Milestone 2: Definition & Related Work¶

Due Date¶

FRI 2021-10-08 @ 11:55 PM EDT via Piazza @33.

Introduction¶

In this milestone, you and your team will clearly define the computing-related task / problem that was approved in your team’s proposal (see Milestone 1: Problem Proposal), identify existing solutions to that or similar tasks / problems, propose a potential solution, and summarize that work in a recorded video presentation.

Objective

Demonstrate in-depth analysis of your task / problem, hereafter referred to as your problem of study, including 1) who the users are, 2) why the problem is important, and 3) what existing solutions exist for this problem. The key goal of this milestone is to demonstrate a deep understanding of the problem you are trying to address.

Dissemination

This and subsequent project milestones will include a deliverable report. These reports should be in PDF or HTML format and be publicly-accessible. Thus, each team needs to have a public home page, and on this home page, you should have the following information:

Team Name
Team Members
Short Synopsis (of your problem of study)
Milestone Links (i.e. Milestone 2, Milestone 3, etc.)

The specific format of these deliverable reports is up to your team, but they should appear professionally-prepared. Often, documentation is kept as an afterthought and is done at the last minute which is a recipe for disaster. That won’t happen to your team; instead, when the end of the semester arrives, you’ll have a body of work that lead you to your solution, and you won’t have to wonder how you got there!

You may use your own personal domain or hosting for the web project space, so long as it does not violate the University of Georgia Code of Conduct. You are not required to make any purchases for this assignment. Your team should seek to find a free solution if nobody in the group has their own website. Some popular choices that students in the past have utilized for web hosting are listed below:

Instructions¶

Prepare the following deliverables for this milestone, all of which should be included in the deliverable report you create and link to via “Milestone 2” under “Milestone Links” on your group’s public home page.

Warning

Even if you are not explicitly asked, you must provide supporting evidence for any claims you make in your deliverable report. Make sure you use proper, consistent citations in your reports and justify any unusual sources.

Warning

You may be tempted to draw on personal experiences to provide anecdotal evidence for one or more of the claims you make in response to this prompt. Just because something happened to you, that does not automatically mean that it happens to anyone else. For each claim that you make, spend some time to find reputable research papers, textbooks, news reports, interviews, polls, etc. that support that claim.
A. Task / Problem Definition
1. Introduce your problem.
  Examine and describe your problem of study. Try to describe your problem using terms like properties, affordances, and signifiers. Why is it a problem? How is it theme-relevant? Use the Seven Stages of Action to describe a typical interaction related to your problem. How do you know this interaction is typical?
2. Identify your potential users.
  What user population is affected by your problem of study? What related tasks do they perform? How would users benefit from a solution (not necessarily your solution) to your problem of study?
B. Analysis of Existing Solutions
1. Describe existing solutions.
  What existing solutions, products, and services currently relate to your problem of study? Have others already attempted to solve your exact problem or something similar? What are the pros and cons of each existing solution, product, or service? If a certain solution, product, or service is popular, then state that and justify why that’s the case – you might use published surveys or articles to help make your case.
2. Describe potential guidelines and solutions.
  What guidelines or principles do these solutions, products, and services conform to, either officially or unofficially, if any? What guidelines or principles appropriately serve your users?
C. Proposed Solution
1. Propose a solution.
  Using points from (A) and (B), propose a design solution to your problem of study. Do not propose a solution that’s in search of a problem! At this stage, let the problem lead you to a solution. Try to describe your solution using terms like properties, affordances, and signifiers. How does your proposed solution compare to existing solutions?
2. How will you measure success?
  You do not need to supply an evaluation for this milestone; however, you should discuss what criteria should be used to judge if your design is a success or not.
D. Summary Video
1. Create a 5-10 minute video that summarizes the information in parts (A), (B), and (C). The creation of this video should involve all team members, and the video itself should contain credits at the end describing who did what.
NOTE: Your instructor recommends that you upload your video to a service like YouTube and use the “unlisted” setting, if available, so that only people who know the link to the video can view it. You should provide the link to the video in your milestone deliverable report; if your report is an HTML page, then you may embed the video into the page in addition to providing the link.
Prior to the milestone deadline, one team member needs to post the following information in a followup discussion to Piazza @33.
1. Team Name
2. Team Member Names
3. Brief Synopsis – shorter than what’s on your home page
4. Link to your group home page
5. A few sentences describing what you thought was easy/hard about this particular milestone

Grading¶

Item	Points	Assessment
Public Home Page	20%	Pass / Fail
Task / Problem Definition	20%	Rubric
Analysis of Existing Solutions	20%	Rubric
Proposed Solution	20%	Rubric
Summary Video	20%	Rubric

For this assignment, any portion that is designated as using a rubric will be graded on a 20-point scale that coincides with a rubric designed to mirror the related prompts. Be sure to address every aspect of a prompt.