Today was drastically different from the previous days on the SAS campus. It began very much like Tuesday, with all of the CA students who had been working in different departments meeting up in the lobby at R Building. After a slight disagreement with the receptionist over my visitors badge, we were taking up a few floors to a conference room, where we met Dee, Paul, and Mary; the leads on the GatherIQ app SAS is developing. What is GatherIQ? GatherIQ is a website with a corresponding app that allows users to gain access to various projects. These projects consist of a mission statement, or a why the project exists. This often provides context for the research contained in the project. Users can then view compilations of data in the form of podcasts, papers, data tables, charts, and other visual aids. The user can also share their findings on Twitter thanks to a built in system to see what people on social media are saying about that given subject.
After walking us through the steps required to bring product such as this to market, including testing, usability, and QA, we took part in a feedback session for the app. Divided into groups, we were given time to navigate the app and just get on thoughts on it, without any context given by the developers. My partner, Matthew Cinoman, and I took very different views on the app. While we both agreed the interface was a tad clunky and there was information overload, Matthew couldn’t see the practical application of the app for everyday use. I, on the other hand, being involved in debate and the like, appreciated the app’s ability to conduct people with reliable data on any given issue.
One group lunch later and we were back in a conference room, however this time we were divided into two teams and given lists of questions that would help them better understand how to improve the app. For my group (Will, Jessica, and Matt), this included “what makes you want to take a survey”, “should users be able to create action items”, etc. We later had to present how we answered each question. Classy as ever, we made a power point to communicate our ideas. A main emphasis of our presentation was to give more power to the user. This not only entailed the ability to create action items, but also to more effectively sort through and choose what topics they wished to follow, allowing for a more personalized collection of projects. Additionally, we thought it would be really unique to incorporate a rewards system for how activate a user is in sharing and contributing to data, with more activity correlating with Team 1 (Kevin, Isaac, and a girl from New Jersey named Nancy) then presented their ideas on how to make the app more popular with younger audiences, such as modeling the interface off of Instagrams and being able to unlock different types/colors of graphs for the kids out there collecting data about Syrian migrants.
All in all, it a great day filled with great ideas and meaningful contributions!
~GatherIQ App homepage
~Example of project interface
~Kevin hard at work brainstorming ways to make GatherIQ more like Instagram