Assignment1: Zulu Love Letter Rationale

By definition, a Zulu Love letter is an African beaded message created by Zulu maidens for their lovers to symbolize their affections, using various colored beads, each with a different meaning. The assignment places emphasis on the requirements and capabilities of the Zulu Love letter on a mobile platform, whether it be on a smartphone or a tablet device. The Zulu Love Letter will appear on a single web page and will stand out due to the interactivity it will offer the user.  Interactivity will be possible through the use of Javascript coding to bring each individual bead to life, taking into consideration the size of each bead and the number of beads per column and row for efficient coding. Javascript

The aforementioned requirements for this interactive web page magazine, work on 3 levels, namely, functional (what people want to do with the web page and designing around meeting those needs), technical (which incorporates considering things like Java support on the mobile device) and finally, considering the user.  The use of the fast-becoming-popular, HTML 5 which has its own set of capabilities, and is more powerful when Javascript is used to detect these capabilities, falls under the requirements. This is under the assumption that most devices nowadays (not considering ancient mobile devices) are able to support Javascript. The use of CSS3, an-up-to-date, and powerful means with which to use media queries to, for example, style the web page, along with the Javascript <canvas> element to create the beads’ interactive abilities, are also key requirements. CSS3 is great because it assists in optimization of the mobile site to make it significantly responsive.

A magazine article - text relevant to the Zulu Love letter might be appropriate here, perhaps giving in-depth explication of what a Zulu Love Letter is, what the colors signify, meaning of the pattern created therein, and how it was created on said site - must be included. The word count of the article is not necessary but definite consideration must be taken in this regard as nobody is keen to engage in a long scroll-down string of text. It may cause users to lose interest. This site should use an image or images in a slideshow perhaps, to generate interest and up the interactivity aspect for user.  However, not all devices will be able to support this slideshow feature. Other constraints such as the size of the screen per device and the speed of the network – smaller apps are better since they make the device operate faster, must be considered.

The capabilities mentioned above relate to what can be done on the various mobile devices regarding this mobile magazine.  Touch, which is the use of the finger to flick, pinch, tap or double tap, press or rotate, is a nifty capability which would be great for making the experience more intuitive for the user. Perhaps using this to enable the user to create the Zulu Love Letter would be an awesome way to truly engage the user. The use of innovations such as Wifi or Bluetooth for users to perhaps send each other  (share) the Zulu Love Letter is worth considering. It all seems challenging but quite exciting in the greater scheme of things.