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Project Proposal
For our project, we chose to delve into the topic of communication. We were asked to think about how social media and web/mobile technologies can be applied in a way that might help people do things differently. So we thought before you begin troubleshooting a problem, you must first define the scope of your problem. We drew a lot of our inspiration from personal experience and backed it up with a number of different research methods. With communities, the first thing you think of is people coming together which makes the social aspect of our platform easy. We wanted to focus on free social sporting communities and how they communicate and organise events/games. We found that there was a large market within individuals who look for small games of pickup basketball. There can be several different complications for an individual when arriving at a court. It can either be too full, no one to play with, no confidence in asking for a game, court is reserved or even playing against someone not on the same skill level as you. Here is a scenario that would fit into this situation. You just got back from work and want to play a quick game of basketball, you head on down to your local court, however, you find out that a group of players have already claimed the court and are more skilful than yourself. What do you do in this situation? Well most people just up and leave and try their luck on another day. To try and help combat this problem we are developing a community based mobile application that will work as a social network to inform users about vacancies of sporting fields, as well as sorting users into skill levels and incorporating a "king of the hill" style game-play.
The concept will be developed as a mobile application and/or a web application. The purpose of the application will be to locate and show all nearby sporting fields/events in the users local area. This can be done by using Google Maps API. Many mobile apps have successfully used Google Maps API such as Uber, Pokémon Go, Airbnb etc. It is clearly an extremely useful tool for building a location experience and brings a new dimension to our application.
The social aspect of our app comes from users registering public sporting areas and posting when and where they are going to play, as well as live updates as to whether a sporting area is currently taken. The main aim is to bring individuals together to participate in a live sporting event. We want to try and incorporate as many competitive sports as possible, as long as the area is public the venue could range from courts, local parks, fields, running tracks, bike trails, cross country, gyms or even a PCYC. Players will be able to give a star rating as to the quality of the area which will help with the upkeep and maintenance of the sporting areas, as it becomes an advertising platform for the owners. With users reviewing sporting areas and leaving descriptions it allows others to check certain attributes, like the quality of the playing surface (floor, concrete, asphalt, hardwood, grass, turf, etc.), the quality of the hoop/net/facilities, and how popular that area is.
The application will work by users registering a sporting area and what sport they are playing onto the map. That area will then become an active hotspot where people will be able to click and set up games. Games can be organised 24hrs in advanced or set up right there and then, once one user has hosted a game he/she will wait in a pre-game lobby until all the player positions are filled. It is first in best dressed, once the game is full it will book that timeslot for the game. If a timeslot is taken another game won’t be able to be loaded during that time. Clicking and opening a sporting area you will be able to see available times or in street view sporting areas will come up green if the field is available right now or orange if a game is just about to end with an empty timeslot coming up, as well as appearing red if there is a game in progress or about to start.
The problem we face with trying to book out public spaces is exactly that, they are public so the app cannot guarantee that people without the app may be occupying the field. We would hope that if the application got big enough that sporting areas would be able to enforce a policy where app users gained preference when booking out the fields. Sporting areas would also then be able to post when the area has been booked out by outside parties. We are trying to create an application that will allow you to play sports without incurring any fees for either signing up to play for a club or booking out fields, a lot of people want to play sports casually and don’t have the time or money to make a commitment to a club.
To appeal to the competitive nature of humans we have come up with a similar system to Pokémon Go’s gym leaders. To make the app stand out as well as draw players back to keep participating we have created a "king of the hill" type competition where if you have dominated that sporting area you will become the “Gym Leader”. If you do become the gym leader there will be a fortnight within which challengers can approach you and if you don’t accept within that time anyone can take your place. We believe this will encourage people to keep coming back to either hold their position on top or keep attempting to knock the king off his throne. In saying this we want to keep the competition fair and the best way to do this is to rank players depending on their skill or win loss ratio and filter them into balanced teams. Users can rate other users at the end of the game and there is potential for an “MMR” system where users can record their wins and losses and move up ranks. This would mean that users would have to have profiles and potentially personal avatars similar to Mii characters created for the Nintendo Wii. This system could incorporate progression and keep a history as to how often you play, your win loss ratio and the ability to set a home court. Users will be able to invite other players to games essentially reserving a spot in that game for friends you’d like to play with.
By hopefully developing this community based mobile application it will work as a social network to inform users about vacancies of sporting fields, as well as sorting users into skill levels and incorporating a "king of the hill" style game play that will get more players playing the sports they love freely and more competitively in a fun environment that can be easily found in your local area.
The audience for this app is predominantly people who play sports casually or just want to practice and want to find other people to play with. It will have one major focus or main market which would be a user that are like the personas described below.
The other big apps in this space are: Hoops Map, Infinite Hoops, and RecCheck. We are different from Hoops Maps as they only provide courts for basketball as well as only providing it for courts in the US and Europe. We are different from Infinite Hoops as they have separate apps for different sports and they also only focus on the US courts and fields. RecCheck provides lots of sports and courts and is very much like the app that we are looking to build. They don’t have the competitive "king of the hill" style concept we are looking to incorporate and we believe our app is a lot more sociable because they don’t have the options to add friends within the app. We are aiming to create a location based sports social media app with usable functions that keep the users coming back, a lot of these apps fail because they aren’t interesting enough to gain enough momentum.
Hoops Finder incorporates many theoretical aspects of social and mobile computing, these include:
Social interactivity: The main goal of Hoops Finder is to connect users together with a common interest who otherwise would not have. The app will aim to bring users together to play impromptu games of pickup sports and in doing so incorporates this concept of social computing.
Individuality: Users will be able to choose the games and fields that they wish to play on. The app will also aim to include a skill aspect where users will be able to join games dependent on their skill, catering to their individual needs and skills. The app in that sense caters to the users’ sense of individuality as everything about the app allows the user to experience it on their level.
Portability: Users will be able to find fields and games relative to their location by incorporating the Google Maps API. This allows the user to be shown relevant information and grants the user the ability to make an informed decision based on their current location. The app will also allow the user to view games and fields across the entire map, giving the user the ability to make informed decisions in real time in any location. Connectivity: The ability to stay connected for long periods of time with no lag and without being affected by other people or other instances within the application. Hoops Finder relies on being connected to the app and the internet to see all the available fields and people that are playing sports. Users can use the app and not be affected by other users but still will be able to stay connected and see real time information.
Collaboration: The collaboration between the users of the application and the developers will help to foster a better environment for the application to operate in. With Hoops Finder, the courts and fields will need to be updated in real time but that can only be done with the help of the users. If the users coordinate and collaborate with the developers, then the app will continue to be better and provide more information to the users.
Communication: Users will be able to communicate with other users within the app. Hoops Finder will be a user driven, social application so the communication by users will be a key factor in ensuring the application works as intended. The communication between the users will be in the way of instant messaging or posting on certain fields/courts when the user will physically be at that court or field.
Critical Mass: If Hoops Finder is to be successful in the long term then critical mass needs to be achieved or else the application will not last. It is essential for our app because we will rely on users to post about the courts and whether or not the courts and fields are free as we cannot be out checking all the courts and fields all the time. If no users are updating us on availability then our app won't work and users won't stay on our platform. An incentive program will be there for users to submit whether the courts and fields are available in that they can then claim that court and have others come an challenge them. We are hoping this social aspect will draw users to the app as they will all want to control, claim, or challenge a court.
We are an extremely likeminded team and get along smoothly, with no personality clashes or an individual who excels in a specific field or skill. Because of this we believe there is no need for a team leader. The team will be managed as a group, but this means that our communication and job delegation needs to be tight. By communication which section needs to be done and in what order, we will be able to pick and choose sections of the project as well as monitoring the rest of the group as we work through one step at a time. Obviously, having individuals who will be better at doing specific tasks and delegating those tasks to them is ideal, we still believe it is important not to give entire sections to one person as the group can become disjointed and we want our ideas all to meet in the same place. The entire project will be broken down into sections and each section will be broken down into back end, front end, content and design. We will then pick and choose who wants to do want depending on our background and skill in that specific area. By doing this it makes file naming conventions that much easier in GitHub as the project will be filed in the same manner as it is broken down.
Max Ellis – Studies Multi Media Design, has previously struggled with hardcoding subjects that involve Java but dominates in the content and design fields. Max loves partying and spending long nights doing assignments. He responds quickly to messages and is good at splitting workloads and organising tasks so that in the end the assignment looks professional.
Georges Burt - Studies a dual Bachelor of Information Technology and Bachelor of Arts and is majoring in Software Design and Economics. Georges currently likes to focus more on the programming side of his degrees and is currently more proficient in Java, HTML and CSS. He has a lot of other commitments, however, he aims to put in as much time as possible into focusing on his studies. He aims to finish his delegated work as quickly as possible in order to get it out of the way so then he can start focusing on his other studies. However, he is always ready to take up more work if it is required of him.
Nikhil Ranjan - Studies BinfTech and has prior experience in web design, web development and some experience with databases or back end. Nikhil brings a strong design focus to the team and advocates for a strong emphasis on user driven testing and development. He is a bit pressed for time usually due to uni and other responsibilities but replies to messages within the hour and completes his work on time. He offers a helping hand when people need it and wants to achieve the best marks possible for DECO3500.
Ciaran Lawson - Studies a dual Bachelor of Information Technology and Bachelor of Business Management and is majoring in Marketing and Human-Computer Interaction. Ciaran likes to focus a lot on the marketing and user experience side of things and has experience in both social media marketing and web design. He doesn't like coding other than web coding and is determined to see his idea come to fruition. Ciaran works 2 full days a week and also has 2 internships so he is pressed for time occasionally but he always gets the work done that needs to be done.
We will work together using Facebook as our main communication and organizational tool. We have already started to use Google Docs to share files with each other but would like to start to use GitHub more to share code and branch out on issues so we can easily see and describe what needs to be built and to check off what has already been implemented. By using GitHub alongside a ZenHub board we can keep track of tasks and delegate jobs amongst each other. Decisions will be made and discussed in team meetings and on Facebook. If there is an incident whereby a team member is performing poorly or a conflict is needed to be addressed there will be an open discussion in a team meeting as to why it has happened and what is the fastest way we can resolve the issue. The main meeting area for the team outside of class will be either at UQ’s St Leo’s resident college where we have access to libraries and study rooms or the Red Room Bar depending on whether we are celebrating the completion of a section or discussing what needs to be done for the project.
| Project Phase | Description | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group Phase | Group formation | 1/08/2017 | Coming up with app ideas |
| Group Phase | Group formation | 8/08/2017 | Comparing ideas |
| Group Phase | Group formation | 15/08/2017 | Grouping ideas/ formulating team |
| Research phase | Research into app | 15/08/2017 | Research into similar ideas on market |
| Research phase | Research into app | 29/08/2017 | Finding our target audiences. Progress presentation |
| Research phase | Research into app | 1/09/2017 | Finding our target audiences |
| Requirement Phase | Gathering all necessary equipment | 1/09/2017 | Acquiring tools needed to build app |
| Requirement Phase | Starting to create app based off research from research phase | 12/09/2017 | Acquiring tools needed to build app |
| Requirement Phase | Gathering all necessary equipment | 12/09/2017 | Progress presentation |
| Design Phase | Designing final product | 12/09/2017 | UX Testing & UI Testing |
| Design Phase | Designing final product | 15/09/2017 | UX Testing & UI Testing |
| Design Phase | Designing final product | 26/09/2017 | Low-Fi Prototype. Progress presentation |
| Design Phase | Designing final product | 5/10/2017 | Prototype testing and re-adjustment if needed |
| Construction Phase | Building of final product | 5/10/2017 | Using Invision and photoshop to make final product |
| Construction Phase | Building of final product | 10/10/2017 | working on final product.Progress presentation |
| Construction Phase | Building of final product | 24/10/2017 | working on final product.Progress presentation |
| Construction Phase | Building of final product | 27/10/2017 | Final product due by 5pm |
Before any development continues, we need to research the constraints of our design and its potential implication on users and the industry. An array of research tasks will help to gain insight into what we aim to achieve with this app and will help us to refine our idea. Good research will lead to good and useful ideas catering to both the market's and the user's needs.
Industry Research
This research phase is the preliminary stage of research and will help us to gauge an insight into what the industry is currently demanding. It will give us an insight into the industry in which Hoops Finder will aim to enter into. We have already done this phase of the research and have seen what our competitors have to offer. We will be using this research to alter our design in order to increase our concepts competitiveness in the industry.
User Research
This aspect of the research phase is an important one as it begins to investigate the methods that our user demographic will apply to our app. It is essential to look at our user's behaviours and needs in this phase as it will give us an insight into what we need to be catering for in the application of our idea. Begun the process of this phase and have created persona's that fit our general marketed demographic, listing their needs, wants and incentives. These persona's are obviously a generalised depiction of our general user base, however, it give us a rough idea of whom we aim to create this app for. We need to follow through with these persona's and do actual infield research to gauge our potential user's true desires.
The Requirement Phase will entail the group collecting all the research from the research phase and using that to determine what features our app will need and what features users will want to see on the app. The requirements are a set of all features of the application that will have been discovered during the research phase and the requirements gathering phase. These requirements will have a description, a function or functions, and priority attached to them so we can understand how important this is to users. While we will have information from the research phase, there should still be more data to collect and we can do it in these ways:
Surveys
Surveys are a good and inexpensive way of understanding what users will require. Surveys can be both online and physical and can be targeted towards the users that will be the end users of the application. These surveys will also help us define what kind of end users we will have so we can create survey specific to them. Surveys will also help us understand what users want and don't want within the application that we may not have considered and how big of a priority they are.
Interviews
Interviews are similar to surveys but are more personal and intimate and an interviewer can elicit more from a person or group of people if it is a more personal setting. We will focus on the users and the feedback that the users give to us. The interviews can be formal or informal but the interviewer should note all the items of importance that is discovered from the user. Interviews are a good way to receive fairly unbiased and valuable information about whether the application will be effective.
The design phase will consist of compiling the established requirements we have gain from our research phase and designing an application that will best fit our user. The design phase will be broken down into Wireframes and Low Fidelity User Testing but will all be design using the same Style Guide. This will prepare us for our final high-fidelity prototype. It is important to start with a style guide that we can all agree on as a group. Having a style guide in place helps outline the choice of colour, structure and typography we will use thought the project. Having a solid direction as to where the project needs to go means we can start on testing wireframes. These will be very generalised and will help set out the structure and map of the application. They are created to test the behaviour of users before any work on the final project has started. We will observe user interaction with our prototype and take notes on their behavior during this interaction. We will use a video camera to record the interaction if only the users allows it.
Once we have a good understanding of the applications functions and how users navigate we will start to create low fidelity tests to try and define the main uses of our product. It is important at this stage we get the users to comment on the style and layout of the application, we want it to be fun and easy to use so that users keep coming back. A lot of other products fail because they become too boxy and don’t look appealing, we want users to feel as if they are in a game competing against others to grow their skills but at the same time having a social platform to organise games.
The construction phase is our final prototyping phase as we will not be releasing a finalized working product. What we do intend to complete is a high fidelity prototype which will look and feel exactly the same as if a finished product would with some working mechanism to it. This can be achieved using a combination of softwares, we will be using Photoshop to construct images and upload them to InVision where we will link the images using the features from InVision. These links will work as buttons taking us from page to page as if it were a full fledged program. Invision is a prototyping web application which can allow for multiple users at the same time to simultaneously view the prototype and make changes to it.
However before the actual construction of the end product we will need to factor in the data gathered from all our testing done prior to this phase and determine whether our user experience goals are met.If not we will have to get back to the drawing board and re test the new design. Re-iteration or change to a product shouldn't be limited to any phase and should be something which can be added in any step to refocus and meet goals, provided there is enough time to conduct tests and make the changes.
The resources that plan on using for our project need to be affordable as well as accessible. Our main focus when using these resources is to keep our work professional and looking aesthetically pleasing. If we are using a tool and it won’t let us create a function we won’t scrap the function because the tool won’t do it we will integrate and test that specific function on a different platform.
Gathering data we plan to use google forms, such as when conducting UX and UI testing, google forms will provide an excellent platform to collaborate information gained. Using Ipads we can approach users to do tests or send links to people on social media to get a wider variety of data.We also plan to use a video camera during testing to record users behavior so we can utilize it at a later date to implement more effective changes.
We plan to use Balsamiq to make Low-fi prototypes and then use it online to do more testing, our Hi-fi prototype and our final product will be done using InVision. This means software such as Photoshop and maybe Adobe fireworks will be used for the hi-fi prototype/final product. Lastly having access to the general public is necessary for user driven testing and design implementation so we will be approaching a wide range people to conduct the testing.
Connectivity, Individuality, Portability, Collaboration, Interactivity
Community, Sports