and games featured in Charlotte Corday’s up-coming StoryApp itinerary to the French Revolution, Beware Madame la Guillotine. 

Seventeen participants ranging in age from 4½ to 50+ gathered at the Place du Palais Royal on a gorgeous spring afternoon in Paris.  We began our journey at the Palais Royal. I stood in for Charlotte to explain the rise of the French Revolution and Reign of Terror and to provide the context necessary to understand what would drive a 24-year old convent-school girl to commit such a heinous crime as murder.

From the Palais Royal, we crossed through the Louvre courtyards and over the Seine to Paris’ left bank in search of the scene of Charlotte's crime. Along the way, we hunted up Arago medallions as well as remnants of the Philippe-Auguste wall that surrounded medieval Paris in the 12th century.

At the Café Procope, veritable museum of the French Revolution, we had a chance to test – for the first time – the Time Traveler Tours' Procope Chasse au Trésor, developed specifically for the app to highlight the rich historical caché of the restaurant: once a hang out of the radical revolutionaries, including Charlotte’s victim, Jean-Paul Marat.

Finally, with each participant armed with the perfect chocolate chip cookie, we were off again, this time to the Conciergerie, the prison of the Revolution. There, we witnessed the harsh circumstances of Charlotte’s incarceration, as well as that of Queen Marie-Antoinette, before each met her respective end at the based of Madame la Guillotine.

Of the tour, one participant had this to say:

"Dear Sarah: Hannah, Teddy and I thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon with you and the Time Traveler Tours' groupies! We learned sooooo much and want to thank you for all your time and energy putting together such a high quality tour. You have a natural gift of making history relevant and real! We loved exploring the route of Charlotte Corday, participating in scavenger hunts and meeting new friends. A perfect day.

VIVE Time Travelers!"

* * *

Next Live Family-Friendly Tour of the

Time Traveler Tours:

Sunday, 8 May 2011

Leave a comment if you'd like to attend!

***

Care to be a Beta Tester for

Beware Madame la Guillotine? 

CLICK HERE

to volunteer!

Images by Armelle Grubb © 2011.

The Republican Calendar

Excerpt from Beware Madame la Guillotine, the Time Traveler Tours iteractive StoryApp tour to the French Revolution with tour guide, Charlotte Corday, Murderess, to be released June 2011 for iPhone and iPod Touch.

* * *

When the Jacobins took control of the National Convention, they attempted to wipe out all systems that could be associated with the former monarchy, the Ancien Régime, or with the Catholic Church, such as the seven-day week starting and ending on the day of prayer.  The Jacobins sought to base their new systems either in nature, or in multiples of 10, and using only Latinate names.  One example of these efforts is the Republican Calendar.

The first day of France’s ‘Republican Era’ began the day after the National Convention abolished the Monarchy on 21 September 1792.  There were twelve months in the Republican Calendar, and three months for each season. Each season was divided into three ten-day weeks.  

The names of the Republican months used Latin words to describe the natural conditions corresponding to that time.  The three months of winter, for example, were named: Nivôse, meaning ‘snowy’; Pluvôse, or ‘rainy’; and Ventôse, for ‘windy’.  This prompted English critics to mock the calendar by calling the months: Wheezy, Sneezy, and Freezy; Slippy, Drippy, and Nippy; Showery, Flowery, and Bowery; Wheaty, Heaty, and Sweety.

Republican Days were divided into 10 hours, each with 100 minutes that were further divided into 100 seconds.  This made the Republican hour almost twice as long as a conventional hour.  Clocks were manufactured to reflect this use of decimal time, but the system never really caught on.

After about 12 conventional calendar years, Emperor Napoléon finally did away with the Republican Calendar starting on 1 January 1806.



Travel Tips & Paris Metro Crossword

 Planning a trip to Paris this year?

Bringing the kids?

Don't leave home without

Travel Tips and & Paris Metro Crossword

from

Time Traveler Tours

Opinion: What is "Interactivity"?

Today's issue of PCSpeed cites children’s author, Julia Donaldson, on why she has decided not to put her award winning, Gruffalo, into eBook format. According to Julia, when children discover that touching a certain hidden button will make the character’s neck grow then they just spend their time “fiddling with the wretched button” and not reading or listening to the story.  On this point, I have to say, I totally agree. 

But there are gimmicks.  And there is interaction. 

The issue, really, is how the children's book industry currently interprets the notion of “interaction”. 

Too many of today’s eBooks and book Apps are laced with gimmicks – bells and whistles, buttons and doo-dads – posing as interactive elements. Finding the button that will make the dog’s tail wag or the bird fly or the gnome do a back flip is fun, but doesn’t add anything to the story and, as Julia maintains, may even detract from it.

True interaction, I believe, should open the world of the story up to another layer of thinking and doing that has the potential to teach. Interactive elements connect with and collaborate with the story, leading the reader to a related experience that, once completed, brings them back to the story once again.

Interaction in its purest definition is two-way communication; it's a give and take. As it relates to digital books, interactivity should never be the end goal of user participation – touch the dog so the tail wags – but should enhance the user’s experience and engagement with story – touch the dog to make it run to the right corner, grab it in its teeth, and turn the page. Above all, interactivity should never take over the role of the reader’s active imagination, but should encourage the reader to imagine beyond the page.

This is how we think about interactivity at the Time Traveler Tours. Some will fault our product, saying there is not enough animation.  Rather, what our StoryApps provide are intellectual challenges, didactic games, and scavenger hunts that serve the story, enhance the user’s experience of it and allow for learning and engagement in a fun, stress-free way.  With Time Traveler Tours you approach history through story and learn without knowing you are learning. Archival images from the era in question are highlighted throughout not for their back-flipping gnomes and fluttering birds, but for their merits as works of art and/or historical propaganda. 

While I agree with Julia Donaldson’s point of view and admire her unwillingness to join the crowd just for the sake of it, I would also urge her to imagine how the Gruffalo could be truly interactive.  No doubt there are myriad ways.  We just haven't thought of them yet.

Thanks to Julia Donalsohn and Axel Scheffler for use of the Gruffalo image.

Click here to purchase the Gruffalo from Amazon.co.uk!

If you liked this post, you may also like our opinion piece: "Is the Book Dying?"

Why I Write Apps for Teens & Tweens

It all started on the streets of Paris...

One day, as I was crossing the Seine from Paris’ Right Bank, I heard the voice of a US compatriot behind me. 

“I think that’s the Conciergerie, straight ahead,” the man said, indicating the imposing four-turreted stone building just in front of us. “But I don’t see the Chatelet. It’s supposed to be around here somewhere.” 

It wasn't. So I turned and told him that the Chatelet had been torn down during the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte (1802-1815) and replaced by twin theatres flanking the pleasant plaza on the northern side of the bridge on which we were standing.

“What was the Chatelet?” he asked. 

“A dreaded medieval prison, so hated the people would have pulled it down themselves if they hadn’t already exhausted themselves bringing down the Bastille.” 

That's when I noticed two disinterested boys, both about my height, fidgeting at the side of their father.  Tweens, maybe teens.  I turned my attention to them and pointed back to the Conciergerie. 

“That was a prison, too,” I said. “And during the French Revolution no one came out alive except to have their heads chopped off at the guillotine.” I drew an ominous line across my neck, then told them the name of each tower, stressing that the far one, the Tour Bonbec, meaning “good beak”, was once the kings' torture chamber.

The boys were suddently interested.  All they needed was a story, a little gorey, juicy context. 

“You know,” I said, “you can visit the revolutionary prison. You can see where the prisoners slept on beds of straw. And you can roam the vast room where the kings’ medieval policemen, or Gens d'Armes (men-at-arms), once took their meals. You can even find what's left of their once enormous black marble dining table."

“Can we go, Dad?" the boys asked their father, voices cracking slightly. And as he approached the Conciergerie entrance to buy tickets for his family, his wife pulled me aside.

“I'd like to hire you for the day,” she stated. “The boys haven’t been this engaged since we arrived.  All they want is to get back to their facebook pages and video games!”

Et Voila! Just like that, the Time Traveler Tours were born:

Self-guided interactive StoryApp itineraries for youth and the young at heart on your hand-held mobile device. 

Put History in the Palm of your Hand!

Discover the Past with those who Made it!



Time Traveler Tours Expands - Meet the New Team Member!

Time Traveler Tours welcomes

SmartShortz LLC

to its development team!

A full-service software design and development firm, SmartyShortz specializes in educational apps on mobile devices for "digital natives": young people growing up in an increasingly digital world.

Please welcome SmartyShortz to the TTT team! 

Send your comments below.

Time Traveler Tours Progress Report, III

Beware Madame la Guillotine has a new look! 

Behold the new app title page, hot off the proverbial press:

Art Design by Beth Lower

Image:

Baudry, Paul (1828-1886). Charlotte Corday. 1860. Oil on canvas, 203 x 154 cm. Inv. 802. Photo: Gérard Blot. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, France. Photo Credit: Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.

Time Traveler Tours Progress Report, II

"Always forward, never straight," as we like to say here in app central.  But after numerous technological bumps in the road, we're happy to announce that the Time Traveler Tours prototype app tour,

Beware Madame la Guillotine,

is on its way.  We're a bit behind schedule, but still hopeful! 

Click the link below to enjoy a little sneak pre-listen.

 Then, help us to keep hope alive! 

Post a comment!

Beware Madame La Guillotine: Introduction