DIGITAL MEDIA ENGINEERING AND DESIGN:
PROPOSALS FOR THE INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY PROGRAM
5th Int. Conference on
Emerging e-learning
Technologies
and Applications
The High Tatras,
Slovakia
September 6-8, 2007
Martin ŠPERKA, Alena KOVÁROVÁ
Slovak University of Technology, Faculty of Informatics and Information
Technologies,
Ilkovičova 3, 842 16 Bratislava, Slovakia
tel.: +421 2 602 91 548, fax: +421 2 654 20 587, web: www.fiit.stuba.sk
sperka | kovarova@fiit.stuba.sk
Abstract. Rapid development of information, communication and audiovisual
technologies creates new applications, which need professionals [1], [2] who are
able to understand them and to be able to design new products. Many of these
products have engineering and esthetic aspects. In this paper we focus on this field,
which is in Slovakia not taught in a comprehensive way: Digital Media Design. The
goal of our research was to summarize the requirements of the students and
professionals interested in this field by means of questionnaires. These requirements
can be met by joining study programs at the Faculty of Informatics and Information
Technologies (FIIT) and Faculty of Architecture (FA) - Institute of Design at he
Slovak University of Technology (STU).
Keywords: Digital media design, multimedia curriculum, interdisciplinary study
program.
technology and design. Unfortunately in Slovakia
there is neither such university nor a faculty to
cover this. To use effectively existing facilities,
resources, expertise, competences as well as
existing subjects within one university we decided
to research and explore possibilities of extending
existing study programs at the STU in Bratislava.
The main idea is that FIIT could provide major IT
oriented program with minor in design and vice
versa, FA the bachelor in design with minor in
digital media design. Graduates of this type of
study program should cover the lack of experts on
our market area. But this simple idea showed to
be more complex. There exist several reasons.
The first one is that existing subjects should be
modified to meet pre-requisites knowledge for
both groups of students. The second one is
traditional border between world of science and
engineering on one side and the art and design on
the other.
1. INTRODUCTION
Among new products are those using digital
media (DM)- applications integrating interactive
text, image, animation, video, sound, virtual or
enhanced reality. They can be computer network
applications, interactive CD/DVD ROM, mobile
devices, information kiosks and objects
(consumer and industrial electronics) containing
multimedia interfaces and systems. These DM are
gradually filling every kind of our human living
spheres,
therefore
it
requires,
besides
technological foundation, user-friendly interface.
The designer of such interface should have
knowledge and skills in electronic engineering,
information technology and design. There are
many companies where engineers and designers
work together, but in many of them engineers or
designers exclusively. Even the integrated teams
need
to
find
common
language
for
communication
and
the
knowledge
of
fundamentals in other field is very valuable. For
this reason, in many countries exist schools
providing combined education in information
1
other. Just an ordinary example – imagine a
company creating web sites. An art designer
needs to communicate with a programmer and
vice versa but they both use different
“languages”. Would it not be better to have one
person in the company who would understand
both – the art and the program? If it would, would
the students feel like to study such field, which
would cover that? To answer these and other
important questions, we prepared three types of
specialized questionnaires. First was given to
different companies associated with DM, the
second was distributed to students of FIIT STU
and the third one to the FA STU. Few
questionnaires were distributed to Academy of
Fine Arts and Design (AFAD) students.
2. DEFINITIONS OF DIGITAL MEDIA
DESIGN
To clarify, first of all we needed to define the DM
design in context of user interface design.
Analyzing curriculums (related to DM) from
different countries e.g. [1], [2], we realized that
the term of Digital Media is understood in
different ways depending on country, orientation
of people’s professions or type of university – if it
is an art-oriented or a technical one. The term DM
still isn’t a common term and belongs to a group
together with multimedia, intermedia, crossmedia, new media and interactive media. Also the
term design is understood differently. One can tell
that web-design is art emphasizing creativity and
attraction. Others define it as engineering
discipline, where visual-design rules are
stabilized, which are necessary to learn and
respect. This problem was also the reason for
creation international Socrates Erasmus project
Joint Degree in Media Development Engineering
[5], where the goal is to define common body of
knowledge and an international study program.
Among universities from Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, Poland, Slovakia and Spain is also our
faculty.
All of these definitions certify the fact of
existence of different groups of people working in
the same field. Each group has its own vocabulary
and when they meet, they don’t understand each
3. QUESTIONNAIRES
All types of questionnaires should help us devise
a student profile and create a suitable curriculum
of current studying program on FIIT SUT and on
Design Institute of FA STU.
For Companies
Questionnaires for companies (see Tab. 1) were
constructed to find out what kinds of
profession/knowledge they would require from
their employees provided that they would be
graduates of Digital Media Design program.
Table 1. Questionnaire for companies
1 Does your institution develop both software and user interfaces?
a) If yes, user interfaces are designed by programmers.
b) Programmers in collaboration with graphic designers or artists.
c) Others (please specify).
2 Does your company develop contract websites? *
a) If yes, websites are developed only by programmers (experts in
informatics).
b) Only by graphic designers or artists.
c) Programmers collaborating with graphic designers or artists.
d) Others (please specify).
3 Does your company develop websites on its own? *
a) If yes, websites are developed only by programmers (experts in
informatics).
b) Only by graphic designers or artists.
c) Programmers collaborating with graphic designers or artists.
d) Others (please specify).
4 Does your company design and develop interactive CD/DVD ROM-s (for
example catalogues, text books, games...)? *
2
5
6
7
*
a) If yes, websites are developed only by programmers (experts in
informatics).
b) Only graphic designers or artists.
c) Programmers collaborating with graphic designers or artists.
d) Others (please specify).
Does your company / institution develop product or program devices that
require creation of digital interactive user interfaces like cell phones, cash
dispensers, information kiosks, car electronics or audiovisual technology?
a) If yes, interfaces are designed by programmers.
b) Programmers in collaboration with graphic designers or artists.
c) Others (please specify).
In the design process of presented products would you prefer:
a) An expert with programming and also visual (audiovisual) skills or
b) Graphic designer with minimal but sufficient informatics skills or
c) Team of specialists?
Do you think, that creating a new study program, where curriculum is
focused on informatics courses (basics of programming, Internet
technologies, multimedia technologies, ... ), esthetics and design courses
(basics of audiovisual communication, basics of design methodology and
tools for creation, image processing, animation, video, audio ... ) and
business/law courses (management and marketing of electronic content,
intellectual property, copyrights, ...) is needed and useful in Slovakia?
Note: We assume collaboration with content creators.
Design, Ergonomics, Color, Fonts, Graphic
Presentation, Design History, Visual
For Students of FIIT
A questionnaire for students of FIIT was designed
to find out in which of the FA courses these
students would be interested, if they had the
chance to make the choice. The courses, put in the
questionnaire, were chosen according to our
research of similar curriculums on different
universities (see Chapter 2).
1. If you work in a company, do you take
part in creation of human-computer
interface design? Such as interfaces for
programs, for cell phones, for information
kiosks, CDs, DVDs, presentation etc.
Communication Design, Drawing Design,
Photography, Graphic Design, Working with
Camcorder, Photographic Design, Video
Production.
FIIT that would extend your knowledge
and skills about design of DM, would you
join this program?
For FA and AFAD Students
These questionnaires were made under the same
principles as those previous ones, just the courses
were taken form FIIT and we added 4 more to
them.
1. If you work in a company, do you take
part in creation of human-computer
interface design? Such as interfaces for
programs, for cell phones, for information
kiosks, CDs, DVDs, presentations etc.
4. Which of the following courses (from
2. If you work in a company, do you take
2. If you work in a company, do you take
part in a web-pages design?
3. If there would be such study program on
FA) would you prefer to have in this
study program?
part in a web-pages design?
3. If you work in a company, do you take
The list of courses (provided by FA) is
following: Design Basics I, II, Drawing I,
History of Fine Arts I, II, Computer Aided
part in a creation of computer games?
3
4. If you extended your knowledge within
4. EVALUATION
your study on AFAD getting informatics
knowledge and skills, which are
connected to interactive DM design, webdesign, and games, which of the
following FIIT courses would you choose
from a list of subjects?
The majority of data was obtained from FIIT
students working in different companies as we did
not find any effective way how to have them
obtained directly from company leaders. We
gathered 119 filled questionnaires. The following
chart (Fig. 1.) shows the percentage of every
positive answer in each group of questions. We
left out the questions of type “Others (please
specify).” because only a minimum of responders
chose it.
As we can see from the results, our student’s
work usually in companies where programmers
are needed, art designers wouldn’t be able to do
this work on their own (see the low percentage of
1c, 2b, 3b and 4b), but that is nothing curious
about it. An interesting result is that about a half
of these students work in companies where
collaboration with graphic designers or artists
would be effective. Finally, the majority of
respondents (80%) thought that creating a new
study program where curriculum is focused on
informatics, esthetic, design and business/legal
courses is needed and useful in Slovakia.
The list of subjects (provided by FIIT STU) is
following: Procedural Programming (algorithms
and language C), Object Oriented Programming
(Java, C++ or C#), Principles of Information
Systems, Computer Networks, Operating
Systems, Database Systems, Database Systems,
Human-Computer Interaction, Development in
Java 2 Platform, Artificial Intelligence, Computer
Graphics (algorithms, tools, systems), Multimedia
Systems (media types principles, coding,
compression and authoring), Principles of WebEngineering, Internet Security. Other Subjects
(not all now provided): Web-design, Markup and
Scripting Languages for Internet (HTML,
JavaScript, PHP), Information Searching, Data
Mining, Semantic Web, XML, Web3D – Virtual
Reality on Internet.
100%
90%
80%
0,66
70%
0,80
0,64
0,63
0,550,53
60%
50%
40%
0,45
0,390,42
0,37
0,49
0,42
0,42
0,25
30%
20%
1a
1b
1c
2a
2b
0,11
0,05
0,04
0,03
10%
0%
2c
3a
3b
3c
4a
4b
4c
5a
5b
6a
6b
6c
7
Fig. 1. Evaluation chart of answers from companies
Responders of this type of questionnaire were
third year bachelor students. All of them visited
the course of Human Computer Interaction so
they should have a good picture about the
importance and complexity of designing in DM.
We had 193 responders. The percentages of
positive answers on the first three questions were
71%, 44% and 83%. This shows that many
students indeed already work with design and
would like to have also a study program focused
in such a way. The following chart (see Fig. 2)
shows their preferences on different FA courses
related to DM design.
4
bj
ec
t
O
ri e
M
nt
ar
ed
P
ku
ro
De
Pr
p
c
ve
ed
og
an
lo
ur
ra
d
p
al
Sc
m
m
Pr
m
en
rip
in
og
ti
ti n
g
n
r
am
g
Ja
La
m
v
ng
a
in
2
g
ua
ge pl a
tfo
Pr
s
Da
rm
fo
in
rI
ci p
ta
Pr
n
b
le
in
te
as
s
In
ci p
rn
e
of
fo
et
le
S
rm
W
s
y
st
eb
at
of
em
io
-E
In
n
s
S e form ngi
ne
ar
a
er
ti o
ch
in
n
in
g
Sy
g,
Da
st
em
ta
M
s
ul
M
tim
in
in
ed
g,
O
…
pe ia S
ra
ys
tio
t
em
Co
n
s
Sy
m
pu
st
e
t
er
m
Ar
s
Ne
ti f
ic i
t
wo
al
rk
In
Hu
Se
s
te
m
cu
ll ig
an
rit
e
y
-C
nc
on
om
e
W
In
p
eb
te
ut
rn
3D
Co er I
et
nt
–
m
e
vi r
pu
ra
c
tu
te
al
r G ti on
re
ra
al
ph
ity
i cs
on
In
te
W
e b rne
t
-d
es
ig
n
O
to
ry
of
F
H
is
in
e
Ar
to
ry
t
of I, II
D
es
ig
n
Fo
nt
D
ra
C
w
ol
in
o
g
V
D r
isu
e
E
rg sig
al
n
on
C
om
om
m
ics
un
D
ra
i
c
P
ho atio win
g
to
n
I
G gr a De
sig
ra
ph
ph
i
n
ic c D
es
P
re
V
se ig n
W
i
d
or
nt
e
at
kin o
io
P
g
r
n
C
o m w it odu
ct
pu h c
am ion
te
rA
c
id or d
ed
er
D
e
P
ho sig
n
to
G
ra gr a
ph
D phi
es
y
c
D
ig
es
n
i
B
as gn
ics
I,
II
H
is
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
10%
0,66 0,67
0,40 0,41
0,09
90%
80%
60%
0,50 0,53
50%
40%
30%
20%
0,06
0,11 0,14
0,17
0,22 0,25
0,33
0,28 0,31
Fig. 3. Evaluation chart of student’s options studying at FA
5
0,71 0,74
0,56 0,59 0,59 0,60
0,46 0,48
0,33 0,34
0,13
Fig. 2. Evaluation chart of student’s options studying at FIIT
100%
0,94
0,72
0,78
70%
0,56
0,36 0,39
0%
Reader of Abstracts Bridging the Gap
Between Eastern and Western European
Multimedia Content: Salzburg, Austria, 24.26.5.2002.
[3] Pratt Institute, Digital Design and Interactive
Media, http://www.pratt.edu/digital_designassoc# Retrieved 20.2.2007.
[4] Carnegie Mellon University, Faculty of
Design, Master of Design in Interaction
Design,
http://www.design.cmu.edu/files/intdprogbo
ok2007.pdf Retrieved 20.2.2007
[5] Official web site of the Socrates Erasmus
project Joint Degree in Media Development
Engineering. http://www.jdmde.eu. Created
in January 2007.
It is obvious that students really do not care about
history, less than a half would like to know more
about things like font, color, drawing staff,
ergonomics and visual communication design.
More than a half of responders but less than ¾
was interested in the rest of the courses. The most
attractive courses are Design Basics and Graphics
Design what show the lack of information from
this area in our educational process.
We got 36 questionnaires from FA students. Fig.3
shows the results. We did not obtain many
responders from AFAD, but taking those few as a
relevant sample, none of them liked Procedural
Programming, Object Oriented Programming,
Database Systems and Development in Java 2
platform. Every responder likes Human-Computer
Interaction, Web-design and Web3D. Each one
works in some company.
THE AUTHOR(S)
Martin Šperka, associate professor, teaching and
research in Human - Computer Interaction,
Multimedia and Computer Graphics.
Alena Kovárová, PhD. student research interests
in Human - Computer Interaction, Multimedia
and Virtual Reality in e Learning
.
5. CONCLUSIONS
It is reasonable and necessary to create a new
study program on DM Design, as the companies
would often find effective to have somebody
understanding both the programming and the art
design. FIIT STU students like to know most
about Design Basics and Graphics Design and the
FA and AFAD students about Human-Computer
Interaction, Web-design and Web3D.
Acknowledgement: We would like thanking to
Ľubomír Horník, associate professor at the FA
STU and Oľga Zemanovičová, who helped us to
collect data at the FA STU and AFAD. This work
was partially supported by the Slovak Cultural
Grant Agency (KEGA) under the contract No.
3/3206/05 - Study in Design of Interactive Digital
Media.
6. REFERENCES
[1] Sperka, M.: Multimedia in Computing
Curricula.
In:
proceedings
of
the
International Conference on Computer
Systems and Technologies (e-Learning) –
CompSysTech´2002: Sofia, Bulgaria, 2021.6.2002. – pp.IV.16-1 – IV.16-5.
[2] Sperka, M.: Education in Multimedia: What
Future Tools Creators Should Know. In:
6