Assignment 6: Final Project Individual Paper Prototype Design

 

This is an individual assignment
 

This is your last chance to show off your abilities as an individual when it comes to developing a great idea for the final project. By this time, you should have evolved towards having a single idea that has a great deal of potential as a final project app. This assignment is designed to help you further refine that design.

 

Start by taking the feedback from prior assignments into account. Redouble your efforts to come up with a great idea, and have the courage to throw out ideas that are not getting a good reaction. Napkin discussions with non-techie friends are helpful here.

When you have ideas on how to improve on your prior idea, build a paper prototype for your app concept following the Rettig articles and the tips discussed in class. Assume you have a screen no larger than the screen on a Nexus S phone. Ideally, you would design for the smallest screen you might encounter (an Aria phone with 320 x 480 pixels (template)). The reason designing for a small screen is helpful is that it forces you to think very hard about what information really needs to be on the screen at any particular time. That will make your app better. (Just imagine you were designing for Android Wear or Google Glass, where screen real estate is even more limited!)

Run some paper prototyping sessions with friends – ideally friends not in computing. Adjust your prototype using the techniques discussed in class and iterate to an improved idea. Scrap bad ideas. Do this until you are satisfied that you have a terrific idea that does not make unreasonable assumptions about what people will or won't do, and an idea that you believe is implementable and testable. Remember that students registered in 5520 must have an idea that uses sensors in an novel and significant way. Your design should handle all screens in your app that are necessary for your app to work. If you use audio feedback, you will need to indicate how the audio feedback will work in as much detail as you would do if it were visual feedback.

Clean up your paper prototypes so they are ready to be used for paper prototype testing.

In addition to your paper prototype parts, on a single page, include the following information:

Attach scans of all parts of your paper prototype and the single page above. No screens that you would need to implement should be left out of your design proposal. If it is not obvious how the parts go together, you should add a small amount of additional information.

Do:

Do not:

Hand-in:

 

Email your assignment with subject line "Assignment 6" to the TAs and ...@neu.edu as a PDF file named [YourFirstName][YourLastName].assign6.pdf by the deadline.

 

Evaluation/feedback:

 

This assignment will be graded based on how well you have prepared materials that show evidence of having been used and refined in paper prototyping, taking account class discussions and readings. You should have all the materials needed for running a paper prototype session. Although it is subject to tweaking, this table will give you a sense of how much importance we will place on various parts of the assignment in assigning a grade.