CS5551 Practicals

Practicals

The practicals are all based around each small group forming an on-line business. You will use this to apply what you learn in the lectures and readings. Whatever your business it must be legal, and must be fronted by website around which you can plan the business. You will not be building the website in this class, but rather thinking through how to make the business viable and how its different aspects would work together in order to be profitable.

Week 1: Generate teams and ideas for your business

Step 1) form groups of two or three people

Step 2) each of you list at least ten things you enjoy doing

Step 3) group all of your ideas together by theme or similarity stacking those that are same

Step 4) look for business ideas by taking one item from each group and

a) write down ten things that occur to you and compare with colleagues - group results

b) do this for each combo (even if it doesn't look like it will make sense)

Step 5) when have idea that everyone thinks might work as web application then write down

a) its business purpose

b) the problem it solves for people

c) where your income will come from

That's it for today. Next week we'll push this further

Week 2: Business model canvas

The goal this week is to elaborate on your idea from last week by using the business model canvas to better understand your business model.

Step 1) get back in your group and review your idea from last week

Step 2) use the canvas to fill in what you can for the business idea - focus in particular on the value proposition and customer segements - you'll find more details about the different parts of the canvas in the book extract.

a) don't bother trying to write on the canvas itself, but use post-its to elaborate on parts - spread them out on a table or use a wall for more space

i) focus on the value proposition by looking at what problem you solve for people, and see how many ways (at least 10 of them) you can express this idea of your 'service'

ii) reduce your different versions to one fifteen word statement of your proposition

iii) focus on the customer segments by looking at 'who' values/would use the refined 'version' of your 'service' expresssion and check that each of the other versions are also covered.

b) once you have value proposition and customer segments a bit clearer, then work on customer relationships and channels using similar approach

c) lastly think about the left-hand side of the canvas, which looks at where you'll need to spend money to enable the value proposition you propose to your customer segments

Step 3) before you finish make sure that someone captures all of the details with a photo of the post-its, or some other means so that you have the details for next week

Week 3: Modelling the business data

Bruce is gone this week, but do meet with your team and think about the different types of data you'll want to collect for each area of the canvas and how they will need to move around to the other parts of the canvas to enable the business to work. Map this out with some sort of diagram showing the flow of information starting with (a) the customer and (b) your suppliers - eventually the two parts should meet up.

Week 4: knowing your customers and channels

This week we want to focus on building an empathy map for each of your customer segments so that you have a better idea of the different customers and what their needs are. You can then use this to craft your value proposition for each of the segments correctly.

Remember - use the walls and windows with sticky notes and not just the small desk space in front of you.

1) Go to http://www.gogamestorm.com/?p=42 and use their empathy map poster to build up the picture of each customer type.

2) Draw one empathy map for each of your customer segments.

3) You might also want to draw up character cards for each personas so that you get a better feel for each of them. This would be a quick drawing of the person, their likely age, family relationship, type of job etc.

Then work out what can be done to reach each of them via which channel

You may also want to see if you can group any common features of all of your customers

Week 5: knowing your partners and resources

The goal this week is to fill in the rest of the business model canvas to better understand your business model.

Step 1) get back in your group and look at what you don't know about yet

Step 2) use the canvas to fill in what you can for the business idea - as we've been focusing on the customer side, now you'll need to look at the business side on the left of the canvas - you'll find more details about the different parts of the canvas in the book extract.

a) don't bother trying to write on the canvas itself, but use post-its to elaborate on parts - spread them out on a bigger table or use a wall for more space

i) focus on the key resources, key activities, key partnerships required to make your idea happen.

ii) You may want to do this as a service design blueprint. A filled in blueprint example is found on the Leeds GSJ site.

iii) The goal is to work out what you need to find out in order to complete the assignment for next week.

Step 3) before you finish make sure that someone captures all of the details with a photo of the post-its, or some other means so that you have the details for next week

Week 6: Catch up and working on assessment

Work on finishing parts for your assessment due tomorrow via MyAberdeen.

Week 7: Prototying application ideas

You know who your clients are and what value you offer them. You now need to develop what the web site will look like in a very general manner. We don't need specific colours or graphics. We only need to know 'what' people can do on the site: what menu options there are and what content is to be found on which pages so that you can discuss your ideas with possible customers next week.

Step 1) work out which features will need to be on the website. You can write each single one on a sticky note.

Step 2) arrange the sticky notes on a sheet of A4 paper (with one A4 being one web page) so that you can understand the home page and what it might look like. You should try at least three different layouts to see which seems to work best.

Step 3) work through the other parts you're customers will need to use the service you're offering. For example, how do they sign up, choose the product/service and how do you deliver the service? How does the customer get in touch if there's a problem, or wants to change their order?

Step 4) Model each of these screens and the flow between them so that you've got a sticky note website that you can show to people next week when you go see what people think of your application.

Week 8: Feedback from customers

Take your prototypes from last week and show them to people outside of class. Go to the library, or the Hub, or the cafe in MacRobert and see what people think of your application idea. Take notes and gather up the ideas to see what changes they suggest. Maybe even try a revised version on the spot to see if it resonates with the next person.

Week 9: Revising prototyping

By now you should have shown your basic paper prototype to people outside of your group. If not, then go show it to someone. Yes, now. Using the feedback from the people you showed it to revise your paper prototype design to build a better version and then see if people understand your idea better now. Keep doing this cycle a few times if possible to refine your idea more. As part of this process you should also be seeing if maybe your 'customer' is who you thought it might be, or is actually someone different from who you thought it would be.

Week 10: writing XML schemas

Go to http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~csc228/teaching/CS3514/information/xml-schemas/xml-course/xml-schemas/ and work through the Powerpoint decks until you understand how XSD and XML fit together. Then write an XML and XSD pair that represents one of your typical customers purchasing an order through your online ordering system. This will probably be something like 'customer' buys 'order' using 'billing address' comprsing 'orderitem1' and 'orderitem2', etc to be delivered to 'shipping address' and paid with 'payment method'. Each of the 'items' will need to be done as a suitable XML/XSD pair.

Week 11: Presentation preparation

Work on preparing your presentation and other materials for the following week. Details of the assessment are in MyAberdeen under Assessment -> Assignment 2

Submit the assignment as one PDF file with every team member's name on the cover.

The assignment should contain:

a) a revised business idea as storyboard or some other variation and details of how this has developed from end of week 6 based on feedback
b) the updated story of the business canvas and model, including how this changed since the last assignment
c) your designs and details of how the canvas translated into a web design - which parts from the canvas became which features in the web application
d) a presentation covering the above topics which lasts about 10 minutes

Week 12: Presentations