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CPE/CSC 484 User-Centered Interface Design and Development Winter 2006
Status Draft
Points 50
DeadlineWeek 10

CPE/CSC 484-W06 User-Centered Interface Design and Development Final Team Project

Project Overview

This quarter, the projects should be aligned along two themes. The first one is the Learning Commons at Cal Poly's library, with the emphasis on the development of a prototype of a system, application or infrastructure that supports learning, and can be used in an environment like the Learning Commons. The second theme is the use of tablet PCs, both with respect to end user's perspective of an application, and the developer's perspective.

The emphasis of the project should be on the user interaction and user interface aspects, not so much on the underlying functionality. You can also use an existing product and develop an alternative interaction paradigm or user interface for it.

Project Topic

Each team can select their own topic, but please coordinate it with me.

Project Organization

The project is a team effort, with a team size of about 4-5 people. As for the assignments, please create a thread on the Blackboard discussion forum with a short description of your topic, and a list of team members. Add other materials as you go.

Project Presentations

There will be an initial project presentation where you present your project idea, the initial design, a development plan, and a plan for a usability evaluation of the final product or system. The presentation should be accompanied by a document that describes the above aspects.

At the end of the quarter, your team will present the results of your work. In the final presentation, you will demonstrate the final product, and discuss important aspect of its conception, design, and development from a user-centered and usability-oriented perspective. You should also include a preliminary usability evaluation. This presentation is accompanied by a final report, or possibly a poster. If it is practical, the presentations will be given to a larger audience, either as a formal presentation, or through a poster session.

Project Documentation

The documentation for your project should document the purpose, goals and objectives, requirements, data collection outcomes, and final product of your project. If appropriate, you can also discuss the design process, main interaction methods, and evaluation methods that you used. This document does not have to be very long, and you can refer to or include earlier documents (e.g. from Assignments 2-4). The main part of the documentation can consist of images of the system you develop as the final class project, but it should be accompanied by some explanations that address the issues mentioned above. Please post the documentation on the Blackboard discussion board.

Mutual Team Member Evaluations

Since it can be difficult for me to judge the contributions of individual team members to the overall effort, I am asking for your feedback on the performance of your team mates. Follow this link to a template Mutual Team Member Evaluation Sheet as an Excel file. I reserve the right to adjust these scores, however, especially in cases where all team members give each other the maximum score without sufficient justification. I may also ask you for further documentation to support your contribution to the team, or your evaluation of a team member's contribution.

Grading

Project Grading Scheme
Initial Presentation 5
Initial Documentation 5
Final Presentation 15
Final Documentation 15
Mutual Team Member Evaluation 10

The overall score for the project is 50 points; 40 come out of my evaluation of the team project, and usually every team member gets the same score. If there is a clear discrepancy between the contributions and performance of the different team members, I may give individual scores for team members. Up to 10 points come from an evaluation of your team mates, calculated as the average of all your team mates' scores for your work.

A Few Notes on Teamwork

A substantial degree of your grade in this class depends on the overall performance of your team. This can be good (you do nothing, and still get a good grade) or bad (you do all the work, but you don't get the grade you deserve since the other team members didn't do that well). Ideally, every team member should contribute a roughly equal share. In reality, this is not the case because team members have different backgrounds, experience, work habits, cultures, etc. Just like in a professional work environment, you have to find a balance between looking after your own interest, and contributing to the overall team effort. If at any point you feel that there are serious problems with your project team, feel free to talk to me, and we will try to find a solution.



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