GroupBrainstorm-Group:100 Proof

From CS 160 User Interfaces Sp10

Team Members

Brainstorm

Shopping Assistant
iPod listening trends
Shopping total calculator
Produce shopping guide
Beer impressions
Recipe suggestions based on ingredient
Deal-of-the-week tracker (i.e. tech deals)
Food Inventory Tracker (what’s in your fridge; alerts of expiring foods)
Store Price Tracker
Product recognition via Camera -> see competing prices, facts about it
Pasta Recipe Constructor
Whiskeys of the World
Nearby attraction finder using current location (for tourists)
Shooting rubber band game
Language learning game
iPhone typing practice (game)
Hot Potato w/ iPhone (game)
Dominoes/Card stacking (uses accelerometer)
Good posture indicator using accelerometer.
Skateboard Trick catalog
Skateboard designer
Yoga catalog
Virtual Yoga Pet
Automatic Restaurant Tallier (tracks how often you go certain places)
Intelligent things to say when intoxicated
Says things for you when intoxicated (i.e. get a cab, your address)
Sign language learning
Chinese learning (draw out characters)
Translate Chinese menu by drawing characters
Other languages
Restaurant assistant with menus in foreign language
Light sensors -> make sure you are going outside enough
Help elderly people (i.e. reminders to take medicine)
Find area with least parking citations (using public information)
Crime statistics for a location
Tells you where 2hr vs 1hr vs metered parking is based on location
Different running routes (exercise) in a given area
Dog breed catalog/identifier
Leaf identifier (i.e. is this poisonous?)
Typeface identifier (what font is this?)
Urban legends of the area
Tourism guide (gives a walking tour)
Rollercoaster creator/simulator (~Rollercoaster Tycoon)
Marble Maze creator
Doodler – doodles pictures for you
Furniture idea sketcher
Designing a home -> drag stuff around, simulate what rooms look like
Zombie multiplayer location game
Beat maker (music)
Pronunciation practice (language)
Guitar pedal simulator
Separate instrument sounds (filter)
Recognize artists (i.e. of an artwork)
Annotate/Edit/Modify photos before you post them.

Idea Selection

After narrowing our possible candidates for a project down to five or so, we ultimately ended up deciding on idea #5 - a "beer impressions" app. The idea of this app is to provide a quick, graphical way to keep subjective notes on your impressions of various beers you try when you're out at a beer bar. We also intend for it to have a "rate this round!" type feature to add a social dimension to the app - everyone in a group will get a chance to add comments. We picked this app for a number of reasons. First, it has a clearly delineated target group: beer aficionados (and their friends). Second, it's definitely useful on the go - your home computer will do you no good when you're out having a few beers at a bar, and you'd be foolish to set up a laptop amidst a bunch of glasses of liquid. Third, it takes advantage of the iPhone's affordances: while a user might balk at writing or typing out textual notes for a variety of beers, when they can quickly use a touch screen to adjust some sliders that represent their impressions they might be much more likely to keep the notes. And finally, though certainly not least importantly, we thought it sounded like fun to develop!

Target User Group

As mentioned previously, our target user group for this app is beer aficionados: people who enjoy and appreciate beer of various types. This is worth distinguishing from the much broader group of beer drinkers. Much like wine, beer is a beverage that can simply be enjoyed as a tasty treat that affords the warm glow of alcohol, but it can also be sampled and savored on a deeper level. Beer has a wide variety of characteristics and categories, from Belgian Trippel to Dunkelweizen to American IPA to Czech Pilsner. There are an almost staggering array of competing brands within categories, and surprisingly varied characteristics as well. Our target group is the type of beer drinker that is interested in these varied beers and their nuances, and would like to be able to keep track of them all.

Problem Description & Context

With this vast expanse of fermented possibilities, bars with ever-changing lists of beers on tap, and the incredible subjectivity of the human palate comes a problem: how to keep track of one's feelings on the beers that he or she has tasted? Perhaps a particular beer stood out on a given night and you would like to make note of it for future reference. While the sensation of taste and a beer's merit's relative to other beers of a similar ilk may be clear in the moment of consumption, this type of experience can quickly fade from memory. The problem is, of course, exacerbated by an effect of the beer itself: memory impairment. However, keeping track of one's opinions of the beers they consume is not, except perhaps in extreme cases, a task well suited to keeping a detailed journal or notepad. Drinking beer is an often social activity - the drinker wants to be able to note a few quick impressions of their beer in a simple and un-cumbersome way, and perhaps even to involve the rest of their party in the discussion and notation of the beer's merits.

Why Mobile?

As noted above, this is a problem that needs to be solved while out and about - specifically, while drinking beer at a bar with friends. The home desktop is of no use, and even a laptop is unfeasible and likely to be damaged. The only real competitor in this arena would be a pen and pad of paper - but relative to a mobile app with a fluid interface, a notepad is slow and clunky.