Extra Credit Assignments

You have three opportunities for extra credit. Feel free to do as many as you wish. They are all group extra credit opportunities.
All three are due on Sunday 3/18/2018 at 11:59pm on Gradescope.


Revisit Inspiration

Before the implementation of your prototype, you compiled a list of inspirations. Since then, your prototype has probably made many twists, turns, and transformations, and is no longer recognizable as the idea that you started off with. To prepare for your final presentation, update your knowledge of related projects. Related projects can be existing applications, artifacts, products, or services that relate to your concept. Here, web search is your friend (potentially useful sites include Google, Google Scholar, the ACM Digital Library, TechCrunch, Engadget...). Pick five interesting projects that a juror is mostly like to ask you "How are you different from _____?" In some cases, this might be a similar service like another to-do list, photo-sharing app, or party-finder. In other cases, it might be repurposing general services like Google Docs or Twitter.

For each project, write a few detailed sentences that would answer juror questions like, "Why would people use your application instead of _____? In what situations would people use/do _____ instead of your application?"

  1. Five projects are found with explanations of relevance and differences provided.
  2. Provided explanations are well-thought out and thorough as to why each project is relevant, and how they differ from the team's prototype.

Publicize Your App

You have done an amazing job prototyping and evaluating your application, and now it's time to see what the world thinks. Launch your app to the public. This means advertising on Google or Facebook, creating a Fan Page on Facebook, posting in the Mozilla Marketplace, or announcing on your app on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. (Posting to a UCSD mailing list is a good start, but think broader.) These are all just suggestions for what you might do. The goal of this extra credit opportunity is to expose your app to the public by any method you wish to use.

Submit any materials that show that you have widely advertised your application. This can include email receipts, screenshots of the app on a app store, or URLs to app listings. Also submit any materials necessary to show that people outside of this class and the university have started using your application as a direct result of your launch. Since this will differ between groups, we will leave up to you to decide what exactly is necessary to be submitted. The only requirement is to provide sufficient proof to show that you have launched your app to the public and that people have started using it.

  1. Evidence is provided of the prototype's accessibility and more than a couple strangers (who are not people you know or in this class) have found your app and started using it.
  2. Evidence is provided that the prototype was widely noticed on social media.
  3. Submission includes longitudinal data (100+ users over 1+week over and above A9) on Woopra/Google Analytics.

Create a Video Demonstrating Your App

Record a 1-minute video that includes the motivation behind your app (needfinding/brainstorming) and the main feature or “secret sauce” in your app.

Think of this video as a mixture of advertising and showing off all the hard work you have put into your application. Here is a great example from IxD winter 2017, and here is another great example also from IxD winter 2017. Exercise your creativity as much as possible! Try to plan out your video before actually taking any footage. Storyboards are great tool to use here. This video will not be used as part of your final presentation slides, but should instead complement your poster session as well as serve as a way for you to remember your hard work in years to come. Upload these videos to YouTube.

  1. Video is visually attractive, has mass appeal & creativity.
  2. Several screens of the app are shown and linked to the motivation behind the scenario.
  3. Video effectively conveys the user-centered motivation of the app's value and walks through a scenario with the app's main features