What we did the last week

The results of the last week:
We save the user-data in a http-session. So we can display his or her statistical data, his or her settings and so on.
Currently the user can see which polls the user answerded according to the topics.
Furthermore he can see how much his opinions fit to the parties' decisions.

The poll currently doesn't work.

The designed symbols displaying the different topics were also integrated. It ist now possible to select/deselect theses symbols to show/hide the associated topics. To differentiate the topics, they are colored in the color of the topics symbol.

Features that would be nice to be integrated in the futur ist the calender whicht show time and location of upcoming event, to collect data of echt topic, let the user decide if he likes the decisions made by the politicans and save this in a data base and to add more topics.

The grayed logos

Here you can see the grayed logos which are displayed when the topic is not selected.

Prototype Screenshots

As promised, here are some Screenshots.
It's not very "bling" right now, but they show where the project is going.




This Screenshot shows the current login Form.
Not very much to see.

Input errors are shown in red text under the form while errors from the Server are presented in a Popup box which is similar one to that of the Topic Details you will see later.







Here you see the topic overview.
On the top you have buttons (would be images in the final version) to (de)select a topic.
Currently there is no indication if a topic is currently selected, but this is subject to change.







Here you see an extended ("clicked on") topic including the Details Dialog (the popup box).

The box is supposed to replace the details screen you can see in our paper prototype (the right page on the second screenshot).
We hope to increase the workflow by doing so.





Further information (e.g. updated screenshots) will be posted here as they become available.


*UPDATE* The topics presented by the application currently are of course not real ones. It was just easier to come up with dummy entries.

The last logo

The last logo for "Bebauung"

The other logos for the topics

Our new logos

The first logos for the topics

SVN Repository

Follow the latest changes of our project at:

http://svn.lvps87-230-92-234.dedicated.hosteurope.de/dis2finalproject/

Prototype

Updates have been rare lately, this is because we have all been busy (including but not limited to work on this project).
Our focus right now is to create a prototype software using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
The current prototype only supports a small subset of the functionality as we all use this Toolkit for the first time but progress is steady.

Later today first screenshots will be uploaded, which hopefully include most of the user interface.

3rd User Interview

The third user interview with an 24-year-old female student approves our idea. She stated that she would use it regularly. Furthermore she points out that it might be actually possible to take part in the local affairs this way. Additionally, she supports our idea to display topics spontaneously that do not conform to the user's preferences.

New Feature: calendar of events

It could be interesting for user to know what's going on in terms of politics. According to his preferences a calendar should inform him which topics are going to be discussed and if he can attend this meetings. In this case the exact time and location should be provided to the user.

2nd User Interview

Our second user interview with a female student (24) resulted in the following insights:

1) The polled user confirmed the benefit of our system. She says that she would use it not only before an election. She is even more interested in the local affairs than in the "Bundestag's" politics especially because the local affairs are not as often discussed in public as the "Bundestag's" politics.
2) The system is clearly arranged and seems to be easily accessible.

1st User Interview

From the first user interview with a female teacher (55) we received the following insights:

1) The system is actually useful, as the user is interested. But probably the system will be used basically only before an election, since it might be too time-consuming for the everyday usage. This is an issue which we have to consider. Maybe there is a way to avoid this.
2) It is important to save the desicions a long time. In addition we must offer a way to access older information about the personal interests. So we will introduce four drop-down menues to specify the period of interest. So e.g. the user can select the topics "from May 2009 to June 2010".
3) The system should display the party platforms in contrast to the actual desicion for a further support of the voting desicion.

Our Storyboard-Paper-Prototype

This is our new paper prototype. It describes the interaction with our system. The red marked parts are clicked by the user. The colors in the third picture won't be the actual colors, but we think that colors will help the user to distinguish the different political topics. The last image shows some ideas for the topics' logos. When the system displays the recent events, the logos are displayed in a row. The chosen interests are colorful whereas the others are grayed. By clicking on them they get colorful as well and the corresponding events are shown. But in the next login the interests will be grayed again. The user has to change his or her settings to change this behavior.
As you can see the user can see some statistics about his or her decesions even in contrast to the policicians desicions. So the user can see whose party's desicions match best. We think that this will help the user e.g. for the next election. Furthermore the user can see how much his opinions match to the rest of the community.
The user is informed by email when a new topic arises according to his or her preferences.

Preliminary results of todays meeting

Changes to our original idea:

- now focussing on regional politics --> Aachener Stadtrat
- project will be first written as Website. Gives the possibility for iPhone App or any other (mobile) device in the future.
- push messages not available --> email if wanted by the user

Design and implementation decisions:
- user registration needed
- user initialy choose favourite topics (can be modified later via profile settings)
- home screen shows recent topics filtered by interests.
- we wanted to make the topics visually distinguishable. For example by using one or more of the following:

• colors
• shapes
• symbols/pictures

- decision: use symbols to give recognition value fo the different topics.
- using the symbols as tags that can be checked or unchecked to vary the displayed topic on the fly. (changes can be saved) --> no need to do this in the profile settings
- clicking on a bill shows more information and ables the user to vote for or against it.
- bills the user allready voted for/against change color / are grayed out / change opacity or are even completly removed from the home screen (no decision made so far)
- allow the user to look at the history of her votes and also compare these with the politiciansʻ desicions
- user can compare his previous decisions to the decisions made by the different political parties. These statistics could make the user reconsider the way she is going to vote in the next Stadtrat elections.

Our paper prototype/storyboard is still worked on and will be posted as soon as possible.

Next meeting

Sorry for the late update.
Just wanted to let you know that we neither forgot about this project nor plan to do so, but due to other obligations were unable to work on it.

We plan to have our Meeting today 16:00 room 4025a and will post updated information afterwards.

Initial Idea

Our system displays the most recent bills from the Bundestag. It runs on an iPhone. The user can skim through them by wiping from right to left and vice versa. Furthermore the user can rate the bills to take part in the decision. The result of the usersʻ voting will be displayed. The politiciansʻ desicions are contrasted with the usersʻ opinions. So you can compare the peopleʻs opinion and the politiciansʻ decision very easily. Besides the systems sends push-messages to inform the user about new bills. Since the system runs on an iPhone, we will use CocoaTouch and Objective-C.

Brainstorming

Concept Map of terms to define the application area

Concept Map of ideas for the system

Welcome!

Hi everyone,

from now on this will be the home of our final project.
We will give you some insight into our project and solutions to the exercises will be posted here.

The names of our developer team:
Yannick Rocks, Moritz Venn, Christoph Vobis and Frederic Evers

Regards,
Moritz Venn