Festival2012/Submit/MyStreets

TITLE: MYSTREETS.COM PROPOSED BY : EMMANUEL NTUMBA, PUNTOCOM TECHNOLOGIES LTD. NDOLA, ZAMBIA FORMAT: DESIGN CHALLENGE

WHAT WILL YOUR SESSION OR ACTIVITY ALLOW PEOPLE TO MAKE, LEARN OR DO?

In my early years as an Internet user I had fallen victim of a number of scams and such made the Internet quiet a scary place to go for me at that time and still for many people to this day.

When I first learned about Webmakers, about doing cool stuff on the cloud and making a better web, I quickly remembered my first experiences and looked at Webmakers as an opportunity to contribute to creating a safer Web.

I imagined a place or Website where people could consult on how genuine is a business they are about to send their money to for a service or product or a business they are about to engage with in any kind of partnership or deal. It is true that we have so many online businesses today but they all have a physical address somewhere on the planet.

I thought of creating a website where people tell others what they know about a business whether it is located near or far from where they live and at the same time share the wonderful things about the places they live in. up to know I haven’t figured out what to call such a Site but I thought it could take a broader dimension if it was inspired, designed and developed by the webmakers as a community to serve the world. For the sake of session proposal, I decided to call it mysteets.com, without even checking the availability of such domain name because I would want the final name to be chosen by the webmakers if this project finds your approval.

Mystreets.com is intended to create a place of reference and a platform on the Web where the webmakers will continuously share with the rest of the world different aspects of the places they live in and their opinions and experiences with businesses around the world in two formats: rating and commenting.

I quickly put together a template that tries to picture what I have in mind but the idea is too big for one quick template page… I will be glad to discuss with you further on what I have in mind regardless of whether it makes it to this year’s Mozilla festival or not.

Participants will gain/improve

Self-confidence: this being a global project, I believe it will be a great confidence builder for participants to see their own ideas materialize into a tool that is of universal use. Sometimes you do not know you have potentials until an idea that crossed your mind and was probably despised by yourself turns to be adopted by a group of people and goes a long way into a universal project. Such a person will not hesitate to try out a new idea that comes to their mind…

Teamwork: Participants will learn how to work as a team, be able to let down or allow modifications into their original ideas and adopt other person’s opinions in order to serve a global outcome.

User Interface designing skills: Participants will learn key aspects of designing UI for various types of Websites including Blog, Search engine, marketing Sites…

Participants will make:

• The final GUI for a Global website of which they will be able to update the content from their various locations
• Decisions on what kind of content the Website will host (what type of information will be available from this website about the streets and areas of the world)…
• Decision concerning the domain name that will bring attraction to the Site and is both easy to remember and makes sense considering the contents of the Site.
• Contribution with different skills at different levels (there are things that I imagine for this project but I do not know how to implement them all, which will be the case with other participants but coming together as Webmakers, there will always be some one that knows how to materialize an idea, convert a dream into lines of codes and deliver a great product to the web users)

HOW IT WILL WORK

• We will first introduce the project to the participants, explain what it is intended to be, the features we are foreseeing; and then we will cast screen shots of the proposed GUI.
• Participants will suggest features to be added and features to be removed.
• We will then break into small groups according to the number of participants; we will have a maximum of five groups. Each group will contain at least one programmer (code literate) and two web users (regardless programming skills).
• We will keep a list of suggested features projected on the screen, hand over print outs of the proposed GUI together with the involvement forms where participants are free to let us know if they want to participate further with tasks going from providing lines of codes to regularly posting information and updates to the Website.
• Each group will then suggest amendments on the UI in order to make the suggested features implementable, sketching their new suggestions on paper. They should also come up with a suggestion to the website’ name and fill the involvement form with the names and contact details and area of involvement as suggested in the form.
• We will then collect the forms and the sketched UI from different groups at the end of the session and will organize a short meeting after the session with the programmer participants where we will decide on the target launch date for the website and task allocation, and every other works will be done trough follow ups.

HOW WILL YOU DEAL WITH 5, 15, 50 PARTICIPANTS

• With five participants, we will present the proposed UI and features, then ask for suggestions on more features and functions from participants, take a vote on whether other participants agree with the suggestion and form up a list of suggested features and functions. Afterwards, we will make sure to hear from each one of them individually on every aspect including what amendments they think should be brought to the proposed UI in order to make the suggested features work smoothly, what name they would suggest for the website and how they think they can contribute at an individual level.

• With 15 participants, we will start together as a big group of 15 people where after presentation of the project, participants are free to suggest features and functions or request that a pre-proposed feature be dropped from the project. Trough the raising of hands, we will vote and agree on a final list of expected features and functions, then we will break in three smaller groups to further discuss the user interface and level of involvement as explained in the “how will this work” section, making sure each group includes at least one programmer.

• With 50 participants or more, we will proceed in a way similar to that of 15 participants but then break in to five groups, making sure each group contains at least two programmers.

HOW LONG WITHIN YOUR SESSION BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE CAN TEACH THIS

In the scenario of 15 participants upwards, after the project has been presented and the breaking into groups has been done, the programmer or the participant with most appropriate skills in each group should be able to take charge of the small group and explain further to their team members the key features and guide lines for such kind of a website. These persons are expected to get even the most ambiguous ideas from the team members, discuss them with the team and come up with a more mature and clear suggestion that will fit into the UI and the code behind the Website. They should also be able to explain to their team members the guide lines to the choosing of a good domain (Website) name.

For less than 15 people, we will leave it an open discussion where questions that are raised will be talked by anyone among the participants that feel they have an answer and any answer can be further clarified by any other participant until the doubt is lifted or the matter is satisfactorily dealt with to the understanding of all participants.

In the scenario of less than 15 people, arising matters will be handled in the same manner but we will not have more than 15 people per group in order to make sure every participant get the needed attention and they get to be heard.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS OUTCOMES AFTER THE FESTIVAL

After the festival, the Webmakers will have made/created a website that touches the needs of the world concerning the fight for a better and safer Web. The Site will be a place of reference and should be trust worthy. Meaning the rating and comments on businesses should be honest and fair as they are made by known/registered Webmakers in the Mozilla community.

The Site should be a clear call to join the webmakers community to all the satisfied visitors. This will be a product that is conceived, created, developed and maintained by the webmakers for the whole world to use!