Week 13 - Course reflection.

Reflecting back on the whole course, I have experienced both up and down reactions to various aspects throughout. Looking back at my week 1 blog post, I had expected the course to provide a bit of a ‘simulation’ to what is would be like working at small tech company/startup in the real world. To a degree, the course delivered exactly this.  There was high points, such as finally getting a particular function to work and low points such as not being able to finish the site to the standard that I would have liked to present.

The course has provided me with plenty of experience; both practical and learning. This course allowed me to build upon my minimal JavaScript knowledge acquired from DEC01400, learn some basic PHP and to learn some core aspects of the Google Maps API, Trove API and Wikipedia API. Other than the technical side of the course, I found the course to very beneficial with learning to work with others in many different ways. Our team often seemed disjointed for some time periods and we had many different opinions on things, however we managed to pull through most of the difficult obstacles to present something reasonably close to what we envisioned.

In general, the course content was very good and Lorna and the tutors did a great job of engaging with all the teams and keeping them engaged with the content. Although the course was centred around utilising the Trove API, I feel as if the server side aspects of web design could have more ‘weighting’ in term of utilisation. For me, this was my first ever introduction to server side processes and languages, and I found that I struggled with some aspects of this. As I stand now, I would not be 100% confident in explaining exactly what all of PHP code does exactly (particularly in relation to who the process of parsing from server to client and vice versa). I think this was partly due to the time constraints that we as a group put on ourselves as well. However, in saying this, I had a similar feeling at the end of DECO1400 course with JavaScript and JQuery. But this course allowed me to realise actually how much I did know, and allowed me to find solutions to problems that I would have had know idea where to start 6 months ago. So hopefully my server side processing will improve with further courses in the future.

I found the workshops to be very beneficial to be able to get a large amount of stuff done with the help of your tutor if required. The early workshops were particular interesting during the designing aspects of the course because I have never sat down and had the time to go through Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials although I have wanted to actually learn how to use these programs to the best of my ability and not just ‘mess around’ as I had done in the past. This class gave me the time to do so!

Overall I think the course was quite well structured and covers a lot of content that will be useful in the future. Although the entire project was team based, the assessment was not and therefore provides a good balance in the event that something happens in your team.

Looking back, I believe the course has been very useful for me in advancing my web design skills and the techniques learnt will be utilised in the future. In saying this though, in the end, the major project group was a little bit of a let down.  Not individuals just the group as a whole (me included). When we first formed, I thought that we would be able work well together as I had worked with 2/5 before. This was the case in the beginning, however I think the turning point occurred when changed ideas. 

For me personally, I did not really like the idea that changed to (the one we finished with), largely due to the inaccuracies and limitations of the topic within Trove. When we formed groups we went around to different whiteboards with different ideas on them. Our group formed at the Natural Disaster Mapper idea and this is what I intended on pursuing for the semester. However, this changed and I found myself in a position where I was not fond of the concept, not because it was a terrible idea but because it would be too difficult to implement successfully due to the limitations of the Trove database which ultimately contributed to the delivery of the final product. As time went by, our team gradually became more disconnected and our communication dropped significantly. This further added ‘salt to the wound’ and made finishing the project successfully considerably harder. 

Nevertheless, although in hindsight I was not happy with the submitted result, it is important that I take away the lessons from this semester. In the real world, you are not always going to have everything go your way, you are not always going to have people contribute to a task, and you yourself are not always going to interested. But it is important to identify these problems early and get rid of them! So that the team can deliver the most successfully product as possible.

Overall, the course was good and I enjoyed the semester and course content.

Week 12

Next week, we are presenting to the rest of the workshop. Currently the app requires a fair amount of tweaking to be a usable standard. Icons need to textured and trove data loaded in an easy to read format. Many little things need to be edited within the code as well.

Hopefully, this can be completed by next week so we have something that has at least some of the core functions and will not break!

Week 11

This week in the contact sessions we had the digital prototyping where we had people from other groups come and test what we had done so far. Some of our functions and process were not yet fully established however, we informed the users of the aspects of the concept that should be tested. We received minor feedback on small design improvements such as repositioning the filter buttons.

Week 9 - A summary of so far...

Initially, we had decided to create a Natural Disaster Map. I myself personally, liked this idea as Trove would be able to utilised to get significant pictures and newspaper articles when these disasters occurred, however we decided that this was too boring and that idea of a supernatural event map would be explored instead. We brainstormed for a few weeks on how everything was going to look including the different supernatural beings that we would include. We decided on ufos, ghosts, yowies and a other category. 

We have developed this idea further and changed specific aspects to cater for a design that will visually please, such as reposting buttons (which was pointed out in the paper prototype), removing the timeline as this further expanding the haystack in which we were already trying to find needles, as well as other minor changes such as font and font colour.

Week 7 Journal

This week in the studio classes we demonstrated our paper prototypes as well as tested some other groups paper prototypes. 

Our prototype was mostly complete but did lack a few more specific features that we intend to implement. This provided a few limitations to the tester which they will be able to use in the final product. One of these limitations was map zoom and movement functions as well as a user profile page. However, the tester was still able to navigate through the main features of the application. I found in the prototypes that I tested, that some had features that were limited by the paper prototype and required it to be explained by the person who was the 'computer'. Some applications though, were very well represented by their paper prototype. I found the one about the article chains to most effective and best represented, this also was the one I gave the least 'general' feedback but focused more on specific features that may need to implemented such as specific error catching.

We were given quite a bit of feedback on areas to improve, mostly relating to general interface and ease of navigation. While being a 'user' of other groups concepts, I tended to give feedback on some of the more subtle human-computer interaction aspects. For instance, one group displayed a video immediately at the start explaining how to play, this window also featured a 'skip' button which I immediately pressed without having any idea of how to play. Once I got to the next screen, I pointed out that there was no way for someone who may have skipped the intro video (even accidentally) to find out how to play without having to go back/refresh their browser.

I found that the feedback given was generally reliant on how well-done/complete the paper prototype was. Prototypes which still lacked in displaying basic features such as some navigation generally required more 'effort' to use. Ideally, the application should be engaging but not be too difficult or take to long to get to the substance of it, otherwise the user will be disengaged and less likely to come back to use it.  I found that the prototypes that were most complete, needed the least amount of feedback, compared to those which still needed refinement where I was most confused about how it works. In terms of our prototype, although it was complete the feedback we were given suggested that some aspects needed to be further demonstrated in the prototyped. Overall, I think we needed to be a little more specific in what was presented and to not assume that the user will do a particular action or take a particular path.

The most useful piece of feedback we received would have been to include a whole new bar at the top of our page to provide more user functions. This would be used to put a number of different functions that were scatted in other areas on the page together in one location that is central and easier to find for the user. The least useful would have been having a zoom in function. We couldn't really implement this into the paper prototype but were going to implement it already. The exact method to which the markers would be displayed at different zoom levels is going to required some trial and error within the google maps API but we already have a basic idea of what we want.

The paper prototyping was a success and it highlighted some things that we need to remember when implementing. For the next week, we will be starting to implement different aspects including building a database/s, getting the basic html/css done, looking further into the maps API and finalising the trove search articles.

Paper Prototyping Feedback

This is some of the raw feedback we received from the paper prototyping:

Number 1
Steps: Register - > Login -> Map
Never heard of Demon sightings?? Change maybe?
Hard to find the information??
Simple interface
Interesting Idea
Paddle Pop?? Easter egg

Number 2
Steps: Register - > Login -> Map -> Look at the icons -> Markers
Timeline have a slider, limit range to make it specific
User Rank System
Trove article need to back up with users being able to edit maps
Not verified by the higher ranked users

Number 3
Steps: Continue to Map
Able to navigate 3 different ways: Timeline, Categorise, Search
Images: Article may have images, and will be displaced with the article
Maybe when clicked on a marker, it only displays only that marker and removes all the other ones

Number 4
Step: Continue to Map
Filter with Timeline and Icons to display very specific data
If its not, it will be displayed in a popup and will say that it is not a verified source

————— After Adjustments —————

Number 1
INTERACTIVITY - If a state is selected, certain statistics will appear about the state in relation to the categories
Percentage of [Category] in [State] in relation to Australia.

Number 2
Top-Rated Lists for pinpointed locations - Community Based
Filter what wants to be shown
Zoom in Function
The further zoomed out, the least points are shown (only higher rated points are shown)
The closer zoomed in, the more points are shown (even lowly rated point are shown)
Timeline
In Decades
Have arrows going left and right for year previous and ahead
OR
The whole timelines only appears as a certain decade
Have arrows going left and right to change the decade

Number 3
Add a function to filter the more recent marks which are added in by users
***Do we HAVE to absolutely find an article from TROVE to add a point of interest on the map?***
Profile page for users
See what points you have added
Have a new bar on top to access your personal stuff
***How to administer the page when users will place duplicates of the page***
Zooming out will summarise the points in certain areas of the map

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For our meeting next Monday the following roles have been assigned.

Research Trove Data: - Anthony / Remosy
    Yowie
    Ghost
    Demon?
    UFO
CSS/HTML Basic - Ian Wong
Timeline - Liam Buttery
Database - Remosy
    Markers
    Users
Google Maps: Basic Coding - Daniel Homer

Week 5

Poster and Pitch.

What did I learn about our concept/ the project/ the brief/ the design process from the feedback received? From other teams concepts?
We received a fair amount of feedback on our concept. In particular, the most common feedback/problem that we may have is accurately making the location of the supernatural events. As the name suggests these are 'supernatural'/not real and therefore do not have any credible sources or data to verify any event other than common agreeance. In regards to utilising Trove, after a preliminary search, Trove  does not return the pinpoint address of events. Further discussion on this will be needed.

It was good being able to go around and view the concepts from other teams. Many quite well developed even at this stage of the project. A couple that stood out to me was the History Chains and the Natural Disaster Map. I though the History Chains Concept was quite a cool idea and I think could have a lot of potential of actually being a successful concept  in the real world. Natural Disaster Map also stood out to me because it fairly similar to our concept and was our initial concept. It was interesting to see the other group's take on the idea and further progress they had made from the initial base concept.

How have these realisations affected my/our own concept and process since?
Most of all, I think viewing all the other groups has made me realise that we as a group need to start getting a bit of move on. Many of the groups had very well developed ideas with solutions to complex problems. We are thinking of the complex problems but are no where near planning for solutions yet. I think our concept needs a bit more thought, and I still have my apprehensions that this idea is going to be too difficult to successfully implement due to the nature of the data surrounding the concept. I do think a final 'yey or ney' needs to be made soon though so we can all but as much effort into finishing it on time as possible. 

Change of topic

Remorsy came up with another idea which is similar to the disaster one we have but uses ghost and supernatural sightings instead of disasters. The rest of the group has decided that they think this idea will be better. Personally, I do not think it will as getting data/news articles about this on trove will be quite difficult and overall the idea only caters to a real specific target audience - being people who are into that thing. Whereas disasters could be beneficial to students, adults and trend analysts as well. The data required will also somehow have to be verified as many news articles are not specify on the exact location and source of these things.

So for the time being we are pursuing this idea, however I'm not sure whether we will stick with it.

We had our first group meeting yesterday and tried to get most of the information together about the new idea.

Week 4 - Studio

In our contact last week, we were required to bring 4 - 5 ideas which were presented to the rest of the contact group. From this we formed our project groups and decided to pursue a particular idea present in the contact.

The idea that we decided to pursue as a group was a map showing the occurrence of natural disasters aimed at high school students. The concept consisted of a map of the world/Australia with pins placed in the locations where natural disasters have occurred. The user will be able to pinpoint the exact location of significant events of the disaster by zooming in. When the pin is clicked on, more information will be available including stats, year it occurred as well as some newspaper articles relevant to that particular pin. The resource is targeted towards high school students (15-18yo) to give them a visual representation of natural disasters while still providing effective resources through newspaper articles.

Before this week's contact session we had to develop 3 of our concepts so members of the class could evaluate it through the '6 hats of thinking', in doing so identifying any strengths, weaknesses and improvements that could be made. Our 3 concepts were, Australian Natural Disaster Map, Celebrity Frequency and Guess the Year. Celebrity Frequency is a catalogue of Australian celebrities and provides various information about them such as; rises and falls, money earned, interesting facts, characteristics and others. Guess the year is an interactive game which a historical image of a famous Australian landmark (such as the opera house) is displayed and the user needs to select the correct year in which the photo was taken from 4 possible choices. Once an answer is pressed, information about the image is displayed. The faster the correct answer is pressed the more points the user gets and they are award no points if it is wrong.

A couple of us went around to different groups critiquing their ideas while others stayed and wrote down feedback from others about our concepts. I went to other groups and found some of the ideas very interesting and also gained some further ideas that we could use.
Here is some of the feedback that we got on our ideas:

Concept 1: Natural Disaster Map

Zoom In Functions -> To see more Pins, to be able to see more locations
If there are more than 1 disaster at a location, put like a directory to see if one they can choose
Link the newspaper/articles for more information
Audience: People who wants to travel?? (Could be too broad)
Changing the categories of natural disasters

Concept 2: Guess the Year

More like a guessing game than a learning
Spending little time on the game (How to keep user attracted)
Help people learn about discoveries
Its Okay but idea lacks depth
Just a guessing game
Have a blurb that is about something that happened in that year swell
Range the year
Dates of discoveries, Get dates from published articles , More information if needed

Concept 3: Celebrity Frequency
Heaps of digging for information
Initial Thinking: Its got potential, Alright
A lot of people can use this information, large audience
Would be interesting if this concept comes out
Comedic writing would be good for the rise and fall of celebrities
Take a lot of work to set up like too big for trove to automatically
Hard to pull out all Celebrities information (Narrow down to certain celebrities)
Leaderboard (for who has appeared in the most movies for actors/actresses)
Next Step: Research each point, if there is enough information on trove -> concept can be down

We decided on a time for group meetings will be meeting on Monday to discuss exactly what has to be done. The concept design document as been started and we also need to make a poster to present our idea next week to the contact.

Week 3

This week we formed groups of 4 - 5  members for our major project. During the contact many ideas for the project were brainstormed by the whole contact and we had the choice of choosing something that we had an interest in. I found this an effective method of idea generation and was a benefit for not only my specific group but the contact class as a whole, as by narrowing down possible ideas early, it prevents spending lots of time trying to come up with an effective idea as a small group. We all had an interest in pursuing our main concept about mapping Australian natural disasters. My team is made up of all first year students; Ian, Liam, Anthony and Remosy.

What did you learn about your attitudes to working in a team? Which Belbin roles did you identify with?

What I learned about my attitude to working in a team is that it can be just as, if not more effective 'breaking' from your usual methods and adapting to methods that other team members use. Overall, observing these methods and opinions of others which are different to the way you would have pursued it is a learning experience and can provide new outlets and methods in the future. In teams, generally when we find an effective method of completing something or meeting a goal we tend to reuse this in the future over and over again, rather than looking into other methods which for a particular project may be much more effective in reality.

Although I am quite an introverted person and don't mind working on my own, I enjoy working in teams as they provide an element of responsibility. This keeps you motivated to actually do what you should be doing and be effective at completing things by deadlines. Out of the Belbin roles, I identify myself as a monitor evaluator, teamworker and finisher the most.

Were you surprised by either your Leadership or Team Score following the first quiz? Why/why not? You don't need to specify the scores that you received - rather was it higher/lower than you expected.

I wasn't too surprised with my leadership or team score after working in many teams in the past through years of school. My team score said I was a very effective team person. The results did offer some things to improve on such as remembering to include all members of the team in decisions, ensuring everyone's voice is heard and to keep doing what I am doing.

Did you identify with any of the causes of conflict? Is it something you have a tendency to do or something you have experienced from previous team projects? How will you manage this if it occurs in this team project?

Conflicts always have the potential to be present in all groups and I think the most effective way of managing them is trying to prevent them before they arise or putting them to rest as soon as possible if they do arise. I think one of the main causes of conflict within a group is when there is no direction towards achieving the final goal. This generally stalls a lot of work and things continue to be backdated etc as the whole process has not been methodically (to a degree) thought out and discussed as a group when the project presents itself. Designating someone as a leader can give some some initial inspiration and everyone can focus on what they should be and thus giving good team dynamic when it is required. Any teams that I have worked on in the past have worked well and we didn't really have any major conflicts. We all knew our role and performed it as required and essentially worked as a 'team'. Any small conflicts that occurred were openly discussed with all members and everyone gave their opinion on what the outcome should be, while still keeping the final goals in mind.

What is important to you when working in a team?

When working in a team, I think the most important thing is to keep the process enjoyable for everyone. If people are interested and generally enjoy what they are doing (even if the project is boring but the team dynamic is enjoyed) then they are more likely to contribute more and 'want' what is best for the team. Keeping everyone happy gives motivation and is less likely to cause people to lose interest. Once interest is lost it is very hard to pick it back up again.

Contact 1

Last Tuesday was the first contact session. We completed some 'ice-breakers' and then went and brainstormed ideas that trove could be used for. By Tuesday, we need 5 individual ideas to bring to the team, which we will also be forming next week.
Pictures of brainstorming below (when uploaded from phone)

Post 1

Based on what I know of this course, I expect to be working amongst a team to create a web based application pertaining to the trove database this semester.
I want to learn/experience what it will be like working in a small team for technology projects to give a taste of how tech companies are run out in the real world.
I’m worried about coming up with an effective idea/concept reasonably quickly so the rest of the project can run smoothly.
I hope that I can take what I learn in this course (both good and bad experiences) away with me and give me some direction in future studio courses.
What are your expectations for this course? I think the 'core' of this course will run much like DECO1100 but our teams will be creating something that is not only relevant to our degree but potentially something of a standard that is perfectly applicable as a tool which could be used immediately after completion by someone on the web. I think the course will be interesting and give a good insight into how many tech companies in the real world operate and the many problems that are encountered on the way to creating a finished product.