The paper is finished. All done. Waiting on a grade.
In summary, the hypothesis that optical illusions could be used in a utilitarian fashion was correct. Using optical illusions I was able to convey information that users were able to effectively use to complete a task. Read the paper for more.
I had a lot of fun working on the project. Going out to Philladelphia for the research symposium was great. I will be submitting my paper to a research conference in the next week or so, my professor thinks it has a good chance of being accepted, so that's cool.
The project has already impressed quite a few important people. I recently talked with the President of a local software development company, who saw my project poster, and he was very interested in some of the things that I proposed from it.
I want to thank the staff of Gamedev for stickifying my Survey Thread (Oluseyi is the one who did it, I believe). Because of that, I collected 550 data points, which really made my data look nice and complete.
Things I learned from the project:
- stretching out into other fields of expertise is recommended
- test driven development ALWAYS saves time. You may feel like you are writing twice the code, but the truth is that you are spending half the time (total) writing it. ALWAYS test, THEN code. NEVER code before you test. Even if you think it's small. Just don't do it.
- regression testing is kind of dirty, but it can get the job done in a pinch. For 2D applications, it may not be necessary in most cases, you should try to find a way around it.
- never write java applets. applications are okay (but only just so), applets are garbage. I wonder how good flash is for web apps?
- pace yourself and work is a breeze! keeping this journal over the course of the project really made the poster and the final paper a simple task.
So, if anyone out there has a job for a graduating computer science student that involves 2D graphics and making people dizzy, send me an email!
