Your current assignment is to form a group of 3 to 5 students and to propose the idea that will form the basis of your group project.
You are encouraged to pick a topic within the themes of the course, but you are not strictly limited to a topic in those areas, or to any particular technology platform, language, or development tool. You are also encouraged to think out-of-the-box and include new or different interaction techniques and technology platforms (e.g., mobile devices, tangible interfaces, speech interfaces, vision based interfaces). You should focus on improving or creating a specific tool, application or service. The more specific you get, the more likely you will be able to design, implement, and evaluate the user interface for your project within the course timeframe. Be aware of your group's skills and limitations when proposing a topic. Also be sure you know and have the appropriate tools to do the job. Note that the focus here is on the user-interface and not all the other technological pieces that would be required to really get some of these projects working in the real world (some backend functionality is needed so that you can appropriately evaluate your system, but the whole system does not have to be "production ready").
Here are some sample, deliberately vague, topic areas:
** projects with local company: Business Objects **
reconcile navigation paradigms for document portals by examining the UE in InfoView, Business Objects' document portal [description]
investigate UE challenges for integrating Live Office components into MS Office [description]
** projects on ePresence **
evaluation of ePresence interface [http://epresence.tv/]
collaboration or communication :
- tool for scheduling meetings with many participants who have very diverse schedules (such as the IDRG)
- support for collaborative writing spanning multiple devices (laptops, tabletops, and/or large screen displays)
- support of interactive presentations spanning multiple devices
- interaction techniques to support collaboration on a tabletop display
- interaction techniques to support collaboration on a large screen display
- tool to allow working parents to communicate with their children at home
- allowing visitors to an office to leave a message when the office occupant is away via a door mounted message board
- tool to allow voice annotation of a document or other content such as a slide presentation, webpage, video
- electronic corkboard analogous to the traditional corkboards found in many workspaces
- build an electronic memorabilia sharing system (photo's, kid's drawings, ...) your grandparents can use
interfaces that are appropriate to users at different skill levels:
- interaction techniques that enable novice users to transition seamlessly to expert users
- support for both feature-reduced and feature-rich interfaces together in the same application
- techniques to help a user transition seamlessly from one version of an application to another version
universal usability
- interface to a pocket PC that is appropriate for the elderly
- a PDA for grade schoolers
- redesign an ATM to make it accessible to blind people
- design a automated ticket dispensing kiosk for Vancouver Transit that is accessible to blind people
- interaction techniques that allow visually impaired people to work with a standard display
personal information management / productivity tools:
- new ways to manage a personal/business calendar
- a graph creation tool that your average professor can use
- guided walking tour of a city
- trip planning system that integrates road, rail, and air travel planning seamlessly
- tool to help a person looking for rental housing
electronic commerce
- tool to allow people to book a taxicab from wherever they are, and to know the status of the cab fleet
- system for paying for stuff without ever taking credit/debit card or cash out of your wallet
- system for purchasing products that you see on TV
- system to see if a particular widget is available at a warehouse hardware store without actually going there
Write an essay of no more than 4 pages of single spaced 12 point text. On the cover page (not included in the page count) you must list the name of your group and the members names.
Your essay should address the following broad issues:
Here are some guidelines on writing this proposal:
The proposal should try to address a practical problem with a novel use
of technology or present a new or enhanced work practice enabled by technology.
The writing must clearly present the important facts
and be terse and concise. The nitty-gritty details aren’t needed at this
point.
The problem description should be short and specific
about the high-level goals of the project. It states what the problem is
and why it is a problem or describes a new idea and why it will enhance an
existing application or work practice. It should also drop a hint at the
proposed solution to the problem.
The analysis section should give more background for
the problem or new idea. It doesn’t just focus on the negative aspects of
the current situation, but also identifies some positive aspects that may
be beneficial to retain. A few salient examples from existing systems or
work practices should be used to support those claims.
Here the proposal should propose specific changes to
solve the problems or implement the new ideas described earlier and briefly
explain why it is believed they will work.
Wherever possible, you should cite relevant literature.