Michael L Smith: HCI Professional

Portfolio

HCI Work

Projects, written work, and research:

  • Graduate Office

    The Graduate Course Proposal page was created for the Graduate Council. The Graduate Council is a committee comprised of elected representatives from Faculty Assembly charged with reviewing and approving graduate programs, course outlines, and policy and procedures dealing with all aspects of graduate education. The purpose of creating this web page was to modify graduate course proposal process from paper to electronic.

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  • VESID

    This project was done for the New York State VESID Office in Syracuse NY. It is a collection of all the counselors resources into a web portal.

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  • Fitness Express

    Fitness express was built from user requirements gathered, and modified according to user testing. This system was built in the first semester of my graduate studies as a group project. The goal of the project was to design, prototype and build a computer application that will assist people with meeting their exercise and dietary goals. It is hoped that this program will contribute to the good health of its users by assisting in tracking and recording data.

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  • A novel twist on RISK

    The Drunken Risk project was done for Graphical User Interface class, we took a typical game and attempted to design an unusual interface for this game. We additionally changes the basis for the game, from a world war, to a batttle between local bars.

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GUI: A novel twist to Risk

About this Project

Initially when this game begins up to four players may sign in and the 16 bars are randomly assigned (4 to each player, when there are 4 players, when there are less than 4 players the bars are divided evenly among all players each player getting the same number of bars.) and each is given 'N' number of drunks and the players decide how to distribute them among their bars. Once all players sign in (at least two players are needed with a maximum of four) they are shown a window which is their control panel.

In each players control panel their bars are the first list (the left most). The number displayed to the right of the bar name is the number of drunken patrons in their bar. This is the similar to soldiers in a country in the original version of risk. Each list is a different color to help distinguish them during play. When a particular player begins his turn he first must distribute his reinforcements. Each player at the start of their turn is given a number of reinforcements that they can place in each of their bars. Players use the pull down list to select the bar and spinner to select number of drunks to place into bar. Then select 'ok', when their reinforcements are completely deployed, the deployment window will close and they must decide what they would like to do next. They may also re-distribute the drunks they already have. To do this they select 'move' on the main control panel. Then the Move your patron's window opens. They select the bar they want to move the patrons from and the bar they want to move the patrons to, and then enter the number of drunks they wish to move. So if they enter their move as in the preceding window .

After they press 'ok' they see a message which tells them of their intended move in the window below. Their main control Panel is then updated to reflect their deployment of drunks. At this point the player may decide to attack another bar; he uses the control panel for his and selects a bar from his list, then selects a bar from his 3 opponents lists. He then presses 'roll' and a pair of dice are rolled if his dice is higher he wins the battle and the opponent loses 1 drunk from his bar if he loses (the roll) he loses one drunk, he then can pass, by pressing 'pass' or continue by pressing 'roll' again. If a player loses all their drunks they are out of the game.

So if Player 1 decides to use Toucans to attack The Capt's Lounge, he would select Toucans from his list and Capt's Lounge from his opponents list. He would then press 'Roll' to roll the dice. In this example the dice roll was '4' for Player1 and '2' for his opponent. So in this case the opponent would lose '1' drunk from The Capt's Lounge. The main panel would update the number of drunks (Not implemented) and play would continue. At this point Player 1 could continue or Pass. And play continues each player in turn until someone has all the bars and they are the winner.

Screenshots

This is what the interface for DrunkenRisk appears like to a typical user, during play.