Project Check-Ins (Fall 2020)

The Project phase runs four weeks. During that time, you’ll want to get feedback on your needfinding plan, needfinding results, heuristic evaluations, prototypes, and evaluation plans. So, each of the three weeks before the Project is due, you’ll be required to submit materials you’ve prepared so far for feedback from your peers. For the check-in, submit any materials on which you’d like feedback. Our hope is that what you submit for these check-ins will be rough drafts of the corresponding sections of your actual final project deliverable.
  • For Check-In 1, ideally you should be finished with the Introduction and the Initial Needfinding Sections.
  • For Check-In 2, ideally you should be finished with the Heuristic Evaluation, Interface Redesign and (possibly) the Interface Justification Sections.
  • For Check-In 3, ideally you’d be finished with the Interface Justification and Evaluation Plan sections so that you can perform your Evaluation Execution in Week 4 and finalize your Project.

Check-ins are only graded for completion; graders will not grade their content nor give feedback. Instead, the role of the check-ins is to get feedback from your classmates and, equally importantly, to see what others are working on to find how it might give you implicit feedback on your own work. If you do not submit material for a check-in, you will lose 10 points from your project grade; if you miss multiple check-ins, you will lose 20 (if you miss 2) or 30 (if you miss all 3) points.

There is no length limit for the check-ins, although we recommend targeting the corresponding section of the project itself in setting your scope.

Submission Instructions

Complete your assignment using JDF, then save your submission as a PDF. Assignments should be submitted to the corresponding assignment submission page in Canvas. You should submit a single PDF for this  assignment. This PDF will be ported over to Peer Feedback for peer review by your classmates. If your assignment involves things (like videos, working prototypes, etc.) that cannot be provided in PDF, you should provide them separately (through OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and submit a PDF that links to or otherwise describes how to access that material.

This is an individual assignment. All work you submit should be your own. Make sure to cite any sources you reference, and use quotes and in-line citations to mark any direct quotes.

Late work is not accepted without advanced agreement except in cases of medical or family emergencies. In the case of such an emergency, please contact the Dean of Students.

Grading Information

Your assignment will be graded for completion. If you complete it, you will receive credit. Failure to complete a check-in will result in a one letter grade deduction to your project grade (-10 points) for each missed check-in.

Peer Review

After submission, your assignment will be ported to Peer Feedback for review by your classmates. Grading is not the primary function of this peer review process; the primary function is simply to give you the opportunity to read and comment on your classmates’ ideas, and receive additional feedback on your own. All grades will come from the graders alone.

You will typically be assigned three classmates to review. You receive 1.5 participation points for completing a peer review by the end of the day Thursday; 1.0 for completing a peer review by the end of the day Sunday; and 0.5 for completing it after Sunday but before the end of the semester. For more details, see the participation policy.