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| Status | Final |
| Points | 40 |
| Deadline | Week 10 |
The term project is an important part of this class, and provides an opportunity to practice some of the methods discussed in class, and described in the literature. This quarter, the projects should be aligned along the theme of interacting with computers without emphasis on mouse and keyboard as input devices.
The emphasis of the project is on the user interaction and user interface aspects, not so much on the underlying functionality. You can also do a usability evaluation of an existing product or system, and design an alternative interaction paradigm or user interface for that system.
Each team can select their own topic, but please coordinate it with me. Preferably the final project should be a continuation of topics addressed in earlier assignments.
The project is a team effort, with a team size of about 4-5 people. Ideally, your team should be the same as for the earlier assignments. We will continue to use the Blackboard Wiki as the repository for project materials. Add your project materials to the Wiki as you go, and use the project page linked from the overview table as the main entry point for your team project.
The proposal should describe the topic, related work, project method and tools, and the intended timeline for the work. You do not necessarily have to use the same structure, but the aspects should be addressed in your proposal. The overall proposal should be roughly as long as this document. You can use the material you posted on the Blackboard Wiki at the beginning of this quarter as starting point. Please make your proposal document available on the Wiki as a link from the page "484-W09 Projects and Assignments" in the project topic column. The deadline for the proposal is Week 7.
This section of the proposal identifies the title and topic of the project, lists the team members, and describes the vision and scope for the project. You should discuss the purpose of the project, the tasks it is intended for, what functionality you expect, and how users interact with the system.
Here you identify and discuss similar projects, systems or devices. They can be similar in various aspects: Intended purpose and tasks, design and implementation methods used, technologies, or user interaction methods. If possible, identify critical differences between existing systems or approaches, and what you're proposing.
The purpose of this section is to determine suitable methods and tools for the design and implementation work on your system. In some cases, you may already know which methods and tools your team will use (e.g. pair programming in Python with Eclipse as development tool, or the use of the Apple iPhone SDK). In other situations, you may need to identify important aspects of such methods and tools, and make the final selection at a later stage.
Describe the projected timeline for the development of your project here. Due to the nature of this class, there are some constraints: The final presentation will typically be in Week 10, and there will be activities like presentations on tools for user-centered design, displays of story boards, and data collection activities that have to be coordinated with the class as a whole. You can use the class schedule as a guide line, and then coordinate this with important milestones and deliverables for your own project.
It is helpful for me to have a photo of the team members to assist me with the matching of faces and names. You can either take a snapshot of your team as a whole, and identify the members, or put together a gallery of individual photos. If you have reservations about having your photo displayed here, let me know.
At the beginning of the quarter, we did a few rounds of informal topic presentations. Time permitting, there will be an intermediate project presentation where you present your (revised) project idea, the initial design, a development plan, and a plan for the 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 design or 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, and 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. The practical aspects of this event will be discussed in class.
The documentation for your project should describe the purpose, goals and objectives, requirements, data collection outcomes, and final product or design 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.
The Blackboard Discussion Forum contains the material from W07, W06, and W05. All of the teams from the W07 quarter got decent scores for their final project documentation; the highest one was for team H1, which did a project on interacting via hand gestures. You can find their final report in the forum "484-W07: Final Project", under the heading "Team H1 Final Submission" at the bottom of the page.
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 the template Mutual Team Member Evaluation Sheet as an Excel file. I expect all team members to provide specific and accurate feedback on their team mates. You may lose points for this part if you do a sloppy job on this, e.g. by filling out only the numerical scores, but not giving any justification. While there is necessarily a strong subjective component to such an evaluation, I also expect you to concentrate on the professional aspects of your team mates, and not on personal traits that you may or may not like. 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.
| Project Grading Scheme | ||
| Initial Presentation | 5 | |
| Initial Documentation | 5 | |
| Final Presentation | 10 | |
| Final Documentation | 10 | |
| Mutual Team Member Evaluation | 10 | |
The overall score for the project is 40 points; 30 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 contributions.
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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| Franz Kurfess |