Research-Informed Development for Interactive Media

ABSTRACT

This case study investigates how the research-informed development model affects the pedagogical learning outcomes and design solutions of university students responsible for creating interactive advertising and news content for television and the iPhone mobile device. An interdisciplinary group of three professors and 31 undergraduates from advertising, computer science, journalism graphics, and telecommunications employed a research-informed development process to create interactive design products and collect feedback from target users about the interactive advertising, news content, and interface designs and functionality. Students used the feedback from user focus groups to revise and improve the design work before each of three rounds of usability tests.

Keywords::

• Interactive
• media
• pedagogy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Jackie Martinsen and Bill Vaughn of the Center for Media Design at Ball State University for their invaluable assistance with focus group research.

Additional information

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Michael Hanley (M.A., Ball State University) is an Assistant Professor of Advertising in the Department of Journalism at Ball State University. His research interests include interactive advertising, mobile advertising and marketing, new media, and advertising and gender issues. His work has appeared in the International Journal of Mobile Marketing, Journal of Human Subjectivity, and the Journal of Advertising Education.

Jennifer Palilonis (M.A., Ball State University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism at Ball State University. Her research interests include design and content development for interactive news and advertising, research-informed development, multimedia storytelling, multimedia as a teaching and learning

tool, print and online design and blended learning. She is the author of “A Practical Guide to Graphics Reporting” and a media design consultant.

Vinayak Tanksale (M.S., Purdue University) is an instructor in the Department of Computer Science and a Faculty Fellow in the Insight and Research group of the Center for Media Design at Ball State University. His research interests include interactive news and advertising on television and mobile devices, Internet Protocol television (IPTV), convergent news, mobile technologies, and emerging media technologies.