Project Evaluation

Problem solving & methods of working:

During this project I encountered many problems and you could say that I still have more questions than answers.

This project was a new challenge for me, so to give myself the best possible chance I chose to follow the mobile development course on Lynda.com. This provided me with the knowledge of how to create static mobile pages that link to each other, it also showed me some useful best practices for small screen development and it highlighted some potential problems. I also bought two books:

Foundation Flash Applications For Mobile Devices by, Richard Legget, Weyert DeBoer and Scott Janousek

Advanced Flash on Devices by Elad Elrom, Scott Janousek and Thomas Joos.

My first problem in this project arrived during the development of a logo design for the application. I struggled with designing a logo that accurately represented the nature of the application and the themes incorporated with the football tournament that my application runs alongside (view blog post Logo Design). I canvassed a lot of people to gage their views including fellow students and lecturers alike, I took onboard all of their views but the best advice came from one of my lecturers Chris Dimmock. He tried to get me to look at the words from a different angle, he pointed out that the application was meant to be a friend and this gave me the idea of incorporating a hand shake or a friendly gesture into my design, I did this in the form of a pair of arms encompassing a representation of the host nations flag and a football to represent the sport, the hands join together to form a friendly handshake symbolically encompassing football and South Africa as friends.

In my project proposal (view proposal) I outlined my intent to make a working mobile phone application within the bounds of the technology available to me. I intended to do this on the only platform available to me which was Symbian/Nokia.

I also intended to create a mock application in Adobe Flash to represent some of the features of a mobile application that may have been beyond my skill level and the capabilities of the Symbian software. I intended to do this to show the level of my idea which is now in line with the possibilities of some other platforms i.e. the Apple Iphone.

During my research I came across Kuneri Lite a third party piece of software that seemed to offer me a way of accessing some of the functions I required for my project on the Nokia handset, view relevant blog post:

http://phillipshakesbyfirstmobileapp.blogspot.com/2010/02/not-much-this-week.html

This appealed to my desire to create a working product. I researched the software and its claims and I spent quite a bit of time pushing my project in the direction of incorporating this software within my development process, the only snag came when through a long period of frustration I realised that due to a reason I still don’t understand the software would not install onto my Laptop. This caused me great frustration as I believe my time was ultimately wasted, I then came across another application that seemed to offer the same benefits of Kuneri lite called API Bridge, view relevant blog post:

http://phillipshakesbyfirstmobileapp.blogspot.com/2010/03/nothing-works.html

This also appealed to me but after 2 weeks of trying to understand the process I realised that I would need a longer period of time than was available to me to incorporate that application within my development schedule.

This project needed me to use some of the basic PHP that I had learnt in the first year and I needed to get it to work with flash using Action Script. This was not as easy as I expected, I used online tutorials and I purchased two books to help me with this:

Foundation PHP for Flash by Steve Webster

Advanced PHP for Flash by Steve Webster, Matt Rice, Kev Sutherland, Jacob Hanson, James Palmer, Todd Marks and Havard Eide

But I still struggled and in the end my lack of understanding of the principles of setting up a MYSQL system appropriate for my type of project cost me dearly. I now know that I need to work hard on this area in the future.

One major problem for me was the actuality of designing something that was a prototype or representation of the ideas, in a form that showed my hopes for the project rather than designing and creating a product with a finished article. In my experience in working life I have had to plan, design and build products that always go live. This means that the work needs to be finished and functional and I always aim to deliver work of the highest quality. During this project I have had to speak to various members of university staff and fellow students as I have been left with the feeling that I am underperforming due to the fact that I know this piece will never be a fully working product within the timescale of the project. I feel I have a better understanding now of the mindset needed for developing prototypes and mock products, I am still not sure that I am at ease with the process but I am at least a step closer than I was at the beginning of the project and this progression in my opinion is a positive step forward.

Ultimately I have been unable to conquer the majority of the problems that I have faced during this project. This section of my evaluation is supposed to highlight my successes in overcoming problems to show my development, at the moment it all seems very negative but there is a very good reason as to why I have mentioned these problems. I believe I have shown tenacity and willingness to try and overcome problems by various means, I have tried research through different means and I have sought advice at times in which I have needed it. In business life and general life there will be hard times and this project has been hard but the important lesson is that no matter how hard something gets and there have been times where I have felt like giving up during this project, always keep going and try to take positives even from the negatives and learn from experiences, as this is how you develop as a person. I have learnt a lot from this project and in many ways it has been of more value to me than a smooth no hiccups project.

I just hope that the grade I get does not have a major impact as although I have gained great experience, in the real world people usually only see the grades on a sheet of paper.

How the product works:

The principle workings of this project are that the website uses action script to run PHP scripts for accessing, inputting and retrieving information contained in a MYSQL database. The workings of the mobile application are very similar, the application uses action script to do the same things as the website the only differences are that in a working application the action script would need to access functions on the handset. Limited function like navigating through pages and phone features such as the clock can be accessed using action script, some functionality would require a third party application packager that you can tell to create the code in the appropriate scripting language, relevant to the format of distribution.

My project has a working action script and PHP login, blog and photo up loader, I have also created action script run features such as the audio player on the website and the clocks, onscreen keyboard and currency calculator. The rest of the features have been put together to simulate the end product without the working functionality, this was not my intention at the beginning of the project but due to technical difficulties, lack of knowledge and time spent trying to get things working this is all I have been able to get working in the required time limit.

View Fan Friend Application Overview.

Testing & Feedback:

I put a lot of effort into getting feedback on the project, I sought advice at regular intervals from my lecturers and fellow students throughout the project on design, development and usability aspects and I followed this up with a considered user testing and appraisal sheet in the final weeks of the project.

I developed a user testing sheet after adding to my knowledge of the subject from previous projects by looking at online usability websites and guidelines :

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/usability-testing.shtml

http://www.ictknowledgebase.org.uk/usertestingonabudget

I also took on board information from a book that I am currently reading:

Measuring the User Experience by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert.

I monitored the testing in order to make observations of the user’s experience and this was very useful as I gained an understanding of their desires whilst watching their behaviour on the site and application. I could see the logic they used in determining how to complete the tasks I set and I could also see how they used that logic in exploration.

Click here to view user testing sheet.

The user testing gave me some important feedback:

View user testing post for more details.

Evaluation & Appraisal:

Self Appraisal:

I did not produce a piece of work that I am 100% happy with but I am happy with my personal development throughout this project.

I believe that I put maximum effort into this project. I encountered many problems and I tried to overcome, circumnavigate and move forward at every step, in an effort to create a product that I can be proud of.

During this project I have created a product that I believe is a great idea, well packaged with a thematic design that I am proud of. Technically the project is a complete shambles but my effort in attempting to avoid this in my opinion has been one that I am also proud of.

I am not happy that I have not been able to produce working products and features within the timescale but I can honestly say it was not through lack of effort. I believe that the best things to come from this project are the lessons I have learned personally and professionally about not giving up.

If I were to do this project again with the benefit of hindsight I may not have spent so much time trying to get things working in vain but at the time I believed that if I had managed to be successful in getting the functions working then the end product would have been better than I had intended at the start of the process. There is a saying “nothing ventured, nothing gained” but sometimes you can venture and gain nothing apart from experience.

Improvements:

I would like to have produced a working back end for the website with fully individual profiles for users that can link to other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The application could also be improved by giving users the opportunity to communicate with other users either via chat or forums. They could share stories and offer advice to each other building a community spirit within the applications users. This type of feature would make Fan Friend a social networking application rather than just a documentation and information application.

Future Scope:

This product could be applied to future football championships both internationally and domestically and if produced in different languages it could even go worldwide. Other sporting events including the Olympics would also be ideal for an application of this sort. With more research it could enhance the travelling sports fans experience in so many ways. There is the possibility for people to recommend bars, restaurants, travelling routes, car parking etc.... It could also bring fans together by offering them a place to share experiences. I developed the logo with scope for future events by placing the host nation’s flag in a place holder kept separate, so it could be changed for future tournaments without confusing potential users, similar branding would help establish confidence in the application.