Tag: kool-katz

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.

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17, 2015 – This week was a successful week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Cannon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz continued their development of the Civil War Driving Tour app and finished the high fidelity prototype.

Last week, the app was still more of a skeleton than something usable, and an evaluation plan had been created. The features were starting to take shape, but were not working together.

This week, Laura and Ryan finished up the prototype, which provides the basic functionality: displaying the tour sites, the details about the tour sites, a link to their website, a way to view them on the map, and the user comments page. The features are now not only working but are working together. There is still of course work to be done, but the extent to which the app has been developed is what qualifies this as being high fidelity.

Additionally, the team got in touch with the client, Paul Quigley, by email to touch base about the status of the project. They will be meeting within the next week or two, pending the team and client’s availability. 

The team plans to interview the client on what he does and does not like about the app, but will be careful about using that feedback as the client is not the same as a general potential user. The client likely will give feedback from a different perspective, however, which will certainly be helpful.

“Now that we have something working, we can really focus on what the users want. The evaluation plan still needs some work but it will be instrumental in judging our success or lack of,” says Ryan. 

Next week, the team, with recent feedback from Professor Luther, will refine the evaluation plan, and then will use it to interview potential users about what they like and do not like about the app itself. The potential users that were interviewed one month earlier for the contextual inquiry will likely be the target interviewees for the prototype. Doing so is a vital step to developing this app while keeping the users in mind as it is easy to.

Contact Laura Avakian at lavakian@vt.edu for any further inquiries.

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 10, 2015 – This week was a productive week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz continued their development of the Civil War Driving Tour app.

Last week, Laura and Ryan were able to make progress setting up version control for their project and creating a skeletal design of the app on Xcode. Additionally, they came up with a solution that would satisfy the client and professor’s needs in that they would be implementing a running feed of comments with each individual site which is in the works.

This week, development continued for the skeleton of the app. The data entry of the tour sites and accompanying information, though a tedious task, is coming along. This will allow the developers to make sure the information is being properly presented on the different app screens.

The team was able to get the screen with list of tour sites working, which the user will be able to select each site from and potentially change up the list of sites to their personal liking. Additionally, the screen that loads the tour information was developed, and will need to be more extensively tested once the data entry task is complete.

Apart from the development, the team came up with an evaluation plan that will be executed in the next couple weeks when the high fidelity prototype is complete. This evaluation plan discusses a variety of questions, standards, and methods of surveying potential users that will give the developers a more in-depth understanding of what the development needs to be focused on. 

For example, the team wants to make sure that users find the app to be straightforward and intuitive, and thus will evaluate how many times the user gets confused overall, and where.

“Right now we are in a really good place. Our high fidelity prototype is coming along nicely and accompanying it is a solid evaluation plan,” says Laura.

Next week, the team will continue development and will have a high fidelity prototype complete. The high fidelity prototype will be what allows the developers to further interview potential users about what they like and do not like about the app itself, and the evaluation plan will be executed in doing so. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 3, 2015 – This week was an important week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz began their development of the Civil War Driving Tour app.

Last week, the team presented to their professor and their HCI class, acting as potential users, and described the project. They presented the general overview of the project, the current state, where they are going, gave a demonstration of their medium fidelity prototype using Prototyping on Paper (POP).

Seth was out of town and unfortunately not able to work with the group this week, but Laura and Ryan were able to make progress setting up version control for their project and creating a skeletal design of the app on Xcode.

One of the issues pointed out during the Go/No Go presentation that occurred the previous week was that it did not necessarily encompass enough of a social component. It was suggested that we pursue integrating this in order to fulfill the project requirements.

“[A] reason to pursue this direction is to align with the course theme of ‘creative social computing’. Without the user generated content angle, I’m not yet convinced that the project fulfills either the social or creative component,” says Professor Luther.

The client, Paul Quigley, requested it be a bare-bones driving tour, so to satisfy both his and Luther’s concerns, Laura and Ryan brainstormed and came up with a solution. The team will be integrating a running feed of comments with each individual site. Because this is a driving tour, information pertaining to recent weather, traffic, etc may be valuable to others taking the tour. People will be able to comment with suggestions or just to give a “heads up” about certain things. Additionally, history buffs may want to add their tidbits about the sites for whoever is interested.

Next week, the team will continue development and start to divide down to working on the actual features themselves — starting with the presentation of the tour sites. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 27, 2015 – This week was an important week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz presented their current state to their Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) class of potential users.

The group presented to the class the general overview of the project, the current state, where they are going, gave a demonstration of the medium fidelity prototype, and then answered a battery of questions about the project.

As mentioned last week, the medium fidelity prototype was created using POP, or Prototyping On Paper. This allowed the group’s high fidelity sketches, and ideas about how the app will operate to come to life on an iOS device, which is the device that this app will be used on once it is developed. This enabled the class to easily envision the app, and thus ask in-depth, important questions about the functionality and features of the app.

For example, Dr. Luther, the professor of the HCI class, brought up some solid points about the social interaction that will go on with the app. A few of the other questions had to do with how the app will work, in terms of a backend server versus just having the data available in the app, and the peculiarities of the app, including a suggested rating system or a system that allows users to be ranked.

The team now has a list of considerations and ideas to think about, which will be further explored now that the development of the app can begin.

Next week, the team will finally begin their eagerly-awaited stage of the project now that much of the design has been conducted: development! They first will begin creating a basic, functional skeleton of the app, and then will dive in to the features. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 20, 2015 – This week was yet another productive week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz, with the recent interviews and contextual inquiry as a backbone, tackled their next big task in the app development process: ideation and prototyping.

Each developer separately came up with different approaches to the apps based on what had been discovered through interviews, and with that, did parallel prototyping. In doing their prototypes in a parallel manner, the team members were able to be more creative rather than relying on each other’s group ideas (which could very well happen unintentionally).

The ideation process revolved around the overall functionality of the app, the goals for the users and the client, and certain specific features.

“Because this is a driving tour app, we all are considering integral components and have shared overall goals. For our individual prototypes, this is where these features and the functionality is coming together as we individually see fit. Doing the ideation and prototype separately, but with the same overall, broad goals has been incredibly helpful in terms being creative,” Laura explains. “We are in a good place.”  

There are a few different approaches the team considered in terms of an iPhone app and a website. The team will be developing an iPhone app, but because a website is in the project’s future, that avenue was explored as well.

The ideation was followed by creating low fidelity prototypes separately. There are many features that are seen in all three team members’ prototypes that are of course necessary to have a driving tour app (e.g. map/GPS, descriptions of tour sites, etc), but overall, as expected, each prototype is unique.

The variety of approaches and prototypes helped the team move onto the next very important step: creating a medium fidelity prototype. Unlike the low fidelity prototypes, this medium fidelity prototype was developed together as the members had individually hashed out their ideas on paper/digitally, and could go from there in terms of merging these ideas. 

This medium fidelity prototype was created by using Prototyping on Paper, or POP. POP allows the group’s sketches, drawings, and screenshots to come to life, and allows the user to essentially test out the actual functionality of the app on an iPhone — the same device they would be using if they were using the actual, fully developed app. The argument for using POP for the medium fidelity prototype revolves around the fact that the final product will be an iPhone app, and POP simulates that and all of the features that will be included. It allows the user to go from the low fidelity prototypes, drawings and sketches, to a deeper level by immersing them in an environment they are able to interact with.

The three further conducted interviews with users using this medium fidelity prototype. This feedback is very valuable, and will aid the three in the development process.

Next week, the team is going to be presenting their medium fidelity prototype to the class, where classmates will act as potential users who will then critique the app and provide more valuable feedback. The goal is to get the app approved by Professor Kurt Luther. If this is accomplished, Kool Katz will begin their app’s highly-anticipated development. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

Each developer interviewed two individuals to understand the thought process behind the user. In doing so, they each downloaded an already-existing iPhone driving tour app (Ryan downloaded Historic Colorado Driving Tour Pikes Peak Area, Laura downloaded Annapolis Driving Tours, and Seth downloaded Dunwoody Driving Tour app).

The three of them had their interviewees play around with these apps and answer questions to give insight into what the user is thinking when using this kind of app, and further allow them to understand the user experience for a driving tour from a perspective other than the developer’s.

The team then created an affinity diagram by pulling out particular quotes, notions, frustrations, successes, positives and negatives, etc from the interviews and writing them on sticky notes. These sticky notes were arranged to highlight common themes and place them into categories that were seen in these interviews. These themes will be kept in mind while developing the app itself.

For example, Kara Trimpin, one of Laura’s interviewee’s, noted that her favorite part of the Annapolis Driving Tours app is “…that it involves so many historical sites and yet it is so easy to keep them straight and navigate back to look at a different site you were interested in.”

Lastly, the team did a “requirements extraction,” where they decided what was most important to keep in mind for the next step in terms of problems and solutions. A written report detailing all of this will be provided to the team’s boss, Professor Kurt Luther.

Next week, the team will be out of the office, but will be in touch about approaching the next milestone, which is an integral piece to the development of this Civil War driving tour app — prototyping. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

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.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 20, 2015 – Despite the cold, snowy weather interfering with a scheduled team meeting, Laura Avakian, Ryan Kiel, and Seth Cannon proceeded to research what has already been done and what is currently working in the field of tourism and driving tour apps.

They gathered 30 articles from ACM’s database using a variety of keywords that had to do with tourism and driving tour apps, and looked for similarities between the articles to see what common themes existed to see what has worked, what currently works,and what might make their own project work. The team also did a comparative matrix and competitive analysis for 10 different apps that already exist .

Additionally, the team reached out to Paul Quigley and have scheduled a meeting with him next week so they can get a better idea of what direction the team is going to take the app, and what sort of features the app should implement.

The three developers are excited to meet with Mr. Quigley and to design the app itself.

The team, formerly named “Kool Katz,” has decided to come up with a more relevant title that is to be determined. This should be determined by next week, so look out for next week’s press release to find out what it will be.

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 13, 2015 — A couple students, Laura Avakian, Ryan Kiel, and Seth Cannon, in Kurt Luther’s Human-Computer Interaction Capstone class gathered for class to discuss an upcoming project. They are going to be developing a driving tour for Civil War places in southwest Virginia.

They have settled with creating an iOS app. This is mainly because the bulk of the group’s skillset that is relevant to what the project requires is experience with Swift, Apple’s programming language for apps.

“I’m so excited for this project,” exclaims team member Ryan Kiel. “I think it will be fun to develop and fun to use. I love history,” says team member Laura Avakian.

At the moment, the team has begun to discuss ideas surrounding what features this project will be focused on providing to the consumer. They are focused on being innovative while fulfilling the client’s needs. The members have decided to name their team “Kool Katz.”

This project is important because it will provide Civil War enthusiasts, as well as the general public, with an opportunity to learn more about the Blacksburg area and its relevance to the Civil War, a major historical turning point.

The next steps involve contacting the client, Paul Quigley, the Directory of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, as well as meeting outside of class to further discuss the plan for the project’s development.

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.