Outcomes
The high-level learning outcome of the team project (tP):
Can contribute production quality SE work to a small/medium brownfield software project
Accordingly, the tP is structured to resemble a non-trivial real-life brownfield software project in which you will,
- conceptualize and implement enhancements to a given product, and,
- have it ready to be continued by future developers
The focus of the tP is to learn the following aspects:
coding(taken for granted, not focused on specifically)- working in a team
- process/workflow
- documentation
- scheduling and tracking project progress, meeting delivery deadline
- quality assurance
Direction
The tP uses a generic application called AddressBook-Level3 (AB3) (from https://se-education.org) as the starting point.
The final product is to be targeted at users who can type fast, and prefer typing over mouse/voice commands. Therefore, typed user commands are the primary mode of input.
Direction 1: Evolve Evolve into a more powerful or more optimized contact management app. Some examples:
- Contact managing optimized for a specific type of user. e.g.,
- a sales person managing client contacts (can be further optimized for the product/service type e.g., insurance, loans, real estate, etc.)
- a teacher/tutor managing students (can be further optimized to a specific course or type of teaching)
- a secretary of an organization managing member details
- an event organizer managing participants
- Manage more entity types related to contacts e.g. Tasks allocated to contacts, loans given, grades, etc.
Note: the contacts should still remain the primary focus, even if there are other things being managed e.g., an address book app that is optimized for a user who lends out money to those contacts (not a loan management app). - Introduce relationships between contacts e.g., members of a team
- Make existing general features really strong, worthy of a real product e.g.,
- make the commands more natural, easier to type/remember, allow aliases, etc.
- make the search feature more powerful (e.g, fuzzy search)
- tweak the GUI to be more useful (e.g., highlight the contact added/edited
- provide GUI alternatives to CLI commands where appropriate)
- Add more general features e.g.,
- import/export data from other formats
- archive old data
- more help: guided tours, tool tips, tip of the day etc.
- stats, analytics, visualizations
- undo/redo
- result preview (i.e., show what would happen if the current command is executed)
- Internal improvements e.g., refactor the current design/implementation to make it better in some way
pros: less changes to existing code at the start of the project (i.e., progress will be smoother at the start), can result in a more mature product with deeper features as the product functionality will be moving forward from the start.
cons: less flexibility in product design.
Direction 2: Morph Morph AB3 in any direction you wish.
This direction is not available this semester, as it has been observed to increase tP workload beyond what students anticipate when making this choice (e.g., 40-50% more work than strictly needed by the tP). Besides, it is less brownfield than direction 1.
pros: more flexibility in the project direction.
cons: more changes to the existing code at the start while you are still not very familiar with the codebase, morphing is less common in real projects (compared to direction 1).
Note that creating a novel/unique/interesting product will NOT earn you extra marks in this course. While those qualities are important in real world projects, and we do allow you room to go in those directions in this course, they are not the focus of this course (there are other courses such as CS3216, CS3217 that focus on those aspects). Focus your energy on creating a solid product at a high quality level, which actually take a lot more energy than you might realize at first. Go for novelty/uniqueness/interesting etc. only if you have energy to spare and can do so without compromising the quality. For example, a bland feature/product implemented well will score more marks than a novel product that is buggy, even if the novel features were harder to implement.
Target User & Value Proposition
You are expected to:
- Define a very specific target user profile.
We require you to narrow down the target user profile as opposed to trying to make it as general as possible. Here is an example of progressively narrowing down target user: anybody → teachers → university teachers → tech-savvy university teachers → instructors of course CS____.
Be careful not to contradict given project constraints when defining the user profile e.g. the target user should still prefer typing to mouse actions.
- Define a clear value proposition that matches the target user profile i.e., what problem does the product solve? how does it make the user's life easier?
You should also define the scope clearly i.e., boundary beyond which the app will not help e.g., the app will manage contact details of a small number of JC-level students (which means the there is no support for managing large number of students or primary/adult students, and will only manage contact details -- not other details such as grades). - Aim to optimize the product to the chosen target users Although you should not decide specific features yet, keep in mind that eventually you should optimize the product for the chosen target user i.e., add/tweak features that are especially/only applicable for target users (to make the app especially attractive to them).
Example 1: If the product targets CS2103/T instructors, there can be features that are applicable to them only, such as the ability to see a link to a student's project on GitHub
Example 2: If your app manages contacts, you can optimize its features based on,
- the profession of the target user e.g. doctors, salesmen, teachers, etc.
- the nature/scale of contacts e.g. huge number of contacts (for HR admins, user group admins), mostly incomplete contacts, highly volatile contact details, contacts become inactive after a specific period (e.g. contract employees)
- what users do with the contacts e.g. organize group events, share info, do business, do analytics
Your project will be graded based on how well the features match the target user profile and how well the features fit-together.