Description:
In today's families, face-to-face communication is difficult due to busy schedules. Many times, family members have little time to talk to their loved ones and must resort to leaving notes on the family meeting place -- the refrigerator, the one place in the home every family member visits at least once per day.In CS 3302, our team designed and implemented the software component to a video-based messaging system. This system allows family members to leave "movie mail" for each other, increasing face-to-face
communications. In addition, one family member is able to leave a private message for another family member, allowing adults to leave messages for each other without the children being able to read them,
for example.The software identifies a family member and gives that person the option of leaving a message for another family member or retrieving his/her own messages. Future versions of MovieMail might use a facial recognition system to authenticate users. Such a facial recognition system would be ideal for children who may not be able to understand or use conventional messaging systems or for older adults who may have trouble accessing a system using a keyboard or message pad.
The system we designed was prototype software for a video message pad. Our system runs on a conventional personal computer with an attached video camera.
The interface for the MovieMail system is non-intuitive and was quickly designed when incompatibilities with the provided facial recognition program prevented its implementation. The task in this project is to
design an interface to the MovieMail system which would allow all family members to quickly and easily access messages and memos. The interface must be simple enough for a young child to use and easy for an adult with little or no computer experience to use.