Students will work in teams of 4-5 people, ideally with a range of skills and domain expertise. Please choose teammates at your same section time (they can be someone in a different discussion room); the Monday sections will provide a time to test your team's prototype later in the quarter. Strive to create a team with a diverse mix of skills and expertise.
Each team will invent, prototype, and evaluate a novel social computing experience that is functional and can be "played" by multiple people (at least 3 users), either synchronously or asynchronously, within a specific setting either online or in person. Teams should strive to create a final project that relates to the course readings and discussions, but feel free to work on anything within the constraints outlined below. Whatever you choose, strive to come up with something novel that does not already exist in the world. Your idea could become the next big social technology!
Generate ideas. Keep a running list of your ideas for a novel social computing experience in a digital document (ongoing).
Share your ideas and find a team. Share your project ideas during the structured group activities (during lectures and sections in W1 and W2).
Register your team. Post your team details on the team dashboard (by Friday Oct 11, end of Week 2)
Pitch your best idea. Create a short slide deck to pitch your team's best idea for a social computing experience. Post a PDF on Canvas (team leader only) and post a link on the course dashboard (due by 11:59pm on Oct 25 end of Week 4)
During the first few weeks of class, when you gain exposure to the course topics, generate as many ideas for novel social computing experiences as possible. Try to think outside the box and come up with concepts that you have not seen before. Aim for quantity (e.g., 20+ ideas), and then narrow it down as you begin team discussions with peers. For your top ideas, do a light competitive analysis (ie. web search) to understand what technologies already exist in that space. If the exact solution already exists, drop it or pivot to a different idea. For each of your ideas, consider the following:
What's the challenge or opportunity? Be able to say why it's exciting or important.
What is your unique idea? Articulate why it's novel compared to other things.
What has been done in the space already? Make sure to search for competing ideas!
Why does it matter? Think about how the idea could impact people.
How would you prototype the idea? Think about how you might mock it up for people to try/play.
Keep a running document to capture ideas and notes. Turn this in later as part of your process documentation.
Students should choose their own teams of 4-5 people within their dedicated section time. Here are some ways to find teammates:
Attend lectures during the first three weeks to participate in facilitated team-mixing activities
Post a topic or idea on the #f24-project-ideas Slack channel
Check the course dashboard ("FinalProjectTeams" tab) to see if any partial teams need additional members.
If you have a partial team and need members, list opportunities on the course dashboard ("FinalProjectTeams" tab)
Once you find a team, please register your team by doing the following:
Create a new row to list your names on the "FinalProjectTeams" tab on the course dashboard
Create a dedicated private channel in Slack for your team (HINT: later add your IA Coach to ask for help anytime)
Create a team Google folder in the team folder directory here
Write a team contract and put into your team folder
Phase 1 team registration should happen by 11:59pm on Friday Oct 11.
After you find and register a team, work with your teammates to brainstorm and analyze your 2-3 best ideas. The teaching staff and your peers can provide informal feedback, opinions, and additional information to help your team narrow down your project to the best possible idea. After getting feedback, teams should meet and discuss their options, choose one idea to pitch. If your team cannot decide, include alternatives or variants in your slides to foster better feedback.
The "Pitch" slide deck should cover the following:
Title slide: class name, phase 1, team name, and names of each teammate [1 slide]
For each idea (up to two different ideas):
What is the social setting? (use images to depict the setting) [1 slide]
What is the idea for a social computing experience and how is it novel? (include sketches or other visuals) [1 slide]
What will a prototype look like? (describe the experience you want to create for classmates) [1 slide]
Appendix [as many slides as needed]
Teams can capture their key process work—including individual notes and ideas— as appendix slides. All other process documents should be organized and labelled properly in the team's Google folder.
Phase 1 "Pitch" slides should be posted to Canvas (PDF only) and to the course dashboard (Google slide link) by 11:59pm on Friday Oct 25.
Phase 1 is worth 10% of your overall project grade. Student will be asked to fill out a team peer assessment after Phase 2.
Ideas: idea generation and selection of best idea (50%)
Does the team generate and document many creative ideas for social computing experiences?
Does the team use web search to discover potential competitors or nearby concepts?
Is the selected idea novel? Will it create social interactions between multiple users (at least 3 users)?
Pitch decks: presentation that pitches the idea (50%)
Do the slides cover all the aspects in the description above?
Does the team effectively pitch their idea to address key challenges or opportunities?
Does the slides deck include visual representations to illustrate the social setting, the idea, and the prototype?
Does the appendix include good documentation of the team's ideation process?
The final project involves working with a team of 4-5 peers of your choice. However, students often tend to create teams with friends or people who are similar to them in terms of background and skill sets. Your goal should be to find peers who share similar passions as you, but who are different from you in terms of skills and demographics. To support this, we will be doing a number of in-class exercises to give you a chance to meet your peers and exchange ideas.
Once you find a team, have a discussion about what each of your teammates wants to gain from doing this project. These may include technical skills, team experience, social, or personal. Discuss your team's assets and aspirations: what skills do each of you bring to the table and what do you want to accomplish? Create a team folder and start a new Google doc for a "team contract" that specifies how your team will operate. Here are some suggestions for items to write in your team contract:
Choose a team name.
Decide on a weekly meeting time.
Arrange methods for remote participation or a place for in-person meetups.
Agree upon a team manager charged with making things happen—facilitating meetings, providing team materials, wrangling technology, dividing work, etc. You can rotate this job—or not.
Perform process checks, as often as every meeting, to keep the team healthy.
Specify desired behaviors and expectations (e.g. Attending meetings on time, working hard, respecting and helping others, accepting accountability, listening to feedback from others, etc.)
After key project milestones, each team member will be asked to fill out a team peer evaluation. The peer evaluations could affect your grade by +/- 5% for each phase. We suggest you keep a work log with dates, time spent, and what you did. This will help you remember and document your process.