Developers of Interactive Applications
creating effective online training tools
 

 
Client Project:  New Zealand Soils on CD
  AgResearch (The New Zealand Pastoral Agriculture Research Institute Limited) is a Crown Research Institute (CRI), and develops, accesses and manages intellectual property and undertakes technology development and transfer activities in the food, fibre, biotechnology and other industries based on pastoral agriculture.

After producing an initial prototype, 4Front Technologies developed the interactive publication New Zealand Soils on CD.

Subject expertise and content in this case, was provided by staff at AgResearch and our main focus was creating the application and interactive elements to allow for publication on CDROM.

This CD is being well received by those in the agricultural, soils and fertiliser sectors. For further product information and contact details for purchasing.  New versions have been made to upgrade, add content and functionality.
 

 
agrd005s.jpg
  Scope
Produce a publication to run from CDROM that contains information on soils, with a focus on New Zealand soil types.

Publication focus is as an introduction to the topic, suitable for secondary and tertiary students, and others interested in soils, in order to gain an understanding of soils, types, and classification.

Initial content (text, photos and some diagrams) provided by the client. Structure in accordance with client discussions. Computer user platform - PC Windows(95/98/XP/2000).

Description of Project
The content of this project meant that our focus was on knowledge-information components enabled via interactivity.

Multimedia aspects such as video and sound were not central and not part of the core content. Any such resources would in any case play only a supporting role to the key subject content.

Structure and flow (as always) were of central importance, and we did have to re-work some parts.

The end product reflected the basic structure of the initial proto-type and retained some of the specific components developed during that phase.

Produced 225 user screens (plus many other supporting screens/pages etc), 10 core content application files.

We included a set of marketing materials for the client including promotional slideshow resources, and 3 screensavers.

Outcome
There is certainly many other points of interactivity that we would love to add, and options to those that were included.

Comparisons to other similar resources from overseas, suggests what has been produced is high in quality, content, interactivity and design.

4Front Technologies thanks the client for the opportunity to assist in this publication.
 

  Content Items
text materials and hypertext
photos
diagrams
flowcharts
animated diagrams
some product support video and sound

Functionality (some of the list):
interactive farm map
interactive layering maps for classifications
user assistance pop-up text, notes and windows
panoramic-style zoom pictures
database structuring of raw data
records retrieval of data
interface design, content design e.g. menus, backgrounds, etc
hyper-linking content, hypertext to glossary/definition information
easy access glossary system
question and answer quiz content, 8 styles of questioning (e.g. true/false, fill-in-the-blank, associative, multi-choice, variable response, etc)
interactive diagrams and flowcharts: flow control, timer control, user choice flow
access from anywhere but with central menu
text content into small building block learning structures

Our Services Included
All or most of the items associated with a significant interactive multimedia content publication:
project management
client management and liaison
stage reviews, and prototyping
application design, programming,
creating a working structure for the content to work within (after exploring options)
creating (video, graphics, diagrams, charts, animations), amending and adjusting content supplied, maintaining quality
solving issues of a means to display various content
creating supporting sections to the core publication
and much more, including making sure we did our documentation and backup

Time Frames
We worked with the clients time scale, completed development stages that exceeded the clients expectations, and within deadlines.

   
 

Demos & Samplers

Demo

[we hope to provide an extract online here as soon as]

Samples

Promotional slideshow resources: contact client: Dr Peter Singleton

Document Format Size Instructions
Soil Peds screensaver zip 283K requires a zip uninstaller
uncompress to Windows folder
see install note
Soil Texture screensaver zip 140K requires a zip uninstaller
uncompress
to Windows folder
see install note
   
 
 
   

Copyright © 2004 4Front Technologies