What defines a good DVD menu is whether or not is follows the accepted menu structures, and whether these structures are appealing to the eye, easy to follow to follow and present something different from every other DVD available.
These different things may be "Easter eggs" or offering whole new sections not seen before. The example I'm using is from "The Girl Next Door" DVD.
It has a fairly simple structure, easy to see the words, simple sections and easy up down selection. The indicator is a simple red dot that is easy to see yet unobtrusive on the background image which captures a great scene in the movie.
The music is unobtrusive. Although when selecting a section no sound is played (very difficult in DVD authoring), the button flashes and indicates the DVD is loading the new section. Ultimately this is a very successful DVD menu, however very unoriginal.
The form of the DVD is everything except the indicator and the sections text. Everything else is aesthetic and is unnecessary.
The function of the Menu is in the indicator and the selector. There are very few mixed, or none in face, form/function mixtures in DVD menus. Most of DVD menus are atheistic.
Here is the sound map. ( I was unsure as to what to do for the DVD Menu sounds, as many sounds are not present, so i did a diagram of a general DVD and indicated when sounds are present and the functionality of the DVD sections)
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/e/SoundMap.jpg
Materials:
http://www.tappin.me.uk/Linux/dvd.html
References:
Haines, Christian. Lecture "Interaction Design." 28/8/07
"Chapter 1 - What Is Interaction Design?". Saffer, Dan. 2006, Designing for Interaction:
Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, Peachpit Press.
Lord, Max. 2004, Why Is That Thing Beeping? A Sound Design Primer,
Tannen, Rob. 2006, Acoustics and Product Design: An Introduction, 2007,
No comments:
Post a Comment