Devcathlon Proposal

After completing my reviews in my previous three posts, I think I see a lot of things I like from all mockups. I think if I had to choose, I would use mockup4 as the basis. Then inject a little bit of everything from the other mockups. Some memorable ideas and I remember are...

1. Create a Match

a. Data Facilitation Sliders, Calendar Wickets, Drop-down Boxes, and Text-Boxes

I definitely think one of the other groups had a great idea for the "Create a Match" page. It was John Ancheta's vision where he used Sliders to help set the scoring values of each event. Also on his page was the option to use preset scoring settings such as Beginner, Normal, and Advanced.
They could use the presets as templates and then use the sliders to customize any category they choose. Automatically the preset status would switch to "Custom".

I think this is definitely a useful thing that many would use instead of setting everything themselves. I personally wouldn't care to set all those scoring values myself, especially my first time. It'd be great to use the preset ones by the developers.

When I'm filling out a form, I prefer to click on things rather than typing if possible. So a calendar wicket would be nice for the user to input start and end dates. Drop down boxes help show the options for settings that need to be within a certain range. Otherwise, text boxes for everything else.

b. Match Commissioner

This is really a spin-off to Mockup6's GameMaster idea. But each match should designate one participant to be the Match Comissioner. The match comissioner would be the one who has control of the settings to their individual match. When editing match settings, basically he/she will have a screen similar to that of a "Create A Match" PLUS an additional section where he/she
can reward or rescind point events.

I think this is good because it helps reduce the responsbility of the GameMaster. Otherwise, the GameMaster will have hundreds of matches to manage, and when will he find time to do anything else? Let people worry about their own matches and the GameMaster can override other things and individual matches if he so chooses.

2. Compare Badges

This is a must if we're going with the badges idea. It's always fun to see where one stands next to someone you admire and think highly of. It's also fun to see how far you've come compared to that person. Hopefully people will use this as additional motivation to collect all the badges.

3. Expand/Collapse

Anthony's expand/collapse using the SpryCollapseablePanel is nice. We have two versions of collapsing on our pages and this definitely needs to changed to have only one. Otherwise our page looks like it was created by more than one team different teams (which it is but we don't want it to appear so).

4. Team Cards

My group talked about this if we decide to go with team badges. There was a whole problem of preventing freeloaders from getting the badges onto their developer's card. Our solution was to let those teams have their own card. Any team badge would be awarded to the team and not help your individual status. Teams could also level up, but we haven't exactly talked about a level system for teams. Maybe something low would be "School of Fish". Something high would be "Software Giants".

5. My Profile additions

a. Add a Friend

The feature has already been shown. Users clearly can associate themselves with friends. We just have to implement a way similar to how social networks handle these operations.

b. Trophy Wall

Maybe someone doesn't have the time to attempt collecting trophies but still helps contribute to a lot of the team's scoring total. This is an additional way of showing off past victories. Just like one would have in their child's bedroom to look at their trophies, each user would have a section on their page with a shelf-like table of trophies [see below for example of Yahoo's Fantasy Profile Card]. Sorry people, nothing lower than third place here. We don't want to award mediocrity.

It doesn't add toward your profile points but its still recognition. Clicking on the trophy would bring you to the details of the finished event.


6. Friends Leaderboard

In addition to the hall of fame, users might want to see how they simply compare to their list of friends. A simple table with each person's profile points and recent achievements would be nice.


Layout wise, I think we're pretty set. White and a chrome-like blue is a nice way to work around. There are some aesthetics that we could improve on such as the look and feel of the developer's card, but the overall concept is what was important. I think we have a pretty good foundation.