CS294H: Social Software

Assignment 9: Alpha Release

Grade Value: 75 points

Due: Thursday November 6, in class

brief

This week your Alpha release is due. As the Design Document assignment said:

This is a release just for your group members, so it does not need to be completely functional. The point is to have the basic skeleton, as well as the core feature(s) implemented. Since you'll be using it yourself, you'll get some valuable insight into the pain points for power-users. You'll also start catching some of the early show-stopper bugs.

The teaching team may also explore your application (while keeping in mind that it's an alpha release).

assignment

Just like the other engineering meetings, you will present the following:

1. The goals of the previous implementation period
2. What you planned to implement (and who was to do it)
3. What you actually accomplished (high-level overview)
4. The main challenges you ran into
5. Your plans for the next week
6. Where you stand in terms of the overall project (the big pieces that have been done, are left, features you've cut, etc)

The turn in will be the usual Engineering Meeting slides, as well as a URL for your application. (Put the URL into the text area of your studio submission.)

Also, your first slide should have

• your product name
• 10 word (or less) mission statement (as discussed in class)

If you need clarification on what is meant by "mission statement", feel free to email the teaching team.

Target Time: about 1-2 hours as a group (not including the actual implementation work).

evaluation criteria

• How much of your planned alpha release has been implemented?
• How well-thought out are your plans for the beta release, and the launch?
• How well-defined, and well-distributed, are your tasks?

in studio

Sep will start class with some general social software vignettes.

Groups will present in this order: TourSafari, Jumpin, Bumpr, RunMonster, Inherit Health