Week 15 & 16

Welcome to the final post of this development blog!

After undergoing our last project sprint, we had the opportunity to showcase our app at the Entertainment Technology Center’s annual fall Festival, during which invitees from all over the globe come to see what students at the ETC have been working on over the course of the semester.

All in all, Festival went incredibly well for us! Guests consistently liked our prototype a great deal, and both of our clients were happy with what we were showing.

After Festival, and after giving our final presentation in front of a full house at the ETC, all we had left to do was prepare for handing our project off to our clients. To do so, we first finished off our technical documentation packet, which will help our clients through the process of releasing the app on both the Google Play store and the App Store, as well as guide future development teams through the process of adding more individuals to the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame app.

Additionally, we made sure that our build worked on iPhones as well as Android devices, since both our clients have iPhones. Funnily enough, this solved an accessibility issue we’d been plagued with for a huge chunk of the semester—with an iPhone, scanning a star plaque now works perfectly without needing to bend down towards the plaque!

Finally, in finalizing our technical documentation, we’ve decided to provide our clients with a short design document detailing feature concepts that we hope will help guide future teams in developing the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame app to its fullest potential. Just some of these features we’ve outlined include an honoree unlock system (which would allow guests to return to individuals whose plaques they’ve scanned without needing to scan again), a photo review mode (complete with the capability to share photos to social media), pinning Pittsburgh Connection locations in a separate maps app (such as Google Maps), and more.

Overall, we’ve had a great time working on City of Stars this semester, and we appreciate you coming along with us for the ride!