Project proposal

For the next step towards working on your project, you will need to come up with a complete and detailed project proposal.

Due

This part of the project is due on Tuesday, 2/27, at 23:59.

Collaboration

This assignment should be completed together with your project partner.

Assignment

Your goal is to solidify and write down a concrete plan for your project. To that end, please address the following questions in detail (each should be in a separate section; most will be at least a few paragraphs):

  • What is the motivation for your work? What real-world problem are you trying to address?
  • What do we already know about this problem from existing research? How will you use the findings of the existing research in your own project?
    • Don’t just repeat what you put in your literature review, really focus on answering these questions
  • What are your research questions? What are you hoping to learn by the end of your research?
    • (For development projects)
      What are your development goals? Describe the user story for your completed project.
  • (For research projects)
    What is your plan for carrying out you research?
    • What methods will you use?
      • Why are they the most appropriate way of addressing your research question?
    • What data will you collect?
    • How will you analyze it?
  • (For development projects)
    Please provide the technical specifications for your project.
    • Also describe how you will evaluate the usability of your finished product. This should probably include at least a small-scale user study.
  • Come up with an estimated project timeline: the major milestones and the dates by which you plan to have them completed
  • Risks and mitigation plan: what are some things that might not go as you expect them to? (For example, a hypothesis you are testing might turn out to be false.) How will you make sure you still have something useful/usable at the end of the project?

What to turn in

Please submit your write-up as a PDF to Canvas.

Please also put your proposal in a properly formatted Google Doc (not a PDF, but an actual Word-style doc) that is editable by members of the team and me. Include a link to the Google Doc at the top of the PDF you submit.

Late policy

  • Assignments submitted up to 24 hours late receive a deduction of one letter grade (10 percentage points).
  • Assignments submitted more than 24 hours late receive no credit.
  • While excessively late submissions will receive no credit, you must submit a project proposal, and it must be approved, for you to pass the class.