Week 6 : App Selection, UI

Agenda

• Housekeeping
• GeekSpeak
• Review and pitch (pairs for practice, then to the entire room)
• Hands-On
• Play
• Our Apps

Housekeeping:

• Reading posts: Corey, Danielle, Derek, Kwame, Nicole, Sam
• Updated Google Spreadsheet (with points) — *** means an excellent example that incorporates everything requested in the assignment

GeekSpeak

• Danielle : SDK
• Kwame : Windows Phone 7 (2 screen sizes and 1 aspect ratio)
• Nicole : Android
• Sam : Symbian

Review and Pitch

We’ll break into pairs and pitch/question. I want everyone to be sure to speak to these two things — where are you going to get your data and who would be a logical sponsoring organization (NFP or government preferred).

After the one-on-one trial run, everyone will give a pitch to the class. We will vote after lunch — you’ll vote for projects by indicating which you’d like to work on. You’ll rank all of them.

Assignment Was Due 5 pm 30 July

1. Corey: PlaySpace (***)
2. Danielle: n.p. (10.30 Sat)
3. Derek: Fresh Finder (***)
4. Ericka: First Thursday (***)
5. Kwame: Best In Town
6. Nicole: Road Report
7. Sam: ArtLife
8. YunLi: Class Finder

Resources:

• An Introduction To Compassionate Screen Scraping
• One classified ad for scraping Yelp and City Search ($500 – no takers?)
• Gestures and Sixth Sense (Corey’s TED Talk from last week)

TEAMS:

• Corey & Danielle : PlaySpace
• Derek, Nicole & Sam : Fresh Finder
• Erika, Kwame and YunLi : First Thursday

Hands-On

• Working in pairs, identify the features you would look for (as a consumer) in an application from your favorite airline. Be specific. Describe scenarios that show the features in use (tasks).
• Now compare these applications: American Airlines (iTunes web), Alaska Airlines (iTunes web) and Southwest Airlines (iTunes web)
• Analyze screen flow — which functions do you think should be easily accessible (and are they)? How well does the UI work? How well does it conform with interface guidelines? Sketch out the flow.
• Which application would you pay money for and why? How much would you pay?

Resources:

• cNet reviews iPhone apps for airline geeks (2009)
• Top Travel Apps for the iPhone and iPodTouch
• How to create your first iPhone application

Play

• In pairs, look at RedFoundry and AppMaker, two auto-magic iPhone app tools, and the Android App Inventor.
• Check out some AppMaker apps  — what do you think? What is it about the app that is facilitated by or necessary because of “mobile”? What is the data source? Here are two to consider:
  • Motroz TV
  • Seth Godin
  • Ski Michigan
• Check out the AppMaker gallery — which logo/icons work and why?

Our Apps

Results of voting.

Next Steps

• Application precis (draft) : rationale, audience, competing products – due August 9 at 9 am
• Screen flow (wireframe draft) : due August 16 at 9 am
• Promotion plan (draft) : due August 16 at 9 am
• Class pitch : due August 16 at 6 pm
• Final application proposal (one per team) : Due Sunday 22 August at 6 pm.
• See Our Projects post (which is also linked on assignments page)