After several days of rushing, we finally finished our second project. Just like the first one, there are many features that are planned but undone. Before the execution started, we wanted our product to have all kinds of fancy features. As the execution progressed, we gradually realized it is impossible to implement all of them due to the time constraint.
However, having the time constraint is also a good thing because it forced us to think about what are the most important features of the product and focus on them. It is better to concentrate on a small feature set and do it well than to have lots of features that are all poorly implemented. Also, there is always room for improvement. Without any time constraint, we may keep adding new stuff to the product and the project will never end.
2012/09/28
2012/09/23
Mobile cloud assignment
I find myself quite free in last week, which is bad sign because it means I did not spend much time on the project. Unfortunately, the problem is not that I did not want to work hard on the project, but I did not have any idea about what to do. The project idea itself is simple, but as the back-end developer for the project, I feel the details of some features are not very clear to me, which makes it very hard to me to decide what to include in the database as well as the web api.
There are just a few days to the deadline and currently there are still many tasks need to be done. I expect a rush in the following few days, otherwise we may not be able to finish the project well. We are going to have a meeting today or tomorrow. I hope it will clear all my confusions so that I can accelerate the speed.
There are just a few days to the deadline and currently there are still many tasks need to be done. I expect a rush in the following few days, otherwise we may not be able to finish the project well. We are going to have a meeting today or tomorrow. I hope it will clear all my confusions so that I can accelerate the speed.
2012/09/04
The Guardian
To be honest, I didn't know what is the guardian (the newspaper) before yesterday, so I was actually quite blurred at the start the presentation. Anyway, luckily I was able to follow after one or two minutes.
Just as what the team said, the UI of the app really sucks. It looks like they just want to squeeze all the content and plugins into the page despite whether they really need them. The space available for an iFrame app is quite limited, but they do not even make full use of the space. All the content seems to be squeezed at the middle and therefore the home page is very long although there is not really much content.
Another point that I'm interested in is the privacy issue. I was surprised that there are no privacy options in this app and all the things you do in this app will be immediately visible to your friends. For me, this is totally unacceptable, but yet, there are 2.7M monthly users. Nowadays, it's almost common sense that the privacy issue is tricky for people working on web apps. I don't think a big company like Guardian would have missed that. Maybe they just ignored it purposely since most of the users may not notice this issue.
The app also shows how traditional industry like newspaper can make use of social media to improve the communications between they and users as well as between users to users. Comment feature is there for many years, but not so many people are serious about that. By including friends, users are more likely to express their opinions. By including social plugins, users are able to know more about how other people think.
In my opinion, the guardian on Facebook opened a new market, the young, for the company. The originally guardian website does not have much stuff that can attract young people. On the other hand, by utilizing all kinds of social elements, the guardian app targets the young and has proved that is the right way.
Just as what the team said, the UI of the app really sucks. It looks like they just want to squeeze all the content and plugins into the page despite whether they really need them. The space available for an iFrame app is quite limited, but they do not even make full use of the space. All the content seems to be squeezed at the middle and therefore the home page is very long although there is not really much content.
Another point that I'm interested in is the privacy issue. I was surprised that there are no privacy options in this app and all the things you do in this app will be immediately visible to your friends. For me, this is totally unacceptable, but yet, there are 2.7M monthly users. Nowadays, it's almost common sense that the privacy issue is tricky for people working on web apps. I don't think a big company like Guardian would have missed that. Maybe they just ignored it purposely since most of the users may not notice this issue.
The app also shows how traditional industry like newspaper can make use of social media to improve the communications between they and users as well as between users to users. Comment feature is there for many years, but not so many people are serious about that. By including friends, users are more likely to express their opinions. By including social plugins, users are able to know more about how other people think.
In my opinion, the guardian on Facebook opened a new market, the young, for the company. The originally guardian website does not have much stuff that can attract young people. On the other hand, by utilizing all kinds of social elements, the guardian app targets the young and has proved that is the right way.
2012/09/01
Microsoft Lecture
The guest lecture by Microsoft was quite exciting for me as this was the first I saw how Windows 8 looked like. It's nice to have an operating system that can provide both good desktop and tablet experience. Frankly speaking, I really like Surface and I think I'll get one when it's release.
However, there are still some problems. Although the speaker has emphasized several times that you can install and enjoy the system even if you don't have a touch screen(like most of current PCs and laptops), we all know that the experience of using a mouse is very different from that of touching. Therefore as a system that has some special design for touch screen, it's still not very clear whether users who are not using touch screens will find it inconvenient to use some features.
For Kinect, well, I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to introduce it to desktop applications, but for games, I prefer Wii and PS3 to Xbox. Regarding good game experience, I believe it's not enough to get only visual feedback, which the only thing Kinect games provide. Yes, Kinect looks fancy and for dancing games, it's enough(well, I would say you can dance without it). But for other game types, like action games, I wouldn't be satisfied if let's say in the game I'm swinging a sword but in reality I feel nothing in my hand - the physical feedback is important. Also, currently it's still impossible to perform some complicated without a controller, but the Xbox controller does not fit with Kinect well - you hands are limited when holding the controller.
However, there are still some problems. Although the speaker has emphasized several times that you can install and enjoy the system even if you don't have a touch screen(like most of current PCs and laptops), we all know that the experience of using a mouse is very different from that of touching. Therefore as a system that has some special design for touch screen, it's still not very clear whether users who are not using touch screens will find it inconvenient to use some features.
For Kinect, well, I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to introduce it to desktop applications, but for games, I prefer Wii and PS3 to Xbox. Regarding good game experience, I believe it's not enough to get only visual feedback, which the only thing Kinect games provide. Yes, Kinect looks fancy and for dancing games, it's enough(well, I would say you can dance without it). But for other game types, like action games, I wouldn't be satisfied if let's say in the game I'm swinging a sword but in reality I feel nothing in my hand - the physical feedback is important. Also, currently it's still impossible to perform some complicated without a controller, but the Xbox controller does not fit with Kinect well - you hands are limited when holding the controller.
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