Design Project 6: Project Showcase

What do we do?

Finally, it's time to present your design process and the resulting interface to the entire class, both orally and visually. During our final project showcase, each team will give a 2-minute "madness" presentation in front of the whole class. In addition, you'll create a maximum 2-minute video clip that captures user needs, tasks, and an interface walkthrough.

Your Report

• Final Pitch & Demo: In the project showcase session, each team will give a 2-minute pitch of their project and do a live demo + interactive Q&A in person.
  
  Part 1. 2-minute pitch: Decide what part of the final interface and the design process you want to convey to the audience, in 2 minutes. Which part do you think is most exciting and strongest? What is your unique point of view on the problem, and why is your UI a usable and useful solution to the problem? You won't have time to explain details, so focus on the main points and lessons. You should assume that the audience knows nothing about the problem space and your solution. Also keep in mind that we'll be listening to over 10 talks non-stop in class: think how your presentation could stand out. Make sure to include a hook that will get people excited about your project. Avoid using extensive text and actively use visual artifacts from various stages of the design process. You are allowed to use one slide for your pitch.
  
  NOTE: You may use animations and embedded videos in your one slide. But we won't be manually advancing them on behalf of you. This means that everything should automatically advance/play. We will start your slide and move to the slide after 2 minutes.
  
  Part 2. Demo: After the madness presentations, each team will be given 30 minutes to show an interactive demo. In your assigned table, project the pitch slide on a provided monitor, and separately be ready to show a demo of your working prototype to the class. People will freely walk by tables and see and try any demo they would like.
  
  After the pitches and the demo session, we'll hand out a few awards based on different categories, such as "most human-centered", "best prototype", and "people's choice".


• Video: Record a maximum 2-minute video that captures the user context and the killer features of your UI. Be creative in how you plan, structure, and record the video! Here's an example. Also look at the CS374 project gallery from 2021. Revisit your storyboards, as they capture the rich usage context. You need to set the stage by starting with users and their problem. Avoid using slides and try to capture realistic context, and don't hesitate to "act". Do not show the UI from the beginning. You need to show parts of your final prototype to demonstrate how the user might perform the task using your system. Rather than describe all the features you implemented, focus on the flow of the task.

NOTE: Make sure to connect the user scenario and the solution. A common antipattern is to make the UI description too generic, not about solving the particular user problem captured earlier in the video.




• Final Report: The final report will be brief. You need to simply include the following:
  • Final Interface
    • Representative screenshots: Include a few most important screenshots that showcase the uniqueness of your application. Add callouts, annotations, or captions.
    • Quality arguments (limit: 500 words): Make convincing arguments for what makes your interface "great". Add comments from users, UI screenshots, etc. that could support your arguments. Depending on your interface, you may focus on different aspects: neat features, visual design, usability, novel UI components you designed, hardcore implementation, etc. This is your chance to convince us that what you created is a high quality user interface.
  • Iteration (limit: 300 words): How did you spend the DP6 period for iteration? Why? What changes did you make? Show concrete examples and data whenever applicable. What did you learn?
  • Individual reflection (limit: 500 words per person): Each member should write this part on their own, reflecting on their personal experience. Merge all members' mini-reports in the final report. Please answer the following questions:
    • What part of the interface did you contribute to? Be concrete and honest, please.
    • What worked well and not in your team? How did you overcome any hurdle in teamwork? What lesson about teamwork did you learn that you might apply to your next team project?
    • Through the team-based design project experience, what did you learn about the user-centered design process and UI prototyping?

Grading

• Final Pitch and Demo (20%)
  • Pitch: How engaging, creative, and effective is the overall pitch?
  • Demo: Is the demo working well and are people able to try it out?
• Video (50%)
  • 2 minutes or under?
  • Overall organization and flow of the story?
  • Quality and variety of shots and rhythm?
  • User needs well captured?
  • UI introduced convincingly but not as dry list of features?
  • Engaging and creative?
• Team Report (30%)
  • Quality of the Final Interface (15%)
    • Convincing arguments with supporting evidence?
    • Is it overall a high quality interface? We will look at a variety of aspects such as completeness, novelty, feasibility, UI-level contribution, etc.
    • 500 words or less?
  • Iteration Report (5%)
    • Iteration period is spent efficiently and effectively?
    • Justification is convincing?
    • 300 words or less?
  • Individual Reflections (10%) -- graded individually
    • Individual contribution clearly specified?
    • Teamwork discussion includes both the good and the bad?
    • Teamwork discussion has enough depth and insight?
    • Design process discussion has enough depth and insight?
    • 500 words or less?

Deliverables

Final pitch slides are due by 1pm on Wednesday before the final session. Video and the team report are due by 11:59pm on 6/19 (Mon).

Final Presentation: For a smooth transition between presentations, we'll require all teams to use Google Slides for presentation, just like in studios. Please edit the template slides in your team folder. During the final showcase, we will open your slides from our computer, and your team will have exactly 2 minutes to present. Please note that there will be a hard stop after 2 minutes: unfinished presentations will be cut off. We recommend that you rehearse in your team in advance. Not every team member has to present but we still expect everyone to present in the live demo and interact with other students after the pitches.

Video: (guidelines adopted from CHI 2017 Video Showcase, which also has links to many inspiring videos)

• Encoded as an MP4 using the H.264 codec. No exceptions!
• You'll upload your video file on YouTube. Include the URL of your posted video in your final report.
• All spoken dialog must be closed captioned (subtitled) to improve accessibility.
• Resolution of at least 1280px x 720px.
• The 16:9 aspect ratio is recommended.

Team Report: One report per team. Your report should be submitted as a zip file. The main report should be written in Markdown (please use the .md extension). Also include your original video MP4 file in the zip file as well. Name the file with your team name, and submit it by the submission link provided. You can submit multiple times until the deadline, and we'll use the most recent version for grading.