Project: Phase 3

The goals of this phase include

• Completing and fixing anything that remains to be done in model (and related storage) and maintaining it as the needs arise based on other parts of the system.
• Making several interfaces to work on the single back end.
• Learning the tools necessary to make those interfaces.
• Performing usability tests on the interfaces and adjusting them appropriately.
• Delivering a finished, well-polished product.

This written specification may be subject to change as details, including feasability of specific, emerge. The important thing is that communication remains open. If part of this specification needs to be changed, be sure the instructor is kept appraised. It is important to avoid the "oh, yeah, we didn't get to that part" when the final product is turned in.

This specification will be structured under the four sub-team areas, plus some comments about usability tests that will affect everyone.

1. Model and storage

Early decisions that need to be made are (1) the final relationships among timelines and categories, (2) how timelines (and events and other entities) will be linked to other timelines or external information, (3) how eras will be implemented, if at all, and (4) how the database file will be stored (for example, on a Google Drive account).

Be sure to keep me appraised as these decisions are made.

2. Rendering/GUI/Desktop

I think very little needs to be specified here. The important thing is to get the quality of the rendering up to the expectations of the potential users and to give the GUI a high degree of usability.

3. Android interface

The important part is to make this limited and realistic. I've referred to this as having a "quick view" and "quick edit" functionality. A "quick edit" would entail entering an event to update the timeline database. A "quick view" would show a reduced form of the timeline---probably no category discrimination or decoration. If these turn out to be easier than expected, then some of the functionality of the desktop version can be brought in.

4. Web interface

Details of this part of the specification will need some revisiting in the first couple weeks. This may look more like the Android version, or it may have more of the features of the desktop version.

5. Usablity tests

A key part to this final phase will be grabbing some users and seeing how easily they can use each of the interfaces. Users' experience should lead to improvements of the interfaces, and this should be documented in the write-up. We will talk about usability, user interfaces, and usability tests on Mar 31.

DUE: Midnight between Wednesday, Apr 23 and Thursday, Apr 24.