Welcome to Senior Capstone, the culmination of your experiences as an undergraduate! This course will likely be the most fun, most rewarding, and most effort of your entire college career. You will develop a cutting-edge, major software design project from proposal to complete design, iterating along the way, with a human-centered process. You will learn to design systems and interfaces, conduct research, and communicate through speech, written word, and video.

You will begin by developing your own ideas about projects from the menu, then join a team. Teams will consider these ideas, and propose two different projects from the menu. The best proposals will be awarded, and you will begin your cycle of designing, developing, testing, and iterating. Throughout the semester, you will develop written reports on your work, show off your accomplishments to the class, shoot and edit a video, and finally present your designs and findings to peers and industry representatives. You will discuss all of your work in a final report, which you will hopefully publish.

It is highly likely that you will have to develop in an entirely new language, using new techniques, and equipment. You may not be familiar with everything you need to do; this is expected! As graduating seniors, you should now be well-equipped to learn whatever you need to learn to get the job done.

Deliverables

Unless otherwise noted, you must submit both an electronic and a hard copy of your deliverables. For team projects, have one team member submit. The electronic copy is submitted through CSNet; the hard copy must be turned in to the TA.

Individual Micro-Proposal [ form ] - DUE Jan 20 (f), noon

Form groups - Jan 22 (m), in class

Team Proposal 1	} BOTH DUE Jan 27 (f), noon
Team Proposal 2

Resolve projects - Jan. 30 (m), in class

Design Process Readings	} BOTH DUE Feb 1 (w), in class
IRB Certification

Project-Specific Deliverables* - DUE Feb 6 (m)
Lightweight Prototype* - DUE Feb 8 (w)

User Study 1 - DUE Feb 13 (m)
Project-Specific Readings* - DUE Feb 15 (w)

Project Plan* - DUE Feb 20 (m)
Plan Approval / Disapproval - Feb 22 (w)

Experiment Process Readings - Feb 27 (m), in class
Project Plan Revision (if required / desired) - DUE Feb 29 (w)

Project Status Report	} BOTH DUE Mar 5 (m)
IRB Protocol Application

Functional Prototype Demo 1 - DUE Mar 7 (w), in class

Individual Design / Research Notebook Entry* 1 - DUE Mar 26 (m)

Functional Prototype Demo 2 - DUE Apr 2 (m), in class

Video Readings	} BOTH DUE Apr 4 (w)
Individual Design / Research Notebook Entry* 2

User Study 2 - DUE Apr 9 (m)
Functional Prototype Demo 3 - DUE Apr 11 (w), in class

Video Storyboard - DUE Apr 16 (m)

Video Screening - DUE Apr 30 (m)

Final Presentation - DUE May 2 (w), 1:30pm–4:00pm
Intra-Team Evaluation - DUE May 2 (w), 4:00pm
Final Report / User Study 3 - DUE May 7 (m)

* - check individual project specification for addenda / specifics

Project Menu

Re-Configurable Surface Sensemaking				Augmented Reality Experience				Zero-Fidelity Simulation
Mobile Game			Pen + Touch Gaming			Reactive Environment			Remote Palette

Last update: 2012-04-23

This course design refined from prior versions taught by Andruid Kerne.