Kurt Luther – Page 5 – CS4784: Human-Computer Interaction Capstone

Press release #4: AddHawk Performs a Contextual Inquiry and Extracts Design Requirements

March 7, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 6, 2015 – AddHawk is a group of Computer Science students taking their Human Computer Interaction capstone project to a massive scale. They begun working on an application called PixelPusher, a massive crowdsourced display in Lane Stadium, using all the attendees mobile device screens as pixels. This type of project, mobile phone mosaics, has been attempted by several companies before, including Sony, HTC, and Blinkendroid. “The current guinness world record is 400 devices, we’re optimistically looking at 50,000.” said PixelPusher developer Michael Peter. The current record belongs to China Unicom, Sohu IT and HTC which used 400 HTC One devices in July of 2013, playing a one minute advertisement. This project could beat that record by over a hundred times the amount of screens.

Updates on PixelPusher:

Over the course of the past week, the AddHawk team completed the stages of Contextual Inquiry, Contextual Analysis, and Requirements extraction. A set of potential users were chosen, all with the common trait that they have attended Virginia Tech football games and may again in the future and or were in our domain of potential users. To get a wide set of results, other characteristics of the users were much more varied. Outliers such as individuals with only very basic working knowledge of a smartphone and other Computer Science students were chosen. Since this is a continuing process, please feel free to contact us at cmw2379@vt.edu and we would love to hear your opinion and ask you some questions.

“It’s really important to get a look at very different users. In order for this project to be successful, its absolutely critical that the implementation feels accessible to virtually every fan with a smartphone.” said AddHawk Backend Developer Michael Peter.

Contextual Analysis revealed striking similarities between many of the users. Almost every person interviewed revealed that they would be interested in having a display when attending a Virginia Tech football game, but the effort required to create signs for themselves was the ultimate limiting factor. Also, the process of getting enough people together to perform this is difficult to coordinate. One of our lead Frontend developers, Connor Hoene, has strong feeling about this stating, “Building a way to interact with a crowd that uses your smartphone is such an incredible idea and such a natural extension of how we use our phones nowadays. The fact that something like this doesn’t already exist is staggering”. Alongside all of team AddHawks successes this week, the team is excited with what they learned and look forward to moving forward with this process. Once again, the team is building PixelPusher for the community and would love any input you, the people, would like to share. If you want to say hi, or give us a piece of your mind, please let us know at cmw2379@vt.edu.

A Look Into the Future:

With a much stronger understanding of the potential user base of PixelPusher and their requirements, it is time for the AddHawk team to begin its first round of prototyping. The team is very excited to finally get a chance to test out the several different ideas that they’ve been debating since the idea first took flight. Frontend developer Dillon Gresham enthusiastically stated, “In this set of interviews we were able to communicate with potential Users which really helped us narrow our prototype ideas down. The team gained a lot of insight into how Hokie football fans view their smart phones and the applications the phones hold.”

Mission Statement:

PixelPusher will allow football fans in Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech to display individual pixels on their phones which are part of a larger image. In this way PixelPusher acts as a crowdsourced collaboration application that will bring together football fans everywhere. PixelPusher also aims to break the current world record of 400 connected devices. The application will be developed with the idea of simplicity and efficiency at heart, providing a lightweight, seamless user interface to football fans at Virginia Tech.

“AddHawk is an up and coming software development initiative aimed at revolutionizing how a single member of a crowd can have a huge impact on an event. ”

For more information or questions please contact: cmw2379@vt.edu

Press release #3: The AddHawk Team Soars Towards the Future

March 4, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 26, 2015 – AddHawk is a group of Computer Science students taking their HumanComputer Interaction capstone project to a massive scale. They begun working on an application called PixelPusher, a massive crowdsourced display in Lane Stadium, using all the attendees mobile device screens as pixels. This type of project, mobile phone mosaics, has been attempted by several companies before, including Sony, HTC, and Blinkendroid. “The current guinness world record is 400 devices, we’re optimistically looking at 50,000.” said PixelPusher developer Michael Peter. The current record belongs to China Unicom, Sohu IT and HTC which used 400 HTC One devices in July of 2013, playing a one minute advertisement. This project could beat that record by over a hundred times the amount of screens.

Updates on PixelPusher:

The team has officially changed its title, now going by the name AddHawk. PixelPusher will, however still be the name of the software being developed. The team feels that this is an important change to mention going forward with development.

This week the team laid out a project plan and schedule while dividing the project into smaller, more manageable roles. The AddHawk team split into two different squads: a backend and a frontend development team. The backend team is made up of AddHawk’s Michael and Christopher and will primarily focus on the connection of the devices and the issues the application will face in Lane Stadium. “I would love to work on the backend team because working on something like this is a once in a lifetime experience.” says Christopher Wood enthusiastically. The frontend team is composed of the remaining AddHawk’s, Connor and Dillon, and will mainly work on the interface and user experience aspects of the application.

The team is currently looking at a 9week work period with the majority of the development picking up around week 4. Both development teams have planned different milestones such as scouting out the location and meeting with the sponsor to finalize design ideas.

A Look Into the Future:

In the upcoming weeks, the AddHawk team plans to conduct a contextual inquiry. This will involve the entire team’s effort in interviewing multiple people whose expertise and/or experience is relevant to our goals. We will analyze the data obtained from these interviews in order to gather a more informed picture of what design requirements need to be established. These design requirements will guide the team before and during the development process. The team also plans to begin prototyping and subsequently start developing the PixelPusher software.

“We’re very excited to get started with the development of PixelPusher! We are about to discover what the system is going look like from the perspectives of the various roles we’ve assigned to our team members.” Connor Hoene, PixelPusher Developer.

Mission Statement:

Press release #3: J5 Releases Plan for Development

March 4, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg, Va., Feb. 27, 2015 J5 has completed its comprehensive project plan to develop the Gaming Social Network!

In order to work efficiently and complete their project in a reasonable amount of time, J5 has developed a project plan to work on certain stages of their development on a week to week basis.

Team member Daniel Rusz said “It’s easier to tackle a project of this size when its broken down into smaller tasks each week”.

The team will begin their contextual inquiry next week and move onto their analysis shortly afterwards. The contextual inquiry is the design phase that consists of gathering data for what features their audience is looking for and the analysis will determine how they will make use of the data that was collected.

Team member Iyaz Shaikh said “Our prototype will make it easy to see what features we need to include”.

After their analysis is complete, J5 will begin constructing prototypes of their application. The purpose of building a prototype is to visualize how the application will be designed and what features they will include. The team plans to construct several prototypes of varying depth to ensure that the overall layout works well without developing every feature in detail.

Team member Lucas Eckert said “We can evaluate our prototypes easily by letting a new user test how intuitive the application is to use”.

Once the prototype is made, J5 plans to use beta testers to attempt using the basic features of the system without being walked through. J5 will know whether their application is intuitive and useful or not depending on the data they gather from these initial users.

Now that J5 has their plan in place, they are ready to begin their contextual inquiry and work at a good pace until the development is complete.

J5 – “Let’s Play Together” Contact person: Lucas Eckert <lucase93@vt.edu>

Press release #3: The Cumulonimbus System: Strategy

March 4, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg, VA., Feb 27, 2015 Laying a foundation is important. In construction, it supports the building or structure that it is on. When things or systems fail, the foundation will surely stay steadfast. In the human body, our skeleton supports all of our organs.

Cumulonimbus created a project timeline for the rest of the semester. It consists of weekly goals, with milestones, in addition to team member responsibilities. “I love planning these things out. It gets us on a pace, if not already on one,” said Romico Macatula. “It also brings clarity to role assignments, like ‘who is doing what’, etc.” Planning for future months can be a difficult process though. Romico said, “I think all three of us would agree that planning for specifics was tough because we would have to consider schedule flexibility.”

Creating a project plan exponentially benefits a team. Even if it’s a basic skeleton, it does serve by creating a pace for the team. Creating a plan allows each member to communicate their thoughts on roles as well It also allows the team to be on the same page with one another. Communication is a key concept to success.

With the project plan set, Cumulonimbus moves forward to their next goal: Finish the contextual inquiry and analysis. Their goal is to interview at least 5 people. Next, a WAAD (Work Activity Affinity Diagram)will be created which will be followed up with the analysis.

The Photo Clouds Team is a team of three senior level computer science students at Virginia Tech: Matthew Bock, Romico Macatula, and Tyler Haines. All three of them have extensive skill sets in computer science after their years of study. With several semesters of experience in the field of humancomputer interaction at their disposal, the team is dedicated to creating the best experience possible for their users through rigorous testing and design iteration. Any questions or comments, contact Romico Macatula at rmac817@vt.edu.

Press release #3: Pass It On! Inc Gains a Sponsor!

March 4, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg, VA, February 27, 2015: The members of Pass It On! Inc have been diligently busy for the past week working hard to bring Pass It On! together. One of the main developments for the past week has been that Pass It On! has gained a Sponsor!

Dr. Horning will be joining Pass It On! Inc in a leadership role, providing consulting and oversight to the group. Dr. Horning is a professor within the Communications Department at Virginia Tech. His main focus of study is the social and psychological effects of communications. Already, he has provided valuable sources as we move into contextual analysis and eventually prototyping. The group looks forward to working with Dr. Horning and is excited for what they can produce together with him.

“Dr. Horning is an experienced professional who can provide us invaluable information to us especially in terms of design and building out the community that will make Pass it On! a successful application” Minahm Kim

“I’m excited to hear that Dr. Horning has joined the team as a sponsor. I’m sure he will be a valuable asset to have as we move forward with the project.” Matthew Chittum

“After working on the planning document I’m very excited about getting started on designing the website. I’m also very excited about our sponsor Dr. Horning!” Joshua White

“Pass It On! Inc has really gained some momentum after picking up Dr. Horning as a sponsor, I am eager to begin our contextual inquiry.” Alex CIccone

Past this, the group has been working hard to come up with a solid implementation plan for the upcoming months. Plans to conduct a contextual inquiry have been finalized and will be executed next week, allowing Pass It On! to gain valuable related user information. A survey to gather user interest and feedback is planned to be sent out next week. Also, plans to perform inperson interviews are being finalized currently (if you are interested in the project and would like to be a part of the contextual inquiry, email Alex!).

Press release #3: Civil War driving tour app developers make plans for development

March 4, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 27, 2015 – This week was an important week for the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Two of the three met with their client, Professor Paul Quigley, on Wednesday, February 25th, and the three then came up with a project plan and deadlines.

Paul Quigley expressed that he was indeed interested in an iOS driving tour application, and specifically said that he would like an interactive map that allows the user to see different marked locations. The user could click on these locations and learn about the history about their historical significance in terms of the Civil War.

Additionally, there would be features allowing the user to share these locations on social media and a couple optional tours for visiting nearby locations. Overall, the ideas are all on the table at this point, and the team is in a very good place in terms of moving forward.

The team came up with their project plan and their deadlines by keeping the meeting in mind and deciding who was going to do what based on the team members’ skill sets. They will be continuing their weekly meetings, and at the moment are on track to have the final deliverable available around May 6th.

Next week, the team will be focusing on developing their contextual inquiry, and thinking about the design of the app.

As stated in the last press release, the team was reconsidering a new name but decided to stick with its beloved “Kool Katz,” with an appropriately accompanying slogan: “All your Civil War needs right here right meow.”

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

Press release #3: War of Ages

March 4, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg, VA; February 27, 2015 –

A schedule has now been planned out for the War of Ages development and an official release date has been set! Developers have confirmed, the release date for War of Ages will be May 4, 2015. War of Ages will be available to Android users, and the price has not yet been announced.

War of Ages also revealed a look at the factions and units available to the players.

First, from the Northern Realm of the ice factions, the mystical vikings have the power to control artifacts of the frozen tundra. They can freeze the battlefield and slow down their clans’ greatest enemies. There is no colder place on earth than their war path!

Next, an ancient horde of cavemen who can bend the earth to their will. They are known to create trenches and cliffs, hurl giant boulders, and even command earthquakes. In the battle of brain versus brawn, they leave brains splattered across the battlefield!

Finally, a group of high tech soldiers from the future have stumbled on the Field of Ages. Those, who have access to incredible technology that allows them to launch explosives across the battlefield, detonate mines with the flip of a switch, and even cheat unbreakable odds. War grinds their gears to their fullest!

“We are very excited about the gameplay options these factions introduce, it truly is a war of the ages” said Scott Fraser. “Each faction has a unique play style and gives the user lots of options on how they want to play. ” War of Ages’ Graphics Designer, Joe Wileman, has created logos that are specific to each faction:

Each faction’s symbol represents their dedication and fullness to war. The symbol of the Northern Realm holds each viking faction to the soaring ideals of bravery, courage, and sacrifice. Meaning “deny witchcraft”, their symbol is a constant reminder of the clans’ willingness to serve no one but themselves!

The symbol of the caveman horde is simple and bold. Resembling their sacred rock, the cavemen call to the Boulder Cube as a reminder of their strength in battle. While numbers enrich their army’s advantage, each caveman cannot deny the oldest of sayings: “nothing is as hard as a rock!”

Lastly, the mechanics symbol is a communion of all the inventors lost in time. Many slain by wild beasts after the event, their symbol is a constant reminder of those ideas lost to simpler forces. Their beacon of hope remains as they will slay anything to return to a time that accepts them. “Long live the eternal!”

Which side will you take on the Field of Ages?…

The team plans to conduct several interviews to gain feedback about the concept from the general population. With that in hand, we will be able to refine our design and make preparations for the War of Ages

For more information, please contact Joe Wileman: wjoe113@vt.edu

Press release #2: Gaming Social Network Researches for Development

February 23, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg, Va., Feb. 12, 2015

J5 has completed its competitive analysis and literature review for the Gaming Social Network!

The goal of the competitive analysis was to see what other services are out there that are similar to the Gaming Social Network and how do they compare. J5 found ten different services that provide similar features to this network and rated them on a scale from one to five on how well they met J5’s criteria.

Team member Daniel Rusz said, “We can see which services compete with our own and judge how significant our competition is”.

By viewing the score that each service received, J5 can determine where they need to excel in order to surpass their strongest competitors. This is highly useful information that is necessary to know in order to make this application successful.

J5’s literature review provided them with many useful resources to help them design their application. We have reports that their sources range from social network analysis to mobile application design.

Team member Parham Ghazanfari said “It seems like we’ve got enough information to start our contextual inquiry.”

The competitive analysis and literature review provided a significant amount of information regarding the features their network should include as well as how the network should be constructed. They also provided significant insight on how mobile databases should be maintained as well.

Team member Iyaz Shaikh said “It’s important to consider more than just the core functionality of our app. We also have to consider the potential complications of maintaining a database of user profiles as well as a network.”

Now that J5 has the competitive analysis and literature review behind them, they can begin focusing on what their target audience wants and expects from the Gaming Social Network.

J5 – “Let’s Play Together” Contact person: Lucas Eckert <lucase93@vt.edu>

Press release #2: Pass It On! Preparing for the Future

February 23, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg ,Va, February 20th, 2015

This past week was an exciting one. Despite the snow, our team worked hard, conducting due diligence as we analyzed our competition and began research on our market. We have found that we have the opportunity to fill a unique niche, a time bank system that unlike existing systems, will not be limited to a specific region, but available to any location where people are willing to participate. There are other systems similar to what we want to do but they are plagued by a few things, including but not limited to restricted effective area, unorganized leadership, subject to taxes, etc.

Here are some interesting facts about time banking that you may not have known.

● Time banking provides a sense of comradery to a community.
● The United States government cannot tax time.
● Alternative currency provides a sense of security that conventional currency does not.
● Brings a sense of equality to all people diminishing the wealth gap that can be prominent in communities.

As we finish our due diligence and research so that we can develop the most appropriate service possible, we will take our beginning steps to design and structure, in turn bringing us one step closer to the release of Pass It On!

In the coming weeks we plan on having our primary design set up, and then conducting usability testing to assure that our design is intuitive and appropriate. If you are interested in participating as a usability tester, please send an email to our contact, Alex Ciccone, whose email is listed at the top of this release.

We will soon have a mailing list to receive updates, as well as a facebook page.

“The idea is called time banking, and it is based on the simple notion that time is equal for all people. In this system, services can be exchanged based on how long it takes to complete them, rather than on a market value determined by supply and demand. Raking the local massage therapist’s leaves for one hour can be traded for a 60minute Swedish massage, in other words.”

USA News

Time Banks provide New Way to Spend an Hour

Press release #2: PixelPusher Delves into Research and Enters Disillusionment Phase

February 23, 2015April 1, 2015 Kurt Luther Leave a comment

BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 20, 2015 – PixelPusher is a group of Computer Science students taking their HumanComputer Interaction capstone project to a massive scale. They begun working on a massive crowdsourced display in Lane Stadium, using all the attendees mobile device screens as pixels. This type of project, mobile phone mosaics, has been attempted by several companies before, including Sony, HTC, and Blinkendroid. “The current guinness world record is 400 devices, we’re optimistically looking at 50,000.” said PixelPusher developer Michael Peter. The current record belongs to China Unicom, Sohu IT and HTC which used 400 HTC One devices in July of 2013, playing a one minute advertisement. This project could beat that record by over a hundred times the amount of screens.

Updates from PixelPusher: This week we thoroughly researched our current competitors and contemporaries by conducting a competitive analysis, a literary review, and created an annotated bibliography. We discovered a variety of applications that enable multiple devices to display shared image, video, and audio streams in real time through crowdsourcing the connected users. Some of the notable applications discovered through research include Mosaic, Junkyard Jumbotron, and PixelPhones, which are all opensource and currently in development. We have also looked into the important issue of how the network of connected devices contained within our application should be constructed. We have found various implementations of network architectures through our competitive analysis and research that we are looking into currently in order to determine which strategy fits our needs best. In addition to research, we had the opportunity to meet with our project sponsor, Benjamin Knapp. We also met with Matthew Favaro, who developed a prototype of our application and conducted preliminary research and of the PixelPusher idea. During our meeting, Benjamin mentioned the possibility of including audio streams in addition to images and video. We also discussed the current state of Lane Stadium’s lack of WiFi or 4G signal, among other things.

A Look Into the Future: We plan on continuing to look into possible solutions to the connectivity problems at Lane Stadium. After analyzing a number of scholarly articles we feel that we are close to determining the best fix for this issue. We aim to meet again with our sponsor and possibly the Athletic Director to discuss which solution they feel will work best for the stadium. PixelPusher is also looking into the various available solutions to the problem of networking connected devices in our system. Looking to our competitors as well as our research will guide us in determining the best architecture to use for this.

Mission Statement: PixelPusher will allow football fans in Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech to display individual pixels on their phones which are part of a larger image. In this way PixelPusher acts as a crowdsourced collaboration application that will bring together football fans everywhere. PixelPusher also aims to break the current world record of 400 connected devices. The application will be developed with the idea of simplicity and efficiency at heart, providing a lightweight, seamless user interface to football fans at Virginia Tech. “PixelPusher Studios is an up and coming software development initiative aimed at revolutionizing how a single member of a crowd can have a huge impact on an event. ”

Contact Person: Christopher Wood cmw2379@vt.edu