GLC

Our animations looked really cool up on stage. I made some mistakes here in the order of the animations but well it's art. Nothing is 'wrong' in art. Anyway this was a good experience for us to really understand what the user using our app would want in using our app for VJ-ing purposes. We also need to improve the way the animations are created and maintained in our app.

I can't wait for our video of the night to be nicely edited. Soon we can go social! :D

We have one more month to STEPS. (less than a month) I really do hope we are able to better our app in time! =]

Final Project so far

Our project is very interesting and I'm excited to see its outcome. But one thing I'm concerned about is how we're going to be able to bring structure to all the artsy animations we will be making. It's a huge part of our project and needs to be organised well. For now, we planned to create a few sample animations and judge from them, how they can be split and organised into categories, easy enough for the users to use.

All my modules now have on going assignments. Yay for the second half of the sem. Personally I believe that compared to my previous semesters, this semester, I have improved a little in my managing of work. Though, it's also getting harder each sem because the modules get more difficult and I often like to choose the most 'fun' modules. *ahem*3216*ahem*

Final Project's Started

Alright, so it's been awhile since I posted.

Assignment 3 ended recently. It was quite interesting. I don't have a lot of experiencing in designing icons and UI and so I had to do quite a bit of research for this one. There were many interesting little things that I have learnt about UI, that though are small, can make a bigg difference in user satisfaction. Like where the buttons are placed and whether it's good to have a hamburger icon. I used to think hamburger icons were all the rage.

Now on to final project, I'm quite excited about it. I do hope that we will be able to create something that is as close as it can be to what we're imagining it to look like and work like. This project will have a lot of work with html, css and js, of which I am not as experienced as I hope to be in.

No matter, I will work hard and train myself alongside coding out our project.

Midterms and assignments from other projects are here as well. I really need to learn to manage my time better. 

Week 5 is over

Time really flies by fast. It's already assignment 3 and final project time. Recess Week is almost here! (that means midterms and assignment 3 deadline and etc.)

I have always done backend work when it came to making web apps. I really do have a lot experience with it. Hoever, I've always wanted to try out front end and see how things are done there as well. It was refreshing to have a chance to do front end work now for assignment 3. I think I like our idea. I hope we can pull it off well and I hope that I can also learn how to be a front end developer fast enough.

=]

Welcome to September

The past week was quite hectic. 

I'm quite happy how our assignment 1 web app turned out. There were a few things that we had planned before that we had to leave out of the final app due to time constraints. Perhaps if we had worked a little more, maybe we could have added them in too. Oh well, we tried our best! I do hope we have the time to add features or maintain it after our module.

Assignment 2 was fine. I liked my critique. Hopefully others like it too. Now time to critique others' critques!

This week also came out with assignment 3. I have yet to discuss an idea with my group yet. I'm looking forward to what we might create. Other modules have also started releasing their own assignments. Week 5 is starting already. Time flies.

App Presentation: Pinterest

I thought that the presentations yesterday were a good way to get to know more about the strengths and flaws of apps out in the industry today, The app presentation that I've been tasked to talk about is Pinterest. I thought the presenter spoke well and was able to bring the group's thoughts and opinions across very well. I'd like to bring out a few points that caught my attention during the presentation.

I really liked their suggested improvements to the logic flow of the app. I really feel that this might be a better way of having users test and try out what the app uses before deciding to log in and create pin boards and contribute on their own. In my experiences with similar social content sharing sites like Deviantart, Tumblr and the sort, most people start off as passive users. It takes time for them to come to like and use the app. It would do Pinterest good to do the same. The book 'Rework' by Jason Fried and David Hansson, talked about something similar to this. 'Don't be afraid to give a little away for free, as long as you've got something else to sell'. In this case, it would be the 'free' trial of using the app without logging in.

I have not used Pinterest before, so I went to check it out. You can actually explore the site without logging in, but that is if you search on google for your categories on Pinterest (which should not be the way to go). But after awhile the website prompts you to log in and you can't close the prompt, so I guess it's not really counted. :P Anyway, kudos for picking that point out.

The commercial element of Pinterest was nicely stated. It is true, that a new model of business is arising through social media apps where users get inspired to buy from looking at pretty things. Pinterest seems to have that platform ready to pin the things that you are interested to buy. Businesses can use this to promote their products, by marketing them well to Pinterest users. As mentioned, Pinterest already has ad features like promoted pins and machine learning. Combining these two, businesses can definitely benefit by advertising their items to people who are actually interested in buying similar items. Higher chance of them clicking on the ads. Native advertising ftw!

Lastly, they mentioned about little UI/UX flaws, such as inconsistent texts and weird video displays and I believe that these small mistakes can really undermine the app. It makes it look unprofessional and feel like testing had not been thoroughly done. It is important to have a stable app when releasing production. We should learn from others mistakes and try not to repeat them.

I feel that Pinterest has its own specialized user base and I think that is a good indication that an app has been successful. These loyal followers are emotionally attached to this app and may be able to help Pinterest by asking their friends to join and use the app as well. Social sites have that kind of advantage when it requires users to be social so in turn leading to more users using the app. Of course when starting out, this might be hard because people do not want to start using a social site if it is empty. Like it was mentioned in the Growth Hacking session last week, it is important to understand the psychology of users as well, when marketing the app. (and for UI/UX too!)

Brace Yourself

This week feels like the calm before the storm. Although, the calm wasn't that calm..

One thing I learnt this week is that one disadvantage of  decoupling and splitting the back end and front end development amongst us, is that sometimes, being in back end, I am unaware of things going on in the front end. I don't have to know what is happening in detail but perhaps some sort of update would help. In the case of my group, we have been meeting and updating each other of our progress, so that's good.

We have a week left to finish our app. I am confident that we will be able to finish it on time, but I believe we will have to spend a lot of time on this the next week, especially the folks on the front end. Everyone is also juggling other things, like assignment 2 and modules. We really need to prioritise well and be more efficient. Development should try to be faster.

I felt that our assignment 2 is going fairly okay. I'm quite looking forward to all the presentations on Monday. It should be fun. =] The week as whole... so many deadlines. OTL

First Couple of Weeks

Show and tell was fun last week. Now on to the serious (still kinda fun) stuff. My assignment 1 group spent the past week deciding on ideas and deciding on how we were gonna execute the idea. We only finalised on an idea which we were all satisfied with on Sunday and started setting up the environment earlier this week. I like this bunch, we're quite friendly with each other and are willing to help each other if needed.

I volunteered to be PM this time because I wanted to know what it would be like. So far, we were able to split the work nicely into front end and back end. Having chosen to use Django, and emberjs we were able to decouple very well. The two are connected through HTTP requests and responses. From my perspective, perhaps since it's still the first week, I think our group is proceeding with our tasks without too many problems. Technical problems, however, existed. We still had to research and discuss issues as we went along.

One improvement I think I hope to take into account for the rest of our assignment is the assignments of tasks. At times, I think I'm confused with my backend partner on what tasks we are supposed to be doing. Since we're both pretty new to this framework, it happens. Perhaps we could try to split the work in such a way that we don't have to cancel or change what we've done to be consistent and efficient. As the project manager, I should try to manage our project better. :P

Assignment 2 has begun as well. And tutorials are starting next week. This is the moment where I learn to manage all my work so that I don't have to forgo any of it. (Hopefully I don't have to!)

What I Hope To Learn in CS3216

I'm pretty excited for this semester. I expect CS3216 to be packed with assignments and projects. I'm mentally preparing myself for it. There are three main lessons I'm hoping to take away from taking this course.

Creativity
I hope that I'll be able to learn how to create fun and interesting applications for people. Being in CS3216, an environment for all the creative and hardworking students, I hope that we will be able to share and exchange different ideas. Perhaps we will be able to shape our ideas and have a clearer idea of how to go about thinking of applications to build.

Time Management and Quality of Work
CS3216 sounds like it's going to be hectic and will involve lots of projects and assignments. I hope to be able to learn to manage my time more effectively to handle both the rigour of this module and the other modules I'm taking. Of course, we should also maintain the quality of our work and codes while we're at it. Especially since we will be working with other people, there is that additional pressure of not wanting to let the team down, along with our own passion to get the work done.

Working well in teams
Finally, I hope to learn how to work effectively in different teams. Since the projects are done in teams, there will always be a variety of levels of skills and work ethics for each project. I want to be a good member to my group. Perhaps the Saturday workshops can serve me well to catch up to those who might have more skill than me in certain areas.

Let's hit the ground running. =]