Teams will develop their concepts for a novel social computing technology into a playable prototype that can be evaluated during class in weeks 8 and 10.  During these evaluation sessions, each team will demonstrate their prototype and get feedback. Your team must develop a working prototype that can be role played and tested, and where at least three users can exchange information.  Write simple instructions so that your peers can role-play the social experience during class. Devise a survey to get feedback directly after your prototyping session.    

Deliverables and Deadlines:

Teams are encouraged to refine or pivot their project ideas based on feedback and insights from P2. For P3, teams will be simulating and evaluating a first (rough) prototype in Week 8. Teams need to create intro slides that set the context, write simple instructions for the students who will role-play as users, and draft a survey to collect input after the prototyping session. During Week 9, analyze the first prototyping session and refine everything for a second round. Conduct a second prototyping session in Week 10. 

• Iteratively build a playable prototype.  Round 1 [due Week 8]; Round 2 [due Week 10]

• Prepare first prototyping session.  Post the Instructions link to the course dashboard by class time [due by the W8 prototyping slot]

• Refine and prepare second prototyping session.  Revise and post an instructions link to the course dashboard by class time [due by the W10 prototyping slot]

• Participate in testing!  All students are expected to attend lectures during Week 8 and 10 to test your prototype, and importantly, to test prototypes for the other teams. We will be keeping track of who attends and does not attend sections/lectures during the prototyping weeks, and this will affect your participation grade. There are no readings for the Monday discussion sections during week 8 and week 10, so we will use those days for prototyping sessions. 

• Note: Final team peer evaluations will be captured in Week 11 and will cover Phases 3 and 4 for the project. 

What to do:

1. Build a working / "playable" prototype

It can be difficult to effectively design and prototype social computing experiences that involve social interaction beyond an individual. Our class will leverage principles from rapid prototyping, role playing, and crowdsourcing to create prototypes that can be tested by other students during class time.  Building on P2, develop your team's prototype to simulate the desired social computing experience. Teams need to create some minimal interfaces to collect information from multiple concurrent users, as well as develop the role-playing scenario. 

The social computing experiences need to be playable, but they can be a mash up of existing technology. Experiences can be designed to support synchronous communication (e.g. real-time chat) or asynchronous interactions by simulating the passage of time in the role-playing scenario. Teams can employ WOz methods (hidden humans) to simulate AI or other users in the system.  Keep iterating on your prototype over several rounds of feedback. Teams may want to, for example, create a rough Round 1 prototype (in W8) in Google sheets and then transition to something more elaborate for Round 2 (in W10). You will not be graded on your development skills or visual design skills, but rather on your team's ability to show potential for a new kind of social computing experience.  To support teams, we have compiled a set of prior team projects as well as simple demos to show what's possible with Google sheets (with conditional formatting and scripting) or simple Web apps for browser-to-browser interaction. See the Prototype Resources sheet (request access if you run into any permissions issues). 

The course instructors will create a Prototyping Schedule for week 8 and 10 that will be visible in a tab of the course schedule by end of week 6.

2. Conduct a (Rough) Prototyping Session (Round 1 in Week 8)

Think about what you want to learn about your vision for a novel social experience. Write down a list of evaluation goals for your team.  What indicators might tell you if this could be successful?  What kind of emergent behavior do you expect/hope to see? What kind of feedback do you want?  Include this "evaluation plan" as a document in your team folder; it will help your team prepare for feedback during the prototyping session. 

During each prototyping session, teams will ask fellow students to visit a link that 1) briefly describes the scenario, 2) instructs people how to use the prototype, 3) includes a link to the prototype, and 4) links to a survey to collect feedback after the experience.  Your team should strive to gather usage information and feedback through a survey that will help your team refine your concept.  Team deliverables (including the intro slides, user instructions, working prototype, and feedback survey) must be ready before your assigned prototyping slot: 

• Intro slides and instructions for users:  Your team will create a very short slide deck to introduce your social context and concept (~2 min in length). In addition to the intro slides, write up a set of clear instructions for peers and link these within the FinalProjectTeams tab of the course dashboard. This should include a description of the social context, a script for the specific role(s) you want someone to play (to have different roles, simply have different sets of instructions), and any instructions for how to use the prototype (i.e., where should they click or write? how should they interact?).  Peers will read the instructions before trying your prototype in class, so make sure to keep the writing clear and concise.  Post a URL to the instructions in the course dashboard before your prototyping time slot.

• Functional prototype:  Create a working prototype that can be tested via a coordinated role-play with peers. See notes above about technology for the functional prototype. Include the URL for your prototype in your instructions for users.

• Feedback survey: After demoing and testing your prototype, ask your fellow students to fill out a short survey to evaluate your prototype. This might include both open-ended qualitative questions and quantitative rating question. If time allows, your team may also lead a short focus group discussion about your prototype, but do this only after students fill out the feedback survey (so that you get everyone's independent feedback first).  Include the URL for your feedback survey in your instructions for users.

3. Conduct a Final Prototyping Session (Round 2 in Week 10)

The final prototyping session in week 10 will work similar to the first round. First, update your evaluation plan. Each team must provide a link to a slide deck or instructions page that links to the functional prototype and a survey for collecting feedback from users.  This round, teams are expected to iterate to address issues that arose in the first round. This includes refining the functionality and appearance of the prototype, but also iterating on the instructions and post survey.  This round, iterate on the slides that introduce the scenario and set the context for the role playing session.  Team deliverables (intro slides, user instructions, prototype, and feedback survey) must be ready before your assigned prototyping slot.  

After your second prototyping session, your team should review the feedback and present everything as part of your final presentation (Project Phase 4).

Grading Rubric (Phase 3)

Phase 3 is worth 40% of your overall project grade. Within that portion, the grade will be determined based on the following:

• Setting the context (30%)

  • • Does the team create slides to frame the context for the role-playing scenario and prototype? 

    • Does the introduction establish a specific social setting and visually illustrate the envisioned social experience?

    • Are the instructions for users clear and concise? 

    • Are the roles for users well understood?  Can users role-play the scenario effectively?

• Prototypes (40%) 

  • • Does the team meet the basic requirements for prototyping and evaluation specified above?

    • Are the prototypes functional/playable so that multiple users can interact and share information in some way?

    • Is the overall experience of the prototypes compelling and novel?

• Evaluation and iteration (30%) 

  • • Does the team's evaluation plan effectively describe key questions and concerns?

    • Does the feedback survey collect data that helps the team address questions in the evaluation plan?

    • Does the team iterate and improve the prototype, instructions, and survey after the first round of feedback?