Project Schedule and Requirements

Team projects will be done in teams of 2-3 students (outside exceptional circumstances approved by instructor).

Use the “two parents, three children” principle: projects should solve a practical problem for real users while framing the problem with existing theories to guide your work. The parents are the practical problem and existing theory. The three children are the solution, refinement of existing theory, and guidance for future researchers.

See the Piazza post for brainstorming partners and ideas.

Part 1: Initial Ideas (20 points)

Pitch your initial ideas on Piazza. Be as complete as possible: partner (important!), problem, data source, tools planned to use, images…

Create a Piazza post:

Part 2: Critique (5 points)

Find two existing posts in project from other teams and reply to their post with a critique of their ideas. Try to be as helpful as possible: additional links/tools/references.

Part 3: Partner/status Update (10 points)

Update your complete/revised proposal on Piazza. Describe your progress in interacting with your partner, any difficulties you’ve encountered, whether you have access to the data yet, whether the data is clean enough to use, any roadblocks… Describe any progress you have made and the status of the issues identified in the Critique.

Part 4: Proposal (20 points)

Update your complete/revised proposal on Piazza. Be as complete as possible: partner (important!), problem, data source, tools planned to use, images, and related work…

Update your Piazza post:

Part 5: Designs (20 points)

Update your Piazza post with at least two competing versions of your design, in whatever format you like (images, Balsamiq, PowerPoint, paper prototypes) with descriptions of how they will work and interaction techniques utilized.

Part 6: Usability (20 points)

Update your Piazza post with 4-8 usability test questions you could use to evaluate the efficacy of your tool.

Part 7: Drafts (40 points)

Update your Piazza post. Upload a draft of your paper. As applicable, provide video and links to your demo. The video isn’t actually due until the end.

Part 8: Presentations (100 points)

Present in class your project as if speaking at a conference or workshop. This can include slides, video, live demo. Your presentation should be 20 minutes long, including questions. Shoot for at least 15 minutes of content.

Ensure all team members have the same amount of time to present and answer questions.

Please ensure you bring any necessary adapters, chargers, etc. for presenting the tutorial on the projector.

Part 9: Paper & Materials (120 points)

Final versions are due uploaded/linked on your project Piazza post. The four categories below are required unless you have prior approval.

Grading Criteria

Your team projects are the largest portion of your grade and it takes a great deal of work on your end to be successful. Likewise, they will take much of our time to evaluate throughout the course. We will do our best to give each project the consideration it deserves, though it may take us several days to respond.

We will write responses on Piazza or by email each step along the way with detailed comments.

At the end of the course, we will consider which teams to encourage to submit their work at academic venues (possibly with revisions/improvements beforehand).

In particular, we expect to see academic-level contributions suitable for at least a workshop submission:

Our final project grading rubric is available here.

This project should be something you can be proud of! A potential publication, entry in your portfolio for employers, beginning of a research direction…

Project Ideas

See our Piazza post.