Project Overview


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 will be done in collaboration with Cal Poly and outside partners.
The emphasis of the project is on the user interaction and usability evaluations, not so much on the underlying functionality. The project work may also focus on a usability evaluation of an existing product or system, and the design of an alternative interaction paradigm or user interface for that system.

Project Topic


Our partners will present a selection of possible project topics during the first and second week of the quarter.

Project Organization


The project is a team effort, with a team size of about 5 people. Ideally, your team should be the same as for the assignments. Typically, each team will use a TRAC Wiki as the repository for project materials. The Wiki contains templates for the different parts of your project, and notes on what you’re expected to include. Depending on confidentiality constraints with outside collaborators, teams may also use more secure arrangements for their repositories.

Project Grading Scheme


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. My score will take into account feedback from external customers, but their scores will not go directly into my grade calculations. 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. Students who do not submit this mutual team member evaluation may receive a score of 0 for this part. However, I may adjust this part, especially if all team members give each other the highest score, but the overall quality of the project is not correspondingly high.
  • mid-quarter project display: 10%
  • final project display: 10%
  • project documentation: 10%
  • mutual team member evaluation: 10%