6.831 User Interface Design & Implementation
Fall 2004
GR5: Implementation
Plan Due Fri, Nov 12, 5 pm, by email
Demo Due Wed, Dec 1, by appointment
In this group assignment, you will do a working implementation of your
term
project.
By the deadline, your implementation should be complete in the sense
that you are ready to test users on the important tasks you identified
in task analysis. Your implementation should have both frontend
and backend. User interactions should be live, not canned
responses. For some projects, we understand that a complete
backend may be beyond the scope of this class. Allowances will be
made for that.
By this Friday, your group
should submit a brief
implementation plan with the following parts:
- a high-level design showing the major components of the frontend
and backend. At a minimum, this should be a list of modules with
a brief description of each module. A module dependency diagram
would also be helpful, but isn't required.
- if your backend will not be complete, explain why, and explain
how you
plan to simulate the missing parts.
- the breakdown of responsibility (for multi-person teams
only). You can share the workload however you like, e.g.,
dividing the components, or dividing the roles (coding vs. unit
testing), but your division of labor should be fair.
- the operating system platform(s), toolkit, programming
language, and other software that your implementation will run on.
The final deadline of this assignment (Dec 1) will not require a
written report. Instead, your group will sign up for an
appointment to demonstrate your implementation to the teaching staff.
Appointments will start on the due date and run for the next few
days. You will have a 30-minute time slot. Within this
time, you will have to:
- brief us about your application's purpose and user population
- take us on a guided tour of the interface, using concrete
examples driven by your scenarios
- let us try the interface for ourselves
- answer our questions about your design decisions and development
process
These demonstrations will generally take place in Prof. Miller's office
(32-G716). You should make arrangements to bring your interface
somehow: putting it on the Web, bringing it on a CD-ROM, or bringing
your own laptop. If you want to use our machines for your
demonstration, we have Windows XP, RedHat Linux, Java 1.4, Mozilla 1.7,
Internet Explorer 6.0, mouse with scroll wheel, screen with up to
1600x1200 resolution. If your interface has special needs that we
can't provide, you can arrange for the demonstration to take place
elsewhere. Mention those special needs when you sign up for your
appointment. The signup process will begin the week of November
29.
What to Hand In
By 5 pm, Friday, November 12, you should hand in your
implementation plan by email Send your plan in PDF or Postscript
format to rcm+handin@graphics.csail.mit.edu.