CS2103/T Website - Admin: tP: Inception [week 4]

Start weekly project meetings
Decide on a overall project direction (user profile, problem addressed) before the tutorial
Start a collaborative doc to take project notes before the tutorial

Given below are some guidance on the recommended progress at this point of the project

1 Start weekly project meetings

We recommend you start weekly project meetings now. You can use the meeting to do tP tasks, but also help each other do iP tasks. On a related note, it is also acceptable to discuss weekly post-lecture quiz together with team members as you do the quiz i.e., discuss and decide the answer collectively, but you should not give away your answers to someone who was not part of that discussion.

2 Decide on a overall project direction (user profile, problem addressed)

Learn about the tP

Relevant: [Admin tP: Overview ]

Relevant: [Admin tP: Product ]

Decide project direction, target user profile, and problem addressed before the tutorial

Use your first project meeting to discuss with your team members and decide your project direction, target user profile, and the value proposition of the product, as described in the panels below:

Relevant: [Admin tP: Scope ]

project expectations

Project Direction

In general, each team is expected to take one of these two directions:

[Direction 1] Optimize AddressBook for a more specific target user group:
An AddressBook,
- for users in a specific profession e.g. doctors, salesmen, teachers, etc.
- based on the nature/scale of contacts e.g. huge number of contacts (for HR admins, user group admins), mostly incomplete contacts, highly volatile contact details, contacts become inactive after a specific period (e.g. contract employees)
- based on what users do with the contacts e.g. organize group events, share info, do business, do analytics
[Direction 2] Morph AddressBook into a different product: Given that AddressBook is a generic app that manages a type of elements (i.e. contacts), you can use it as a starting point to create an app that manages something else.
An app to manage,
- Bookmarks of websites
- Tasks/Schedule
- Location info
- Thing to memorize i.e. flash cards, trivia
- Forum posts, news feeds, Social media feeds
- Online projects or issue trackers that the user is interested in
- Emails, possibly from different accounts
- Multiple types of related things e.g. Contacts and Tasks (if Tasks are allocated to Contacts)

Note that both directions are equally acceptable.

For either direction, you need to define a target user profile and a value proposition:

Target user profile: Define a very specific target user profile.
We require you to narrow down the target user profile as opposed to trying to make it as general as possible. Here is an example direction of narrowing down target user: anybody → teachers → university teachers → tech savvy university teachers → CS2103/T instructors.

Be careful not to contradict given project constraints when defining the user profile e.g. the target user should still prefer typing over mouse actions.

It is expected that your product will be optimized for the chosen target users i.e., add features that are especially/only applicable for target users (to make the app especially attractive to them). w.r.t. the example above, there can be features that are applicable to CS2103/T instructors only, such as the ability to navigate to a student's project on GitHub
Your project will be graded based on how well the features match the target user profile and how well the features fit-together.
- It is an opportunity to exercise your product design skills because optimizing the product to a very specific target user requires good product design skills.
- It minimizes the overlap between features of different teams which can cause plagiarism issues. Furthermore, higher the number of other teams having the same features, less impressive your work becomes especially if others have done a better job of implementing that feature.
Value proposition: Define a clear value proposition (what problem does the product solve? how does it make the the user's life easier?) that matches the target user profile.

Individual Expectations

[Individual] Expectations on Enhancements

You are expected to enhance the product in some way(s). User-visible enhancements are preferred, but it is not a strict requirement. Some examples:

* Add a new feature %%e.g. add the ability to view statistics%% * Enhance an existing features in a major way %%e.g. make the command syntax more user friendly and closer to natural language%% * A redesign of the GUI %%e.g. make it work like a chat application (note: chat is a form of CLI)%% * A redesign of the code %%e.g. Improve the design to improve the code quality.%%

The enhancement(s) should fit with the rest of the software (and the target user profile) and should have the consent of the team members. You will lose marks if you go 'rogue' and add things that don't fit with the product.

Tips:

Contribute to all aspects of the project e.g. write backend code, frontend code, test code, user documentation, and developer documentation. Reason: If you limit yourself to certain aspects only, you could lose marks allocated for the aspects you did not do. In addition, the final exam assumes that you are familiar with all aspects of the project.

Do all the work related to your enhancement yourself. Reason:If there is no clear division of who did which enhancement, it will be difficult to divide project credit (or assign responsibility for bugs detected by testers) later.

Divide the components of the product among team members. Notwithstanding the above, you are still expected to divide the components of the product among team members so that each team member is in charge of one or more components. While others will be modifying those components as necessary for the features they are implementing, your role as the in charge of a component is to guide others modifying that component (reason: you are supposed to be the most knowledgeable about that component) and protect that component from degrading e.g., you can review others' changes to your component and suggest possible changes.

How much code to write? The project grade depends on the value you added, as perceived by evaluators (i.e., team members, peer evaluators, and tutors) as well as other factors such as the quality of the code. As such, there is no strong correlation between the LoC and the grade. For instance, in a recent semester, a student who wrote 500 LoC of functional code (i.e., excluding test code and documentation) was able to reach top 20% (in terms of project marks), another who wrote 900 LoC reached the top 10%, while another who wrote more than 5000 LoC ended up in the bottom 10%. Also see the the percentiles of functional LoC written by that batch of students, given below:

Percentile	25	50	75
LoC	~1000	~1500	~2500

[Individual] Expectations on Documentation

You are expected to write user documentation and developer documentation for your features.
The objective is to showcase your ability to write the two types of documentation. If the documentation for your features is not enough to meet that objective, or does not reach the following minimal requirement, you can make up the shortfall by documenting 'proposed' features and alternative designs/implementations.
- Contribution to the user guide: 1 page
- Contribution to the developer guide: 3 pages
You are expected to showcase your ability to use the various UML diagrams (at least 2 types). As mentioned in the previous point, if the documentation of your features doesn't give you enough opportunities to do so e.g., your features only required minor updates to existing diagrams, you are expected to create those opportunities yourself by documenting proposed features or alternative designs. Evaluators will not be able to give you marks unless there is sufficient evidence of your documentation skills.
You are required to update the entire UG and DG to match your product. However, there is no need to update other documents such as tutorials that are AB3 specific.

[Individual] Expectations on Testing

There is no requirement for a minimum coverage level. Note that in a production environment you are often required to have at least 90% of the code covered by tests. In this project, it can be less. The less coverage you have, the higher the risk of regression bugs, which will cost marks if not fixed before the final submission.
You must write some tests so that we can evaluate your ability to write tests.
How much of each type of testing should you do? We expect you to decide. You learned different types of testing and what they try to achieve. Based on that, you should decide how much of each type is required. Similarly, you can decide to what extent you want to automate tests, depending on the benefits and the effort required.

[Individual] Expectations on Teamwork

Team-tasks are the tasks that someone in the team has to do. Marks allocated to team-tasks will be divided among team members based on how much each member contributed to those tasks.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of team-tasks:

Necessary general code enhancements e.g.,
1. Work related to renaming the product
2. Work related to changing the product icon
3. Morphing the product into a different product
Setting up the GitHub, Travis, AppVeyor, etc.
Maintaining the issue tracker
Release management
Updating user/developer docs that are not specific to a feature e.g. documenting the target user profile
Incorporating more useful tools/libraries/frameworks into the product or the project workflow (e.g. automate more aspects of the project workflow using a GitHub plugin)

Roles indicate aspects you are in charge of and responsible for. E.g., if you are in charge of documentation, you are the person who should allocate which parts of the documentation is to be done by who, ensure the document is in right format, ensure consistency etc.

This is a non-exhaustive list; you may define additional roles.

Team lead: Responsible for overall project coordination.
Documentation (short for ‘in charge of documentation’): Responsible for the quality of various project documents.
Testing: Ensures the testing of the project is done properly and on time.
Code quality: Looks after code quality, ensures adherence to coding standards, etc.
Deliverables and deadlines: Ensure project deliverables are done on time and in the right format.
Integration: In charge of versioning of the code, maintaining the code repository, integrating various parts of the software to create a whole.
Scheduling and tracking: In charge of defining, assigning, and tracking project tasks.
[Tool ABC] expert: e.g. Intellij expert, Git expert, etc. Helps other team member with matters related to the specific tool.
In charge of[Component XYZ]: e.g. In charge of Model, UI, Storage, etc. If you are in charge of a component, you are expected to know that component well, and review changes done to that component in v1.3-v1.4.

Please make sure each of the important roles are assigned to one person in the team. It is OK to have a 'backup' for each role, but for each aspect there should be one person who is unequivocally the person responsible for it.

Team Expectations

Preserve product integrity: i.e. ensure,
1. features fit together to form a cohesive product,
2. documentation follows a consistent style and presents a cohesive picture to the reader, and
3. final project demo presents a cohesive picture to the audience.
Maintain product quality: i.e. prevent breaking other parts of the product as it evolves. Note that bugs local to a specific feature will be counted against the author of that feature. However, if a new enhancement breaks the entire product, the whole team will have to share the penalty.
Manage the project: i.e. ensure workflow, code maintenance, integration, releases, etc. are done smoothly.

Relevant: [Admin tP: Constraints ]

Your project should comply with the following constraints. Reason: to increase comparability among projects and to maximize applicability of module learning outcomes in the project.

Constraint-Brownfield The final product should be a result of evolving/enhancing/morphing the given code base. However, you are allowed to replace all existing code with new code, as long as it is done incrementally. e.g. one feature/component at a time
Reason: To ensure your code has a decent quality level from the start.
Constraint-Typing-Preferred The product should be targeting users who can type fast and prefer typing over other means of input.
Reason: to increase comparability of products, and to make feature evaluation easier for peer evaluators.
Constraint-Single-User The product should be for a single user i.e. (not a multi-user product).
Reason: multi-user systems are hard to test, which is unfair for peer testers who will be graded based on the number of bugs they find.
Constraint-Incremental The product needs to be developed incrementally over the project duration. While it is fine to do less in some weeks and more in other weeks, a reasonably consistent delivery rate is expected. For example, it is not acceptable to do the entire project over the recess week and do almost nothing for the remainder of the semester.
Reasons: 1. To simulate a real project where you have to work on a code base over a long period, possibly with breaks in the middle. 2. To learn how to deliver big features in small increments.
Constraint-Human-Editable-File The data should be stored locally and should be in a human editable text file.
Reason: To allow advanced users to manipulate the data by editing the data file.
Constraint-No-DBMS Do not use a DBMS to store data.
Reason: Using a DBMS to store data will reduce the room to apply OOP techniques to manage data. It is true that most real world systems use a DBMS, but given the small size of this project, we need to optimize it for CS2103/T module learning outcomes; covering DBMS-related topics will have to be left to database modules or level 3 project modules.
Constraint-OO The software should follow the Object-oriented paradigm primarily (but you are allowed to mix in a bit other styles when justifiable).
Reason: For you to practice using OOP in a non-trivial project.
Constraint-Platform-Independent The software should work on the Windows, Linux, and OS-X platforms. Even if you are unable to manually test the app on all three platforms, consciously avoid using OS-dependent libraries and OS-specific features.
Reason: Peer testers should be able to use any of these platforms.
Constraint-Java-Version The software should work on a computer that has version 11 of Java i.e., no other Java version installed.
Constraint-Portable The software should work without requiring an installer.
Reason: Testers may not want to install your product on their computer.
Constraint-No-Remote-Server The software should not depend on your own remote server.
Reason: Anyone should be able to use/test your app any time, even after the semester is over.
Constraint-External-Software The use of third-party frameworks/libraries is allowed but only if they,
- are free, open-source, and have permissive license terms (E.g., trial version of libraries that require purchase after N days are not allowed).
- do not require any installation by the user of your software.
- do not violate other constraints.
and is subjected to prior approval by the teaching team.
Reason: We will not allow third-party software that can interfere with the learning objectives of the module.

Please post in the forum your request to use a third-party libraries before you start using the library. Once a specific library has been approved for one team, other teams may use it without requesting permission again.
Reason: The whole class should know which external software are used by others so that they can do the same if they wish to.

In addition, you are strongly encouraged to follow these recommendations as they can help increase your project score.

Recommendation-Minimal-Network It is OK to use a reliable public API e.g., Google search but we recommend that you have a fallback mechanism (e.g., able to load data using a data file if the network is down).
Reason: During the mass peer-testing session, the network access can be intermittent due to high load. If your feature cannot be tested due to lack of Internet, that will have to be counted as a major bug, to be fair to those whose app is being tested and bugs found being penalized.
If you use NUS data (e.g., scrape data from an NUS website), please work with NUS IT directly to get their approval first. Even well-intentioned use of NUS data without approval can get you into serious trouble (has happened before). The teaching team will not be able to get approval for you as the use of NUS data is not a module requirement.
Recommendation-Testability Avoid implementing hard-to-test (both for manual testing as well as automated testing) features or features that make your product hard-to-test.
Reason: testability is a grading criterion. If you choose to implement such a feature, you will need to spend an extra effort to reach an acceptable level of testability. Here are some examples of features that are hard-to-test:
- Features that depend heavily on remote APIs: Those APIs can block your access if they mistake your automated tests as a bot attack. Some remote APIs require setting up accounts, keys, login etc, that will irritate the testers of your product and give a low rating to the testability of your work.
- Audio-related features: The peer testing of your product is done under exam conditions where it is not appropriate to play audio.
- Features that require creating user accounts.

Recommendation-CLI-First Following from the Constraint-Typing-Preferred, if the app is optimized for the target user (graded under the product design criterion), a user who can type fast should be able to accomplish most tasks faster via CLI, compared to a hypothetical GUI-only version of the app. For example, adding a new entity via the CLI should be faster than entering the same data through a GUI form.
Therefore, the input to the app needs to be primarily CLI. The GUI is used primarily to give visual feedback to the user. While we don't prohibit non-CLI inputs, note that such inputs will reduce the suitability of the product to target users. Therefore, give CLI alternatives to mouse/GUI inputs, if applicable.
Also keep in mind:
- Regular typing is usually faster than using key combinations.
- One-shot commands are faster over multi-step commands. If you provide a multi-step command to help new users, you can also provide a one-shot equivalent for regular/expert users.

If you are not sure if your product complies with a certain constraint/recommendation, please seek clarification by posting in the forum (preferred) or emailing the supervisor.

Relevant: [Admin tP: Grading → Criteria Used for Grading the Product Design ]

3 Start a collaborative doc to take project notes before the tutorial

We recommend keeping project notes in easy-to-use collaborative docs such as GoogleDocs/sheets. Document the decisions taken above in one of those docs.

tP: Inception [week 4]