Production Team Heidi Chen (chenhaom@msu.edu) as Producer and Media Designer
Holly Giesman (giesmanh@msu.edu) as Producer and Media Designer
Su Kwak (kwaksu@msu.edu) as Content Designer and Interface Designer for Flash
Asuka Nakagawa (nakagawa@msu.edu) as Content Designer and Interface Designer for DVD
Luis Rosero (roserolu@msu.edu) as Programmer for Flash and DVD
Overview of Project A lot of people are interested in yoga, but they either do not know much about it or have misconceptions. For example, many people do not realize that people of all ages and physical conditions can do yoga. The goals of our project are to introduce people into the world of yoga and clear up some misconceptions.

The multimedia and interactive aspects of our project made learning about Yoga an interesting experience.

The DVD is designed for people who want to follow along and practice Yoga while the website is informational.

See the project!
Summary of
the unique, compelling, or interesting aspects
of the project		 Content Design
  • What is Yoga - interviews with yoga instructor and experienced yoga practitioner
  • Benefits - interviews with 6 yoga practitioners
  • Lessons (learn about Yoga postures, beginning from centering all the way to relaxation)
    • Centering
    • Warming up
    • Postures
    • Relaxation
Visual Design

We chose orange and purple as our theme colors because we wanted to create a warm yet mysterious feeling. In our visual design, we tried to evoke the feeling of softness and gentleness. So, we avoided using anything square or hard-edged.

Media Design

Video is a crucial portion of our project. We shot yoga lessons and interviews with yoga practitioners. In order to interactively involve our audience, we decided to provide two angles of the yoga postures and also a modified version. Therefore, we used three cameras in the production of the Yoga lessons.

Jason, audio was very important in our project. We used many different relaxing songs under the video in the postures section and the What is Yoga section to enhance the mood.

Technical Design

The project was delivered both on DVD and as an interactive Flash website. The target resolution for the DVD is standard 720 by 480, while the website has a target resolution of 800 by 600.

For the DVD, we implemented the basic DVD multimedia types (i.e. MPEG 2 video, audio, photoshop images, etc). Total file size in DVD is 3.57 GB.

For the website, we included compressed audio in the What is Yoga section and Benefit section. We used still image movies instead of video to save downloading time. Music is in MP3 format. Our unique"Fake movie" made the web site more interesting than it might have been with only normal still images.

Interactivity Design

We implemented many unique interactive elements. In the DVD, we created a yogi character for introducing extra information. There are also two angles and modified yoga postures for audience to choose from. On the DVD, you can choose the order in which you want to watch the postures. Then, in our website, we have a checklist for the user to customize their unique yoga workout. Finally, we also give the user the choice to view all the postures.

Production Process

The entire production process corresponded pretty well with our original timeline. Our group was constantly aware of the time constrain and was very motivated to make each milestone, which paved the way toward our successful accomplishment of the whole project. We realized most of the goals we set at the beginning of our project.

Although we did encounter some problems, we tried to solve them quickly to make sure production went smoothly.
Learnings and Findings The Storage Crisis!

We met serious storage problems with video files. We had nearly 60GB of raw video footage digitized, so we had to use a lot of personal computer storage space and seek outside help. Jason was nice to loan us his Ipod.

From User Testing

We learned that the menu on the website needed to be changed because it was too difficult to find. The arrows in the postures section were counterintuitive. People thought that we needed to include instructions on the Yogi functioning. Finally, people were surprised to learn that Yoga is not a religion!
The Post Mortem The post mortem was held on May 1, 2003.

What went right?
  • We were happy with our final project and believe that it was interesting, unique and professional-looking. We were able to include a great deal of content on both the DVD and the website. We believe that we effectively utilized both mediums to incorporate an appropriate level of interactivity. And, the interactivity greatly enhanced the content and the user experience.
  • We slightly kept the timeline. Our timeline was a bit too optimistic considering the amount of video footage that we obtained and the time necessary to edit it. The shooting and editing was completed later than expected.
What went wrong?
  • We wanted to have animated Yogi cartoons intermixed with video, but time did not permit.
  • We had some technical problems: Luis spend a good amount of time to figure out how to go to another scene from inside embedded movie clips in Flash.
  • In DVD Studio Pro, we had problems with angles and realized that each angle has to be exactly the same length (down to the frame). Even if clips are not the same length, DVD Studio Pro tells you that they are. So, you have to check on exact length in Final Cut Pro.
Future improvement
  • If we had more time, we would do more site visits before shooting in order to arrange for perfect lighting and location.
  • We would try to use a higher bit rate on the videos to eliminate some of the video noise that we experienced using 3.0 MBps.
  • We would use animation.
  • We would use more transitions on the DVD.
  • On the website, we would like to improve the look of the scrolling text to make it easier to read.
Screen Shots
from Flash		 Yoga Benefit Interviews (Still Image Movie) Yoga Lessons (Customize Yoga Workout )

Yoga Lessons (Checklist and the Result) Yoga Lessons (Still Image Movie )