We’re back! We were on spring break for two weeks, so no real update or post from then.
Current progress
Thomas has finished up improving the search function, allowing the user to get more specific results based on what they’re looking for, whether they want to look for index terms, modules, or both. I’ve finished up the Python tool that will help the curriculum side of the team and the NGO partners insert, update, and remove information, and I’ve begun teaching some non-technical members of our team how to use the tools.
What we have learned
Thomas has learned more about designing an effective search function, including thinking about parameters to include and how to display results. By teaching other people how to use the tools that I built, I learned a lot about user-friendly design and quality assurance. This is the first user-facing part of this project that I have built, so I have had to think more creatively than when I was working on the databases, since I needed to also consider how to make it as easy to use, as well as anticipate and prevent potential misuse/human error that would corrupt or damage the information in the databases. Moreover, troubleshooting the issues we ran into when running the tool on a Windows machine helped me change my code so that it was easy to use on both Windows and Mac, since I only have access to a Mac. Finally, my teammate’s question about possible usages of the tool helped me refine both the tool and the databases themselves in order to better suit how the curriculum team plans to display information through the app and website. Overall, I’ve had to think about code really differently when testing it with actual users than when initially building the database, with a much more creative and human-centered focus.
What we have planned
During the next two weeks, Thomas is planning to begin the huge undertaking of cloning the code and making it usable as a mobile application. I’m really hoping to finally gain access to the Github repo. I also want to teach more members of the team how to use the Python tool, and I hope to be able to continually refine the Python tool and the backend through the feedback and issues that they run into while testing and learning how to use the tool. Other than that, I want to start putting the design pieces into our website, integrating the UI models that were created by our designer, Terry Nguyen.