Project planning
Hall of Fame/Shame
• I will do a few more examples this week.
• On Friday, you will sign up for your turn.
– Your slides are due to me by the previous class
session.
– I have a digital camera you can use.
– Should use terms we will discuss from DOET
Context : In a men’s room.
What is this thing?
Context : In a men’s room.
Different men’s room/Same building
Different men’s room/Same building
Hall of Fame/Shame
• Why does the first bathroom belong in the
Hall of Shame, while the second one
belongs in the Hall of Fame?
– Affordances?
– Knowledge in the world
– Constraints
Objectives for today
• Understand what makes a good project
• Get to know each other
• Brainstorm potential project ideas
Project logistics
• Just a reminder…
– www.cs.uni.edu/~schafer/courses/112/project.htm
• ~65% of your grade
• 4 or 5 members
• This is a main course activity and will last all
semester
– January 22nd – groups formed
– January 26th – project proposal due; site visit plan due;
– …
– April 25th – final presentation open house
What makes a good project?
• You should care about the idea
• It must be primarily an interface problem
– Focus on the design and evaluation process
– Minimal backend development (unless you’re already
doing it anyway)
• You must find at least two real users
• The application must be task-centered
– users must have specific goals/tasks
Task-centered?
Dr. Schafer is in charge of setting up the schedule for
the campus visit of a job candidate (Cole Kutz) on
February 7th.
He schedules
– time to take the candidate to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
– 3-4:30 PM for the candidate’s research talk.
– A one hour block for a campus tour
– A one hour block to meet with the Dean.
He contacts the other members of the department and
allows them to schedule 30 minute meetings with the
candidate for any time slot not yet taken and to join
meals.
He needs to maintain an active copy of the up-to-date
schedule.
Notes on implementation
• Use the tool/environment of your choice
• Not hardcore UI programming
– A prototyping tool such as Visual Basic or
Access is sometimes the right choice.
– However, if this is a “working” program
(something I encourage), you might consider
using Swing/Java or Perl/cgi depending on your
environment.
A few examples of good projects
from the past
• Library “help ticket” system for IT
• Online Room scheduling system for a large
group of different users
• Member database management system
A few examples of poorer projects
from the past
• An apartment finder system
• A tool for linking up Xboxs online
• An MP3 Management system
• Two things that made these not as good
– Lack of REAL users
– The tasks were to restricted
A few candidate projects
• Note: no advantage in selecting one of these
Volunteer Sign up
• Helping volunteers at GBPAC sign up to
volunteer at the shows they want to work.
– Sign up for a particular show
– Find shows that need more help
– Tell the coordinator they can’t work a show.
• Several members of the math/CS
departments volunteer and could help us
recruit others (those less computer savvy?).
Fantasy ____ball League Manager
• Help members playing fantasy sports manage their
league.
– Set up the teams in the league (commish)
– Make roster moves for upcoming games (owners)
– Enter stats from actual games (commish or stats keeper)
• Both Dr. Wallingford and I participate in different
leagues. I suspect that you could easily find other
participants.
Last Fall’s Database Projects
• A couple of you took Dr. Drake’s Database
course last semester. You built a variety of
databases for real users.
• Many of these could probably use a front
end so that they can actually be used by real
people!
Any project you have built in another
class that has real users.
• Project Management
• Real-time Systems
• ISR
Exercise (25 minutes)
• Get in groups based on the “suit” of your
card
– Get to know each other (5 minutes)
– Talk about project ideas (5 minutes).
• If you’ve got one, sell it
• Otherwise, brainstorm ideas
• REPEAT with card’s face value (10
minutes)
Next Steps
• Readings
– Finish Design of Everyday Things
• Project preparation
– Send me an email with a short (1-2 paragraph)
description of your idea(s)
• Next class
– How to work in groups
– Final group selection?