A little exercise to help you get started with the specification phase of the software development lifecycle.
In this exercise you will work with a small team to create the complete specification of a mobile application of your choosing. The work to produce this specification will include:
- ideation
- requirements elicitation and analysis
- writing a product vision statement
- writing user stories
- UML diagramming
- rapid prototyping
- presenting your work to key stakeholders
Ideation is often neglected. It is the process of coming up with a good idea.
In this exercise, you must decide upon a concept for a mobile app that solves specific needs you identify in your target end-users.
Before you can evaluate product ideas, you must first identify your target end-user -- the specific kind(s) of person for whom you are developing this app. This can be any type of person for whom you are willing to design an app.
Interview at least one person who is a good representative of the type of person for whom you are designing an app. Ask them questions about their goals, needs and desires. Find out problems and frustrations they have that a mobile app might be able to help with. You should be able to identify at least four goals/needs and four problems/frustrations.
Write details about your stakeholder(s) and their goals and furstrations into the README.md file in the appropriate place.
Once your stakeholder has been interviewed, your team and they must settle on a foundational Product Vision Statement - a single sentence explaining the main concept of the app. The rest of your work will be based on this statement.
Write this Product Vision Statement into the README.md file in the appropriate place.
Develop user requirements for your proposed application idea. These will take the form of "user stories" - short, simple descriptions of a product feature told from the perspective of the person who wants it.
User stories follow the template,"As a [type of user], I want [some goal] so that [some reason].", where [type of user], [some goal] and [some reason] are replaced with appropriate values. Keep them small and written in non-technical language that the type of user would use.
Write at least 10 user stories into the README.md file in the appropriate place.
Draw UML Activity Diagrams showing how a user uses the app to fulfill two of the user stories, from start to finish.
For each diagram, place the text of the corresponding user story and an image of the Activity Diagram into the README.md file in the appropriate place.
Create a set of wireframe diagrams representing every screen of the application. Wireframes are black-and-white diagrams that show the general layout of the screen, and the content that appears on each screen, but not the actual colors, images, fonts, or other visual design elements that will be used in the final product.
Convert the wireframe diagrams into a clickable prototype. These should be complete: every link or button in the prototype should take the user to the next screen in the flow; every piece of content (text, images, or video) that will appear in the completed application should appear in the clickable prototype.
By using the clickable prototype, a non-technical person who is not closely involved with the project should be able to understand what the application is and how it works. Nothing should be left to the imagination.
Place a link to the published clickable prototype in the README.md file in the appropriate place. The link must not require a user to log in to view the prototype.
You may be asked to present your work during class on the exercise due date. Presentations should consist of a very brief explanation of the project concept and a demonstration of the clickable prototype. The entire presentation should be well organized to clearly show the core functionality of the app and should last no more than 5 minutes.
When you are done submit your work by pushing your changes to this repository to GitHub. Then send the URL of your repository to both the graders and to the entire class on our messaging system.