Assignment #8:  Team project idea proposal and plans

This is a team assignment

At this point you have completed several individual assignments designed to help you converge on a strong project idea. Use Piazza to identify a team member or make a decision that you will work alone.

With your team member, or on your own if you do not wish to team up, develop your idea for a project. This may be the best idea between the two of you, or it may be a new idea that combines some of the best ideas you have individually had so far. The idea you propose should definitely be an improvement over prior ideas. As a team you need to do sufficient paper prototyping to convince yourselves (and ultimately Stephen) that you have an exceptional and achievable idea for a project. The paper prototyping (and short tests with people using the prototype) will also help you to refine the concept.

Submit a proposal for your project idea. This can be up to 2 pages long but no more. It can include text, screen sketches, or anything else that you think gets the idea across. It should clearly indicate the project category, problem being solved, and potential of the idea to make a great, innovative app. It should demonstrate that you've thought deeply about your idea and what makes it great, but also what the challenges are in designing and implementing the idea for your class project. Please include a list of the major components of the application that must be built and indicate the difficulty level of each part. Please do not recycle ideas that have received "R" marks unless there are fundamental changes to the interaction design. Ideas that have received "Y" marks should be proposed with caution; here too, you should only propose them if you have made significant improvements to the interaction (which is distinct from the graphics).

Hand-in:

One member of each team should email the presentation as a pdf with subject line "Assignment8" by the deadline. Name the file [TeamMember1FirstName][TeamMember1LastName][TeamMember2FirstName][TeamMember2LastName].assign8.pdf and send to both the TAs and ...@neu.edu.

Evaluation/feedback:

This is an unusual assignment. You will receive one of two marks: "Yes", "No". "Yes" means you have an idea that is clearly described, innovative, implementable, etc. In short, your team seems to be headed toward a great final project and has described what you plan to build in enough detail so that this can be determined. "No" means your idea needs work, either because the idea is not clear, the idea is problematic, the design is flawed, the idea is too complex to implement, the design is too easy for a class project, and/or the description does not reflect that the team has seriously through through all aspects of the design. The first time you submit you will get feedback on the idea. After that, teams can resubmit up to three times, but will only receive "Yes" or "No" feedback, and it will be up to the teams to figure out why or come up with new ideas. A great idea that is poorly described will NOT receive a "Yes." An uninspired idea that is beautifully described will also NOT receive a "Yes."

You have up to three days to submit a new idea upon receiving feedback on the prior idea.

Teams that receive a "Yes" on the first try will receive an A on this assignment. Teams that receive a Yes on the second try will receive a B, and Teams that receive a Yes on the third try will receive a C. Teams that do not recieve a "Yes" after three tries (or fail to meet the timelines) will receive a D. Teams that have trouble with this assignment may want to consider the Mystery Project for their final project.