Final Presentation

The semester is rapidly drawing to a close, and the team’s final presentation will be given this coming Wednesday, May 9 in front of faculty, students, and guests in the RPIS. The team’s client, George Blobe, will also be visiting the ETC to witness the presentation. A script, outline, and powerpoint have been assembled, and the team will be vigorously rehearsing and preparing in the following days, including RPIS rehearsals on Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday. The goal of the presentation is to showcase the work done this semester, including the prototype developed, the design challenges solved, the mechanics of the process, and the potential for this project going forward.

Fine Tuning

There are a few last tasks and tweaks being performed leading up to the presentation. The home page of the kindworks site has been redesigned to be more informative and welcoming, and some additional features have been implemented, most notably the option to search e-Gears by their ID# from the home page.

New visual designs for e-Gears are also being generated, particularly those that illustrate the possibilities for customization and the impact that customization can have on how meaning is perceived through the Machine.

Furthermore, some final playtest data is being processed; the feedback from the Boy Scout test has arrived in the mail, and an additional test is currently in progress through Mechanical Turk. As a result, the Machine now boasts nearly 150 e-Gears from all over the world, containing a variety of stories.

In other interesting news, the team had the opportunity to present kindworks to the guests at the BVW Festival this past Thursday, and many appeared very excited by the possibilities! Most noteworthy was the enthusiasm expressed by high school administrators about the potential use of kindworks as an anti-bullying tool, which could provide both a platform for the experience to grow, as well as additional testing opportunities.

By This Time Next Week

Following the presentation, the team will be wrapping up work this semester. The project’s archives will be completed by the end of the week in anticipation of the May 12 deadline, and documentation, both design and technical, is on pace to be finished on time. The final hurdle is determining the logistics of physically handing off materials to George, whether through an in-person meeting, or via delivery, and this is currently being addressed.

Soft Opening Feedback

On Monday, the team presented the kindworks prototype to faculty for the Soft Opening at the ETC. The core features of the site were functional, but not polished. Gears could be added to the Machine and viewed, posts could be added to the forum and categorized, and accounts could be created. Features for printing and ordering Gear Tags were also implemented.

Faculty were briefly acquainted with the high concept before being walked through the process of adding Gears and obtaining Gear Tags. The presentation also demonstrated the mobile version of the site on a smartphone and tablet, introduced the types of merchandising possibilities that have been investigated, and discussed future potential for this idea, as well as testing initiatives undertaken this semester. The project Web site was also reviewed on Tuesday, along with the project’s media archives, including promotional video rough-cuts and post-mortem documentation.

Faculty provided useful feedback that was reviewed on Wednesday. The key area in which the product needs improvement is in its visualization. The home page, utilizing a locked safe metaphor, and lacking informative content, was not perceived as inviting. Along similar lines, the branding as a whole lacks the human element to complement the mechanical motif.

Additionally, the means by which Gears are visualized in the Machine fail to convey the sense of size that will inspire visitors, and navigating the Machine in order to access content feels less fluid than it should. To a large degree, the team has been aware of these shortcomings, and has been and is continuing to work on improving the appeal of the home page and the functionality of the Machine.

Faculty also reinforced the necessity of PR outreach initiatives, providing a few new resources to connect to. The impression overall seemed to be positive, and the facebook connectivity plans, as well as illustration of potential expansions of the idea were well received.

The Final Push

With about a week and a half remaining until the team’s final presentation, a schedule has been created detailing specific tasks and deadlines for this time. Efforts are centered on creating a more inviting and informative landing spot for the site, a more human-oriented visual theme, and improving the features of the Machine to allow for more coherent and fluid visualization and navigation. The final presentation is in the planning stages, and will be further developed throughout the following week. The promotional videos are also being worked on, with the three-minute piece receiving the greater deal of attention so as to achieve more visual coherence with the narration and a more inspirational, rather than analytical focus. Additionally, the design and technical documentation is being assembled for handoff, and work is being done to better illustrate the future possibilities for this project.

Outreach and promotional endeavors remain on the radar as well, and on Thursday the team had the opportunity to meet with Charley Johnson of the Pay It Forward Experience. It was a very productive and inspiring meeting, as the future of this movement was discussed, and Charley expressed a desire to help in any way possible, for which the team is very grateful. It was the perfect way to celebrate National Pay It Forward Day!

The team is still looking into additional press and event-driven opportunities to raise awareness for the initiative, making use of contacts provided by faculty. And next Thursday, May 3, the team will be presenting the project to visitors to the ETC for the BVW Spring Festival, which will provide another chance to get the word out about this project.

By This Time Next Week

Expect slides for the final presentation to be prepared by next Friday, as well as a revamped Web site aesthetic, with improvements to the Machine visualization. A Story of the Day will be displayed on the home page, and a click selection for connecting Gears will be implemented. Documentation will have progressed, and mockups of future development concepts will be complete. The promotional videos will have addressed concerns voiced in Soft Opening feedback, and should be nearing completion.

Soft Opening Preparations

With less than 72 hours remaining until Soft Opening presentations begin, the team is making its final preparations to demonstrate the product and experience that have been developed this semester.

The Machine is functional and is being fine-tuned; users can add Gears and submit stories of the good deeds they wish to commemorate.

The focus in these final days is devising a clear presentation of the experience to convey the actions of a participant and the manner in which newcomers may access the experience.

1. A kindworks player performs, receives, or witnesses a good deed.

2. The player posts a Gear Tag in the world to celebrate the good deed.

3. The player signs on to the kindworks site, adds a electronic Gear to the Machine, and writes about the good deed.

4. Someone finds the posted Gear Tag and learns about kindworks.

5. The newcomer is inspired by all of the other good deeds.

6. The newcomer decides to register with kindworks to get involved.

7. The new player prints out his own Gear Tags and is ready to go!

The project room is being populated with diagrams and illustrations of the play flow, answers to frequently asked questions, and demonstrations of visual iteration throughout the process.

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Simplify
This week, the team made a small but significant revision to the design of the experience that greatly simplifies and enhances the concept without creating any added programming challenges. The Machine-building activity will revolve around one central community Machine, rather than many disparate entities. This will be achieved by requiring all placed e-Gears (electronic Gears) to be connected to an existing e-Gear in the online Machine.

Players click to select the desired e-Gear when prompted to connect, and can make their selection based on whatever criteria are meaningful to them, such as the deed’s story, the appearance of the e-Gear, the location of the deed, or some connection to a personal interest. By opening up the selection criteria, much more room becomes available for emergent behavior to arise.

Additionally, now that Gear Tags are being printed on merchandise such as stickers and t-shirts, the Gear Tag concept is being reformed into an all-purpose entity. Rather than using the system to connect e-Gears with Gear Tags, players can print or order as many Gear Tags as desired, as a commodity. They then add the ID# of their e-Gears to the Gear Tag – by allocating this action to the players, it opens up the possibilities for creative Gear Tag use.

Nuts & Bolts
With Soft Opening looming on the horizon, the team is moving forward with strong progress on the programming and art production. The Login, Home, About, and FAQ pages are completed, and e-Gear animations have been completed and are being implemented into the site. Additionally, forum and Add e-Gear functionality has been implemented, and the site has been optimized to be displayed on mobile devices. Currently, the programmers are working hard at solving routing issues, which, once overcome, will allow much more functionality to be rapidly implemented.

Playtesting
The designers have been hard at work orchestrating and organizing several playtests to be performed by the end of next week. First on the list is this Sunday’s trip to the Christ Church at Grove Farm, where the team will present kindworks to a youth group (ages 8-21) of approximately one hundred members. The primary purpose of this playtest will be to assess the array of good deeds and ways of promoting them that the youth group members generate. The presentation will consist of an initial focus group session to obtain some qualitative data in those regards, and the subsequent activity that the group will engage in is the Facebook-based experience that has been an ongoing process thus far. After one week, the team will review results.

The team also is preparing to hold a playtest tailored to a specific event next Friday, utilizing a tour group visiting the ETC. While those plans are still being finalized, the general idea as of now is that the tour group will visit the team’s project room at both the beginning and end of their tour, and will witness staged events with opportunities to provide aid for a random stranger. The test will be a behavioral study to determine whether awareness of kindworks makes the participants more likely to engage in altruistic acts.

The Home Stretch
With one week remaining before Soft Opening, the team will be hard at work next week wrapping up loose ends and completing the remaining programming and art asset production. Based on the headway made this past week, the team seems to be in good position to reach completion.

Work this week also included the filming of interviews and the recording of voiceovers for the three-minute promotional video for the project’s media archives. All footage has been obtained, and the team is in the process of trimming down content to fit the three-minute duration. The three-minute and thirty-second video rough cuts will be finished by Soft Opening, and additional documentation, such as a draft of the project post-mortem and all Web content will be prepared. Efforts next week also will include generating visuals to post in the project room and organizing the room itself to accommodate the presentation.

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Promotional Outreach

This week, kindworks continued to expand its outreach effort through different promotions. The team was able to get involved with an existing ETC Easter egg hunt event, stuffing eggs with miniature Easter greetings featuring a QR code that linked to the project’s Facebook page and this post:

On a related note, the kindworks Facebook page has seen its activity blossoming this week. As of Wednesday, 34 Facebook users were talking about kindworks, with a reach of 667 people.

Additionally, plans are in place for additional outreach initiatives. The team is in a dialogue with cmuTV about the specifics for the Buggy event playtest, and is looking at other possible outlets, such as film festivals and local church events.

Media Archives

Another significant area of work this week has been the planning of promotional videos for the project’s ETC media archive. The archive includes a three-minute video detailing the project and process, and a thirty-second video intended as an attractive promotional tool. A script has been written for the three-minute video, and recording of voiceover narration is underway. A concept for the thirty-second video has been developed and storyboarded, and filming on both videos will begin at the start of next week with a goal of having all footage recorded by the end of the following weekend.