How’d they do it? Deconstructing Google Cultural Institute

This morning I stumbled across what appeared to be a sponsored tweet from Google.

Discover 42 new online historical exhibits telling the stories of the 20th century at google.com/culturalinstit…. Details: goo.gl/LHMOX

I like history so I followed the link.  Am I glad I did. What I found was an amazingly well done site full of enriching content.  Maybe more importantly, considering my background, it was cool.  Within minutes I was browsing the site on the Mac, the iPad, and finally on my Galaxy III (Android OS).  The site delivered a consistent experience on each device.

As an eLearning developer looking for the best tools and practices for both traditional and mobile web I was very intrigued by An HTML5 site, incorporating responsive design and images that that works across multiple platforms and devices. So how'd they do it?  I was determined to find out, or at least get some more insight.

First Things First...

On initial inspection they seem to have actually hidden things pretty well.  Right-clicking to view the source is disabled, so I had to use Chrome's Developer Tools to view the source.  I copied and pasted into a new document in Dreamweaver and then used the "Apply Source Formatting" command to make it nice and neat. There appeared to be only a few linked JavaScript files.  YouTube API, JS API, and Plus One API.  Most everything else seems to be behind the scenes written on the fly. I did take a quick look at two of the JavaScript files but as they had been minimized (extra spaces removed to reduce file size) anything meaning full was going to take a good deal of time to dig up.

Viewing the document in Design View did not provide the results I had expected.  I was presented with a few division (DIV) tags but the majority of the document was populated by list items (<LI>) tags. Search engines use a number of things including header, division, and list item tags to discern the structure of information on a page.  It was as surprising to find the content laid out in such a format, as it was to find no supporting CSS styles to define how this information should appear.

Digger Deeper

Take for example the list item highlighted in the first image below. It defines the piece of content that can be seen in the lower right hand corner of he homepage and in the second image below.  Where is the graphical information?  It's not on the page so it must be in the CSS, right?

No. The first clue can be found in the class the list item uses.  It's empty.  Therefore there is no clear tie from this list item to anything in the CSS.  To confirm this I searched the CSS for anything that might be associated with "Anne Frank House". A quick look through the 4800 line document did not appear to even turn up anything that defined how ANY list item should appear, let alone this specific one.

Flip, Switch, Repeat...

Since I was not getting very far in my investigation using Dreamweaver, I decided to switch over to Chrome Developer Tools.

For anyone not familiar, Chrome Developer Tools is a built in piece of the browser that among other things let you view live code on a page. Dynamic elements or scripts activated as the page is rendered will be visible here.  Moussing over an element in the code view will highlight the same element in the browser window. It even displays what CSS descriptor is tied to selected item.

Using this method I drilled down to the <DIV> tag associated with my example from above.  Yes, that is correct - <DIV> tag.  The list item in the static html appeared to be describing the "Anne Frank House" graphic, as I could find no other reference to it.

Now I seemed to be getting some answers. The list item I initial saw when viewing the source was now defined on the live page in a much more complex fashion seen below.

Hints and Allogations...

Based on my discovery so far It's my best guess that the scripts used on the page utilize the basic structure found in the static <DIV>, <UL>, and <LI> item tags as a data source for formatting content to a specific browser and size. For further evidence of this, focus on the highlighted section in the image above.  Now not only do we have a CSS class associated with the <DIV> container, we also have information that defines the background image used in the style attribute of the <DIV>.

I now had some pretty solid information to confirm what I had already believed; the site is using responsive design to tailor how the page appears across browsers, platforms and devices.  What about responsive images?  Images that are delivered to the browser to based on the available size.  I also had some good information on this as well.

I have read up on two methods of responsive images.  One uses CSS and media queries.  A style sheet is attached to the page based on different minimum and maximum sizes of the browser. When the page loads the correct style sheet is applied.  The images delivered through these style sheets are sized to cover a range. Scaling the image covers the difference.

The other method I have seen uses PHP to return an image.  Instead of your typical source URL for an image it would be to a PHP script to determine the most appropriate image to deliver.  You toss in some additional parameters on the query string and the server side script sends you back the correct image.  Even these I don't believe are exact. It seems to me a great deal of processing power would be required to generate and exact image size you needed on the fly.  If anyone would have processing power to spare it just might be Google.

A Test of Wills

What method is being used to return the background in the "Anne Frank" example?  It might be a little of both as I did see some signs of media queries being used in the CSS.  To get a better idea I devised a test.  With the Developer Tools open I sized my browser to about a quarter of the screen size.  I re-selected the <DIV> that defined the example I had been using.  As I mentioned this displays the associated CSS of this element.  I then right clicked on the linked assigned to the URL attribute and had it open in a new tab.

This returned the rather small image seen below.  I then saved the file and looked at it properties; 255 pixels wide and 96 pixels high with a files size of just 12kb.  I then opened the browser window up as large as I could and repeated the process. This produced and image 511 pixels wide and 193 pixels high with a file size of 41kb.  Not only was the image appearing larger it also had a larger files size.  Though I am not certain Google is using PHP as in the second responsive image method I described it does appear they are performing something similar.

The Score...

Though I don't quite know the exact details of how Google has pulled off the site, I do have a far better understanding of some of the methods they have used.  This understanding has lead me to wonder about other areas.  How have they integrated the horizontal click and drag, horizontal mouse wheel scrolling and replicated the functionality with gestures on mobile devices?

Be sure to check back and see what I have discovered.

Did I miss something?  Do you have a different take?  I would love to hear from you.

Philly Download – My biggest takeaways from mLearning DevCon 2012

Philly Download – My biggest takeaways from mLearning DevCon 2012

I spent the better part of the past week in Philadelphia attending mLearning DevCon 2012 with Greg Gardner and Michael Sheyahshe.  Below is some of the great stuff I picked up on.  

Titanium Studio

Titanium Studio is  a free (depending on the licensing you chose) mobile development tool for creating content across multiple platforms – Very much like FlashBuilder.  My comparision is both a compliment and an insult.  It's complex, but then again a software package that publishes "native" apps to IOS, Android, Blackberry and WebOS was not going to be simple.  In addition to having a similar interface to FlashBuilder the code is very ActionScript like. So far it does not have the complexity of Sencha or the unfamiliar aspects of jQuery.  

I have been trying to get it up and running and have run into some snags. I contacted Jeff Batt of Rapid Intake who gave the presentation.  He provided a link from Lynda.com to help get me up and running.  I have only just started looking it over but seems like it will be a big help.

Before you can get to the tutorial though you will need to install.  That can be problematic.  There were a ton of updates to install before you could even get rolling.

Adobe Edge

Another cool tool I heard about at eLearningDevCon.  It's an HTML5 animation tool from Adobe that uses an interface a great deal like After Effects.  It does provide for interactivity, but just based on the whole timeline set up of the interface, it's an animation tool, not a heavy programming tool.  The best part is it's FREE! At least to try out.  I was able to pull up something at the conference about a licensing deal where if you signup now for the current version, that license will transfer over when a more official version come out.  Unfortunately I have not been able to navigate my way back.  All I can currently find is Edge available on Adobe's Creative Cloud.  You will need an Adobe ID to sign in.

Kwik 2

This is a cool plug-in for photoshop.  I don't see as much use for this but, I think it could be very useful for proof of concept and quick prototyping.  Kwik will turn a photoshop document into a mobile app, including events and gestures.  To me it's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness - it's a PSD.  I think it's going to produce large files.  That said I have not had a chance to look at it very well.  You can get a free version that will support projects up to 6 pages.  Thanks to Orlando Rivera (http://digitalsummit.tv/) for cluing me in on this one.

http://www.kwiksher.com/news/introducing-kwik-2-beta/

Tin Can API

A more powerful, easier to use SCORM?  That's an idea I can get behind. This one might have the biggest implications but so far as I can tell it's also the most nebulous.  Tin Can API is the newest flavor of SCORM.  They did talk a lot about what it can do and the kind of things you can track now but both the keynote and the hands on sessions were light on "this is how you do it".  To me the idea of SCORM where you do not have to be connected to the LMS is pretty cool.  You can turn almost anything into something trackable.  Looks like they are using "activities" as the basis now.  I don't know how many action words they have set up but its based on things like learned, attended and that sort of thing.

I was able to learn a bit more about the API from the site but I am still digging into the details.

I also got my reeducation in mobile video courtesy of Nick Floro (http://nickfloro.com/). Biggest takeaway there?  That is was long overdue.

The low key conference was very interesting.  I learned a great deal .  Not so much actual techniques but just whats out there and tools I was not aware of.  Thanks so much to Jason Bickle, Rapid Intake, and all of the sponsors (including ICF) for putting on a very educational week.

Four mobile learning presentations

After "pulling technological rabbits out hats", "leaping tall requirements documents", and "turning back timelines" in order to provide the highest quality online and mobile web products for our clients what else has this Tech Team been up to?

A-conferencing we go, a-conferencing we go…..that's right, after giving 12 presentations at two national conferences  and two nationally available webcasts already this year, the Tech Team is back at it. 

Mike Raines, Michael Sheyahshe and Greg Gardner will be speaking at mLearningDevCon Oct 2-5 in Philadelphia.  We will be giving the following four presentations:

1. Creating iBooks Content for iPad – Greg Gardner
2. 'Nuff Said: Tips & Tricks from Digital Comics to Breathe Life into Your HTML5 mLearning – Michael Sheyahshe
3. A "Flash" of Freshness: Repurposing Existing Flash Content for Use in Mobile Development – Mike Raines
4. How to Skin mLearning Content with Your Own CSS – Greg Gardner

Greg will also be leading a mLearning Strategies roundtable session.
 
ICF has posted a web page for you to review the presentations:

http://www.icfi.com/events/conferences-and-trade-shows/2012/10/mlearning-devcon-2012 

You can also link to this page from the Training and Technical Assistance and Organizational Learning and Performance pages on the ICF web site in the Related Events sections of those pages.

ICF, the Tech Team and mLearningDevCon will use social media to announce what we are doing.

Feel free to connect with us at any of these sites.

Twitter accounts to follow:@ICFI, @gardelearndev, @eLearnDevGeek, @mas_edev , @mLearningdevcon, and #MLDC2012
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/ICFINternational/  and  http://www.facebook.com/mLearningDevCon
LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/company/icf-international/
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/117972905686513925698/posts
Conference Web site - http://mlearningdevcon.com/

Unity 3D Mobile Overview

Unity 3D is an excellent all-around tool for multi-platform developers.  With the additional plug-ins for Android and iOS, developers can also create rich, immersive, and interactive content for mobile devices utilizing the same build-once-deploy-many pipeline. This is one of Unity's many great innovations, which allows developers to power to import assets in their original form (i.e., Maya, Max, Photoshop, etc.) while Unity 3D does the work of converting everything to the correct formats for in the various and different builds.

Below, I have provided some distilled information for using Unity to develop in applications and content for Android and iOS devices.


Unity 3D Overview:

Unity 3D "is an integrated authoring tool for creating 3D video games or other interactive content such as architectural visualizations or real-time 3D animations. Unity's development environment runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, and the games it produces can be run on Windows, Mac, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, iPad, iPhone," Android, and online utilizing the Unity web player plugin within the browser. Unity consists of both an editor for developing/designing content and a game engine for executing the final product. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine))

Currently there are over

"one thousand Unity games for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad [that] are published and live on the App Store." (http://unity3d.com/unity/publishing/ios)

Some examples of markets that potentially benefit from creating content with Unity 3D include:


Health:

image from CliniSpace website

CliniSpace™ (http://www.clinispace.com/)

CliniSpace™ offers the next generation of training environments for healthcare professionals – immersive, authentic, 3D virtual environments that replicate the familiar surroundings of daily work. Logging into these environments, learners encounter realistic scenarios and problems. They practice alone and in teams, learning to make decisions, to communicate effectively, and to recover safely from errors. As a hosted application, accessed over the Internet, CliniSpace™ is a cost-effective and scalable addition to all simulator training. 

DoD:
Aircraft Marshalling Virtual Trainer (http://hwd3d.com/services/custom-3d-virtual-trainers-simulations-and-training-videos/aircraft-marshalling-virtual-trainer/):

"Aircraft Marshalling is a job function that requires the use of hand signals to communicate with and direct pilots and other relevant personnel during take-off and taxi. To train for this skill-set, the student would need to physically perform the hand/arm signals and an instructor corrects or approves them instantly. But what does the Canadian Air Force schoolhouse do when there is a lack of human instructors and a need to provide scalability? Enter Heartwood & Atlantis Eduplus. Heartwood & Atlantis Eduplus developed an application that uses motion sensing technology (COTS device i.e. the Kinect) to accurately translate real life body gestures into on-screen virtual actions. An on-screen instructor (instructor avatar) leads trainees through a series of lessons, and the learner must repeat the signals accurately to advance. As the game progresses, the trainee is exposed to a variety of virtual scenarios that test their marshalling skills. Gold Winner at Serious Play Award Competition."

image from Roma website

Academia / Education:
Virtual History – Roma (http://itunes.apple.com/it/app/virtual-history-roma/id410358487?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4) iOS app

A real journey through time, in Italian and English, in Rome, the capital of the greatest empire of antiquity, and explored virtually reconstructed in 3D at 360 degrees. The format offers a surprising rediscovery of Roman civilization through media and innovative features : digital restoration of the statues from the spectacular aerial views of the exciting metropolis of 2000 years ago, the manipulation of models of legionnaires, gladiators and war machines to the exploration of monuments in 3D, including the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, the Mausoleum of Adrian and many others. The reconstruction of the original in many points is superimposed and compared with the current reality. As through a time machine, we can observe the transformation of the site where it currently stands the Coliseum, originally the fire and from the pond the Golden House of Nero, to the amphitheater. The virtual journey continues to Pompeii, Herculaneum and other places of the Roman civilization - in Europe and the Mediterranean - proposed with 3d models, fact sheets and hundreds of high quality images. Among the unpublished content, the reconstruction of the original appearance of the "home of the Gladiators", recently dropped out in the context of Abundance Street in Pompeii. Maps and introductory cards allow us to investigate the origins of Rome, the conquests and the downfall of ' empire, the techniques of engineering, art, war and entertainment of the Romans, the profiles of the emperors, to find out what survived in the modern world of Roman civilization. Virtual History International is the first app to use the technology ' Bubble Viewer ', designed in Italy and patented in the U.S., which values the sensors in mobile tablets (accelerometer and compass) by creating a new generation of bubble-shaped digital illustrations. The new digital book becomes a sort of telescope that can see the 3D reconstruction of Imperial Rome and in the future - in subsequent releases of the series - other imaginary of other cities and environments of all kinds.

screenshot from iTunes website

Self-Help / Personal Enrichment:
Tiga Talk Speech Therapy Games (http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/tiga-talk-speech-therapy-games/id412024533?mt=8#&partnerId=30&siteID=6pnvjxKjsS4-IwIsPIIHeXTE4dK6lM4ZCQ)

"Tiga Talk Speech Therapy Games", developed with licensed speech and language pathologists, is a fun way for children to develop speech sounds through playful voice-controlled games that can improve speech clarity, articulation, and instill confidence. The app is for parents and speech therapists working with toddlers and children with language delays, as well as any parent looking to give their child a head start in early language development. Children learn fundamental phonetic sounds, that are the building blocks of language, as they play 23 fun voice controlled games on an imaginative adventure with Tiga and friends.

Integration with other mobile development platforms
Applications created with Unity 3D can be run on Windows, Mac, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, iPad, iPhone, Android, and online utilizing the Unity web player plugin within the browser. True Multiplatform Authoring Unity lets you target all platforms from a single tool. Within a single project you have complete control over delivery to all platforms. ('Build Once…Deploy Many [times]', as I like to say.) "Publishing a build for iPhone will create an entire, complete Xcode project that just works. Press 'Build and Run' in Unity and [the] game automatically compiles in Xcode, installs, and launches." (http://unity3d.com/unity/publishing/ios)

Additional software and/or considerations needed to create mobile content in Unity 3D 

iOS Requirements
In order to license and use Unity iOS Publishing, developers must meet the following requirements: You must be an approved Apple Developer for iOS and install the iOS SDK (requires Intel-based Mac running Snow Leopard)

Android Requirements
"Android has proven itself to be the fastest growing mobile platform. Unity gives you the power to painlessly develop applications for any of the 30 million-plus Android devices out there."

Setting up your Android Developer environment for Unity 3D (http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/android-GettingStarted.html)
Before you can run Unity Android games on the actual device, you'll need to have your Android developer environment set up. This involves downloading and installing the Android SDK with the different Android plaforms and adding your physical device to your system (this is done a bit differently depending on whether you are developing on Windows or Mac). This setup process is explained on the Android developer website, and there may be additional information provided by the manufacturer of your device.