Design Assignment Week3:

Final Project Preliminary Paper Prototype Design

Due Thu May 26, beginning of class

This is a team assignment.

It's time to propose a project idea. Your goal is to to use storyboards and/or paper prototypes to describe your concept as fully as you can. You may need to combine some of the techniques that have been discussed in class and in the design readings.

Your assignment should include the following information for your proposed app:

• App name (Max 30 characters, including spaces)
• App description that would appear on the Market (Max 4000 characters, including spaces)
• A slogan or promotional saying that would appear on the Market (Max 80 characters, including spaces)
• Application Type (pick either "Applications" or "Games")
• Category (specify one of the categories on the Market)
• Succinctly answer the following questions:
  • What problem/task(s) does the application help someone solve?
  • If not immediately obvious, how does this app meet the course guidelines of helping people with some health-related need, such as weight loss/management or getting more physical activity?
  • What apps on the Market (or other app stores) would be your closest competitor?
  • Why will your app be better than the competitors?
  • What is innovative about your app idea? What will be particularly surprising or elegant about the concept?
  • What about your app will keep people engaged using it for a long time?

Next include scans of paper prototypes or storyboards showing your concept in as much detail as you can. These will need to be a combination of mock (sketched) screen shots where you will need to label just enough so someone else can tell how the app would work.

Do:

• Think through the details of ALL of the screens someone would encounter
• Aim for innovation but also simplicity in design
• Use the unique functionality of mobile devices
• Keep in mind the design principles we've discussed in class and that have been in the readings
• Iterate a few times with friends to try and improve the idea before you turn it in (and make the best of the in-class paper prototyping session the day before)
• Remember that you are proposing to implement what you propose -- keep it manageable

Do not:

• Use a computer to draw designs ... sketch screens by hand, without a ruler
• Propose to reimplement an app that is already on the Market ... propose something new
• Oversimplify the behavior of your users or underestimate the difficulty of achieving behavior change
• Propose ideas that require a large amount of high-quality content to be generated in order to be interesting (unless you will be able to generate example content to be used to evaluate your project) .

Email your assignment to ...@neu.edu named [LastNameTeamMember1][LastNameTeamMember2].d3.pdf and bring a hardcopy to class.