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 PROJECT OVERVIEW  

 
 
General information

The course requires completion of a team project, which has five milestones that are marked. The 444 project is very similar in both structure and content to the 344 project. The key differences for the 444 project are: (1) advanced methods are used, (2) your project topic is not constrained to improving an existing interactive system, and (3) greater depth and quality of work are expected. You will participate in the same team throughout the course.

The milestones will consist of both individual and group deliverables. You will document your project over the course of the term in an online portfolio in the form of a blog. In addition, some milestones will involve written evaluation reports that will go into more detail.

The project components and timing for each phase should be considered tentative until the detailed description has been posted.

 Please consult the course schedule (early and often) for timing of the milestones.

Overview
 milestone
 components
I. proposal
[details]
[10 %]
  • individual work
  • propose an idea for a new (or revised) interactive system by identifying a human activity that could be better supported through interactive technology
  • describe the interface/system and its users and conduct a preliminary task analysis of the activity it is intended to support

MS I: DELIVERABLES
1. Proposal -
brief written proposal (individual)

DESIGN REVIEW (full course staff)

The most promising proposals will be chosen by the course staff to form the basis of the team work, starting in MSII.

II. field study, requirements & design alternatives
[details]
[25 %]
  • team work from this point forward
  • conduct small field study to inform your system concept and proposed tasks
  • define system requirements
  • brainstorm design alternatives that meet the requirements

MS II: DELIVERABLES
1. Field Study Report - brief written report of field study
2. Blog Update #1- revised project direction, 3 task examples
3. Blog Update #2- next steps, requirements, design alternatives

DESIGN REVIEW (full course staff)

III. prototyping & experiment design
[details]
[20 %]
  • create a low-fidelity prototype of the design and conduct a cognitive walkthrough
  • plan an experiment that evalutes the new system (to be run in MS IV)
  • create a testable prototype using medium fidelity method of your choice

MS III: DELIVERABLES
1. Blog Update #3 - lo fidelity prototype, cognitive walkthrough findings, proposed experiment goals
2. Blog Update #4 - experiment design
3. Blog Update #5 -
medium fidelity prototype

DESIGN REVIEW (full course staff)

IV. experiment analysis,  recommendations, & project video
[details]
[35 %]
  • carry out the experiment, first by running a small pilot study
  • analyze the results
  • draw recommendations that would be used in a final design implementation (which you do not have time for in this course)
  • create a 3-5 minute video that documents your project

MS IV: DELIVERABLES
1. Evaluation Report - written experiment report and analysis (individual)
2. Blog update #6
-
Piloting report, experiment abstract and instruments.
3. Blog update #7 - Conclusions and recommendations
4. Project Video

DESIGN REVIEW (full course staff)
V. presentation
[details]
[10 %]
  • design and deliver a team presentation of your entire project
MS V: DELIVERABLES
1. Presentation - presentation to class and design jury

Formatting

Constraints on the page length or word length of components of each deliverable are given in the Milestone description, under specific deliverable components.

Proposal & Evaluation Report Formatting: For all written deliverables, use the following formatting:

  • Single-spaced, 12 point font
  • 1" margins
  • Double-sided pages (for hard-copies only)
  • Page numbers
  • Start each section (e.g., Part A, Part B) on a new page.

You should also include:

  • Cover page: For team reports list the name of your group, a link to your design process blog, the members' names and photos of all team members (or one photo including all of you, clearly identified) and the date. For individual reports, list your name, provide a photo, and the date.
  • Appendices: Complete as indicated in the milestone descriptions. Clearly mark the appendices (e.g., separate each appendix with a title sheet). Unless otherwise specified, appendices will not count towards the page limit. They should be a reasonable number of pages, and if they are deemed to be excessive, marks will be docked.

Submitting

Your milestone deliverables much be submitted BEFORE the due date/time, as posted on the schedule page.


Hard copy deliverables

You will occasionally need to submit hard copies of materials from your evaluation - e.g., signed consent forms, raw data and completed questionnaires, etc. For this you should use a 2 inch 3-ring binder with tabbed dividers, which you should keep in a team locker in the HCI studio (X360). We recommend consolidating materials in this binder as you complete your evaluations - this will make it easy to hand it in to the TA when required.


Design process blog and updates

Purpose: With some exceptions, the majority of your project updates for the rest of the semester will be on the blog. You will need to update your blog several times over the semester for each milestone. The blog is intended to afford more flexibility in how you present your milestone updates than a written report would, and will make it easier to follow the progress of other teams in the class.

Setup: You may create your team's online portfolio using the web tool of your choosing. Rather than coding something from scratch, we strongly recommend using a flexible blogging platform such as Wordpress or the UBC Blogs Wordpress tool. The URL for your blog must contain "cs444-<team name>"

Posting updates: Remember that our ethics approval does NOT allow you to post video of participants. If you want to include video illustrating, for example, and interaction that you observed in your field study, then you would need to reinact this interaction with your teammates.

LIMITS: Limit video segments used in your blog to about 45s, and 4-5 minutes in total per post (otherwise they are difficult to review). Depending on the blog service you use, you may have limited upload space. Consider using an outside service that you can integrate with UBC Blogs such as Flickr for your photos, YouTube for your videos, or DivShare for your files.

Edit freeze: After each blog update you will need to freeze the relevant post(s) for ~1 week while it is being marked - you may not edit the submitted post during this time. If we observe any editing at all during this time, your team will recieve an automatic zero. You can update other sections of the blog not tied to the specific update.

Submit a copy: In addition to freezing the relevant post(s) as above - you must submit an electronic copy of the blog post in PDF following the directions below. To create a PDF of a blog post, in Chrome, for example, you can press Ctrl+P to bring up the print menu, then change destination to “save as PDF” to save a PDF screenshot.


Electronic submission instructions via Canvas

Format: All electronic submissions of must be in PDF format.

Size: It is important to minimize file size to reduce course disk space needs. Use Acrobat's "Reduce File Size" option (or similar option in whatever software you're using) to compress your PDF and down-sample all images to 150 dpi and black-and-white or grayscale, whenever appropriate.

Filename: Project proposal filenames should be in the format <name>-<assignment name>.pdf. All team milestone filenames should be in the format <team name>-<assignment name>.pdf. Use web-friendly filenames (under 20 characters, no spaces or funny characters). For example: TheGoGetters-MSIII.pdf.

Test: Ensure that your submissions are viewable on a departmental machine before submitting.

Number of submissions: For team deliverables, make only one submission per team: choose one team member to submit.


Marking

The tentative high-level marking scheme for each milestone is provided in the milestone description.

You will be marked on the basis of:

  • originality and insight into problem definition
  • completion of required items
  • appropriate maturity of the work (i.e., clearly thought through and iterated rather than first pass, tossed together ideas)
  • quality of writing, clarity of exposition, and usefulness of supporting figures

A penalty will be assessed:

  • for improper use of Canvas or inability to use Canvas
  • for not adhering to the submission criteria and formatting requirements (e.g., word length and font size)
  • not producing professional documents (e.g. inconsistent formatting, missing page numbers)
  • for updating your portfolio when it is supposed to be 'frozen' (the penalty will be a 0 on that update)

Late submissions will not be accepted.

 
 

Advanced Methods for Human Computer Interaction - Dawson 15/16