Pitches

Something that I should have done earlier is write down my reactions to the project pitches this past Monday. I took some notes during the pitches but had forgotten to put them in my blog so here they are.

Overall, I think it is really helpful (if stressful) to have multiple practice pitches. It is also very helpful to see how other groups do their pitches and note down what works and what doesn't. As I mentioned in a previous post, our initial slides were much too wordy and we needed a live demo (as well as more practice for the actual pitch so that transitions would go smoother). Nikan even mentioned today in the client meeting that practicing the pitch repeatedly is really key to making sure it is professional. We are planning to meet this Friday evening to practice the pitch and make any last minute adjustments to the slides. We will also have a live demo of our web application, which should look a lot nicer (and be more realistic) than the video we had used previously. We also plan to revamp our hand-out, which, as mentioned in class, really just needs to be a few key points and not copies of the slides.

As for the pitches made by the teams on Monday:

Automaton

• Really colorful layout and handout (almost too colorful for my taste, but if it is catering more towards younger people, such as kids and teens, then I can understand why the use of bright colors would be important for capturing a child's interest).
• I felt that the pitch needed some slides instead of just talking and a demo. Having a demo is important, but, for me, I also like seeing what is being said as well as hearing it since I tend to remember more of the information and it also makes it easier to take notes.
• I think that they should have just had one person do the talking (with perhaps one other person maybe talking during parts of the demo) since having three people talking was just a little too awkward and forced.
• The demo itself was a little confusing since there were no obvious directions or explanation of the what a level in the application was supposed to accomplish. As some people pointed out in class, having a more detailed and prominent description of the level (and maybe tooltips) would have helped out significantly with the demo. Also, they had too many options for beginning levels that would have just confused a user.
• The graphics and level design was really nice and well-executed.

Visual Scheduler

• The handout was very clean and simple, though I think that they could have less text and more direct and "catchy" statements.
• The website itself was also simple, which I liked. However, I did find the placeholders for "future universities" a little distracting, especially since they made it seem as though they hadn't really experimented with getting data from other universities yet. Maybe this is something they can leave out until they are actually going to implement this feature.
• I liked the tabbed layout (I hate scrolling) and found the overall idea behind the site to be very useful and possibly something that UNM might want to capitalize on. Hopefully they can get the user account feature implemented since this seems like a really important aspect of the website since students will most likely be using this multiple times a semester and for multiple semesters.
• The demo itself was a little short and they had to improvise the last few minutes. I can sympathize with this since I tend to talk way too fast during a presentation; but this is something that can be fixed with more practice.

G.E.R.A.

• The handout was too dark, especially with the dark green text that was used, but I did like the targeted text (in white). I also noticed that there was no period after the "A" in "G.E.R.A" on the handout.
• The website itself was very dark as well (which was unfortunate since I like the dark, dystopian feel it provided). However, for the sake of the user's eyesight, I think they will have to either make the text larger and/or change the color scheme somewhat.
• I did like how they "game-ified" the app, though the exact details of the "missions" the users are supposed to do were a little too vague, particularly the "past data" they would be entering.
• They did rely a little too much on notecards, which I can understand when you have to give facts and numbers, but hopefully some memorization will help this issue.
• I think it might be good for them to implement the Facebook sharing feature they mentioned in order to encourage users to share their progress and accomplishments with their friends.