Wednesday 17 October 2012

Key Apps Deliverable #8 - Final Product Post


All Applications projects have a common deliverable "Deposit of the software in an open source code repository such as Google Code, SourceForge or GitHub, ... ".  (it is usually numbered D8). To meet this deliverable, a Final  Product Report is required.  There are two options:

Option 1: 
For projects that chose not to blog, please ask your ANDS contact for the report template.
Please note that even if you choose this "non-public" version,  your ANDS contact may write a post for the ANDS Applications blog site based on the content you provide in the report. 

Option 2:
For projects that chose to blog, please write and publish a post to your Blog. The post should cover the following aspects:


1.     Introductory Product Information
·         The Name of your product (note: this can be different from the name of your project, especially if the name is more understandable/interesting for the user of the product)
·         The primary users of your product, e.g., researchers (what fields / areas?), policy makers, etc.
·         A simple "elevator pitch" for your product directed at your users that explains what problem or what situation your product is going to solve for them.

2.     Instructional Product Information

·         What is the use case for how the product is going to be used? Please tell a real story of how this product has been used by your users (e.g. Research and/or Policy Champion) and the real world effect it has had upon them. Don't be afraid to talk about a real user (with their permission) and quote what the user said for context.
·         Links to the actual product. This could be to several different "things", for example: If the product is an application for downloading on a computer or phone, a link to where the app can be downloaded, e.g. perhaps create a nice button to click on to signify this is the product.
·         Step-by-step end user documentation: this should include links to the project blog as well as to   the public source code repository. Please explain to them in a step-by-step way how they actually can start using the product right now. This could be in the form of a screencast or an Ikea-like instructional manual or any other clear guidance for how your intended user can use this product right now. (e.g. http://jcu-eresearch.github.com/Edgar/userguide.html and http://intersectaustralia.github.io/ap11/blog/2013/04/30/final-product/).
·      Technical documentation (NB if you are using the a blog for your living SRS, then this should just be a matter of listing links as a table of contents for how the technical documentation relates to the final product).  Naturally these links should also reference the links to the files within the Source Code repository as it relates to the final product.
·         Don't forget pictures or (simple) diagrams for 'selling' the product to the user. If you have authorized testimonials from users, you could link to those.

3.  Product (or Product Components) Re-usability Information

·         If a product or its components can be reused in other contexts, please specify the reusable components and describe in which contexts they are reusable.

4.     Contextual Product Information

·         Licensing of final product, this should include both creative commons and any applicable code licenses, as well as a declaration by the team for how their commitment to assuring the product is available beyond the life of the product for reuse by others.
·         Sustainability: A deliberate effort should be made to explain the ongoing status of the product (under active development, in maintenance mode, orphaned, mature, etc).


The ‘final product posts’ should be simplified and made easy to understand by others in the sector.  Accordingly, ANDS will organise a panel of previous ANDS projects to review and provide (private) feedback to the project on their final product.  Therefore your 'final product post' should act as a product advertisement that will engage a range of users working in Academia.

Please assign the following TAGS to your post: andsFinalProduct,  andsApps,  andsProduct,  fundedByAustralianNationalDataService, DIISRTE, {your project's acronym or tag}, {your ANDS project code, e.g. AP67}, {any other keyword tags you can think of that will help your project be discovered by like-minded projects}.


Monday 8 October 2012

Key Apps Deliverable #5 - Deployed, tested and documented software system

All Applications projects have a common deliverable "Deployed, tested and documented software that:  ...".  (it is usually numbered D5). To meet this deliverable, a User Acceptance Testing Report is required.  There are two options:

Option 1: 
For projects that chose not to blog, please ask your ANDS contact for the report template.
Please note that even if you choose this "non-public" version,  your ANDS contact may write a post for the ANDS Applications blog site based on the content you provide in the report. 

Option 2:
For projects that chose to blog, please write and publish a post to your Blog. The post should cover the following aspects:

1.     The Application
What does the software application do? -  You could e.g. describe the application in a series of screendumps / illustrations with some accompanying explanations, or if the software application is web-accessible, a link to the application with accompanying explanations.

For an example, please see  http://jcu-eresearch.github.com/Edgar/Management/2012/08/29/announcing-edgar/

2.     Who are the Users and the Testers?
What are the typical groups / types of users?
What are the user characteristics of each user group?
What are main tasks that each user type / group will perform with the application?
Please list / name the testers who have been involved in the User Acceptance Testing, and specify which user group a tester represents. If you do not want to make that information public, you can anonymize the users for the Blog, and provide their names to your ANDS contact. 

3.     Testing Methods and Findings
How did your project involve the users / testers in the application’s design and testing process? 
What were the testing methods employed?  (e.g. observation of researchers’ / users’ workflows, workshops with researchers / users, exploratory interviews with researchers / users, and / or usability testing of an evolving design).
If you have had phased releases of software, please outline this information for each phase.

Here is an example: http://jcu-eresearch.github.com/Edgar/Development/2012/08/08/user-interface-testing/

4.     Findings and Lessons Learned
Please summarize briefly  what worked and what didn’t work with the interface and the application development process.
Were the users’ needs met? 
Please quote what users said about the application, for example, in terms of usefulness, future improvements and their intention of  using the application in future,  etc.



Please assign the following TAGS to your post: andsUserAcceptance, andsOutputs, andsProduct, andsApps,  fundedByAustralianNationalDataService, DIISRTE, {your project's acronym or tag}, {your ANDS project code, e.g. AP67}, {any other keyword tags you can think of that will help your project be discovered by like-minded projects}.

ANDS Applications Project Blogs/Sites