Project Overview

The goal of the project is to use the methods discussed in class to design and test a working prototype of an interactive system that solves a problem that is significant to some group of users. This is a time-consuming project, so please be aware of the deadlines. The project starts early in the quarter to give you as much time as you can to produce a great project, so good luck! Some of our past teams have ended up creating startups from the ideas they had in CS147.

Teams: Project teams will be formed by the CS147 staff, who will assign you to a team of 3 or 4 students. We will attempt to balance the groups by programming, art, and design abilities. Teams will be assigned in section on October 5 and 6. You must complete the course survey before then as this indicates your section preference as well as gives us information about your background.

Sections: In the first few weeks you will have sections to introduce you to other members of the class. After teams are formed, instead of a weekly 1-hour section, your team will meet with the staff for 25-minute feedback sessions to discuss the deliverables (see table below) for that week. Team times will be stable from week to week, worked out in conjunction with your TA.

Feedback Sessions: Most of the feedback sessions will be with one or two TAs. Twice during the quarter and once after the project ends, Professor Winograd will also participate in these sessions.

Submissions: You will post all project deliverables online before your meeting. We will provide each team with a directory on the CS147 web space. For assignments due at 11:59pm, we will copy the team directory tree at that time, and grade from the copy. We do not have a specific form to be used for the pages for your deliverables. If you're comfortable with a web-page design tool, feel free to use it. The easiest method is probably to write it up in Microsoft Word and save it out as HTML.

Final Presentations and Project Fair: At the end of the quarter, there will be a project fair, which will consist of two parts. First, there will be a fast-forward session where you have 2 minutes per team to pitch your project. That will be followed by a poster session in which other students, the staff, members of the Stanford HCI community and industry judges will be able to talk with your team about your project. In recent years, we've been fortunate to have judges from Google, ebay, and IDEO. Refreshments will be served.

Late Policy: Please note that there are NO late days given for project deliverables. A milestone will be docked a full letter grade for each day it is late.

Grading: The project is worth 50% of your final grade, which will be the same for all members of the team. Grades will be given at the feedback sessions with Professor Winograd, two during the quarter, and once after the final project fair.