BLACKSBURG, Va., May 1, 2015 – This week was a monumental week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Cannon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz completed a lot of development of the Civil War Driving Tour app, did a practice presentation, and executed their refined evaluation plan.
Last week, the app was coming along with its individual features, but the features were not nearly as developed nor were they all working together.
This week, the team not only brought the features to being nearly completed, but integrated them so that they all work together. The data entry, which is vital and central to the app, was completed this week. As for the features, the display of the sites and the site information parts of the app are also nearing completion — there are minor changes to be made. Along with that, major progress was made on the visitor comments feature. Now, the user is able to leave comments about the sites, allowing them to talk about the weather, road conditions, fun facts about the sites, etc.
The team was lucky enough to be able to do a practice presentation in their capstone class. In doing so, they were able to introduce the app, the ideas behind the app, the client, and demo the app to the class. The demo was particularly important and essential to the team, as they were able to obtain valuable advice from their classmates.
One student commented that explaining the features beforehand was not necessary. Another said that showing the backend technology, Parse, and how it works is also not necessary and takes away from time that could be used to demonstrate the app itself.
Additionally, the team refined their evaluation plan to make it more explicit and thus easier to measure the success or lack thereof of the app and its associated user experience. The team went ahead and interviewed a few of the potential users who were interviewed months earlier for the contextual inquiry (see archives for corresponding press release).
Executing the evaluation plan has been a very important step in assessing progress. For example, Kara Trimpin was able to demo the app itself: “I like being able to go to the map straight from the site description, it just seems naturally intuitive and prevents me from having to do redundant navigation,” Kara noted.
Next week, the team, with feedback from both their classmates, professor, and evaluation plan interviewees, will be able to make the appropriate changes needed for the app’s completion. There are a few other less complicated features that the team will implement; for example, adding MapQuest directions, images for the sites, and sources for the information presented. They will also be meeting with the client once more to discuss if there is anything that must be changed, and to figure out final details. These details include the app’s future plans and ‘handing over’ what has been done so that the future developers can pick up where Kool Katz left off (when the app is expanded). Lastly, the team will give their final presentation, an improved version of the practice presentation and demo conducted this week.
The team is very optimistic about the conclusion of this project, and is looking forward to introducing the finished app to the public. Stay tuned!
Contact Laura Avakian at lavakian@vt.edu for any further inquiries.
