Level 3Project 1 · Session 16
16

Project 1 · A page somebody actually uses

Show it

What we are making: nothing. Today other people load your page on their own phones.

Somebody who has never seen it has to use it, without you talking. Whether that happens at an exhibition evening or in a lesson with another class does not change anything you have to do.

On your table

1
Your device, running, with the sensor where people can affect it
1
A card with the address, large enough to read from a step away
1
Your notebook, open at your two readings
1
Somebody from your team, standing

The four questions

  1. What does it measure, and in what units?
  2. Who is it for? Name them. This is the question that separates the good ones.
  3. Why that threshold? Say the two readings you took in the real place.
  4. What can it not do? It only works while somebody has the page open, for one thing. Say so before you are asked.
💡 Tip
Do not hold the phone. Give people the address and let them load it themselves. That is the entire argument for having built a networked device instead of one with a screen on it, and it makes the point better than you can.

Afterwards

  • One paragraph: what you would deploy for a week in May, now that you know how.
  • Note whether anybody could not load the page, and why.
  • Everything back in the tray.

What you learned

  • A reading is only useful when somebody can act on it.
  • Designing for a named person is easier than designing for everybody.
  • Fewer controls is usually better than more.
  • In May the same device has to survive a week without you.
Challenge optional — only if you finish early
  • Count how many visitors could load your page without help. That number is your score.
15. Test it and fix it