Status update 4/5

Our digital prototype is finally sufficiently functional to start user interviews. The user scenarios we used for our last paper prototype iteration are all supported by the mockup, though the behaviour of the mockup is still limited to what we want the users to achieve. For this reason, we are having some difficulties in converting the mockup to a real life application. The mockup is exported as a combination of HTML and JavaScript. We already found a library to deal with RSS feeds, so in principle it should be possible to combine it to the mockup (this was our initial idea).

However, due to the limitations in the behaviour of the mockup, we started investigating an alternative. We’re experimenting with Google Web Toolkit (GWT) to create a similar application with a more general behavior. For example using drag-and-drop in a scroll pane wasn’t possible in the mockup tool so we abandoned the scrolling option. That way the number of message we can handle is limited to 16, which is a severe restriction. We wouldn’t be able to test whether our application allows for efficiently dealing with a large amount of messages, as was the goal all along. On Monday we will make a decision on whether or not it will be possible in the remaining time to create new application with Google Web Toolkit.

To be clear, the sole purpose of the GWT-application would be to check the efficiency of our design for handling large streams of messages. All other issues should have been dealt with adequately by the mockup versions. Therefore we’ve decided to concentrate our efforts on this mockup first. If we use GWT, the application will ready but untested at the time of the presentation. We plan to include a validation of it in our final report. Of course, all of this depends on what we decide next Monday.

Due to this complications, our schedule will be changed. A new version will be posted on Monday.