For HCI 440, you will work as teams to design and partially develop an interactive system. While the first assignment will be an individual effort, the remaining assignments will be accomplished with your team. Each assignment represents a stage in the User-Centered Design (UCD) process.
The root concept is the main idea of the project. It provides an initial direction but must be developed as you learn more about users, their needs and existing products. For this term, the root concept is an online resource that helps consumers find good services such a plumbing, car wash, lawn mowing, Web hosting, etc. (we will generate more ideas in class). You may choose a narrow category of services (e.g. computers) or decide to support a broad assortment of services.
Your final product may have listings, reviews, and user ratings, but you will not finalize these functional properties until you have completed your user and task analysis.