Almost there

Phew! It's deadline time, unfortunately not just for our little Music Cloud, but also for schoolwork. Currently, I'm taking a break from writing THE FINAL REPORT, which is due today. The past few weeks have been busy. We've been designing and documenting and implementing, and iterating. On top of that, I've been studying for exams and trying to finish up other school projects. Next week is the Demola Graduation and the Final pitching event, which will also be the premiere of our demo. Hopefully, it will be a spectacle to remember.

We're having another meeting with Tapio tomorrow showcasing the player and band pages. Fingers crossed he'll be pleased with our progress.

Niina's hours

Week 13

• Learning HTML and CSS 5 hours
• Design and other meetings 6 hours

Total 11 hours

Week 14

• Learning HTML and CSS 6,5 hours
• Design and other meetings 5 hours

Total 11,5 hours

Week 15

• Learning DIEM 5 hours
• Client meeting 1 hour
• Design and other meetings 5 hours

Total 11 hours

Week 16

• Client Meeting and other meetings 5 hours
• Documentation (Project plan update) 5 hours

Total 10 hours

Week 17

• Blogging 2 hours (yes, I had problems with the new layout
• Documenting
• Project Review Meeting 1,5 hours

Total 8,5 hours

Week 18

• Client Meeting and other meetings 5 hours
• Documenting 2 hours
• Heuristics evaluation 3 hours

Total 10 hours

Week 19

• Documenting and editing 5 hours
• Client meeting and other meetings 5 hours

Total 10 hours

Project Overall Total : 63,5 + 72 =135,5 hours

Image from here: http://http://www.keychangesmusictherapy.com/2011/05/progress-and-documentation/businessman-overwhelmed-with-paperwork

Mikko´s week 19

Week 19,

Designing graphical content: 10h
Pitch planning: 2h
Meeting with the project partner: 1h
Designing layout to player: 2h
Creating the gallery: 4h
writing blog: 1h
Planning of other features: 8h

Week total: 28h
Project Overall Total : 200h

On this week we were working quite a lot again and had a meeting with Tapio, to realize to consern on the player and store functionality. I presented the first version of the working player to Tapio and also a gallery I created it thought it could be implemented somewhere in the future. Also we disucussed the checout-service ( http://checkout.fi/) with Tapio for the payment methods. I also redesigned the buttons in the mainpage and designed a new better looking banner, and also an artistic group picture that can be used as a basis for the pitching layout. Reza has been working alot with the bandpage creating side and the registered user options. This side of the application is not Diem based and we have discussed that we might create a new base for the main page also out of Diem in the future.

 

The new banner.

         The artistic illustration of the team, combining members pictures and concept art.

  

New mockup combining player and the gallery.

New "register" -button.

New "log In" -button

The first player and current progress

Week 18 Hours, Mikko

Meeting with the project partner : 1h 
Planning: 3h
Design: 2h
learning: 1h (looking for Disqus javascript application, http://disqus.com/)

Week total : 7h
Project Overall Total : 172h

Hello,

Vappu is celebrated now and we are all still alive! Quite basic stuff actually and eventually unfortunately no special pictures to present. Maybe it was the effect of Vappu or something else, but the week 18 wasn´t the most productive one for me either, but this week trying to boost my working efficiency again!

We had a meeting with our project partner Tapio on Thursday (2.5) and still discussed that the player is the main focus at the moment with the store option. As unfortunately Reza and Vanuhi we´re not present on this meeting we didn´t have a clear picture of the current phase of our back end progress, but I am now aiming to keep myself more up to date on everybody´s work that atleast this kind of risks could be avoided in the future.

Today (7.5.) we got the first implementation of the player working as Vanuhi had got it finished and shared it with the rest of us. At the moment it only plays local files, but we are currently working on that.

My current personal sprint at the moment is to develop different layouts for the player, skins and css. And also continue making the webpage to have more content. Also I am to look for a design solution how to implement the store effectively on the player.

Also we have discussed about the possible payment-feature implementations. We have talked about pay-pal implementation and Osuuspankki. Maybe for Osuuspankki features it would be easiest for someone to call to the bank and find out the correct solution for us. This might be Sameli´s field of expertise.

On this week´s Wednesday (9.5) we will have another meeting with Tapio again.

Currently the player looks like this:
(this is now the first version on which we will now start working on to make it perfect!)

 

Mikko´s week 17

Mikko´s week 17, hours:

Review meeting : 1h 30min
Planning: 4h
Design: 5h
Blogpost: 30min

Week total : 11h
Project Overall Total : 165h


Hello again,

On this week´s Wednesday we had a meeting with our teachers from UTA and TUT. The TUT teacher was very concerned of our documenting and our relationship to our project partner.  Reza seems still chocked after this "purgatory", but luckily he´s still able to work. I did again some more color design and a new banner, because for a while I was a bit stunned myself also that what am I supposed to work on next. But as we talked with Reza we came to agreement to start design some additional features for the main page , such as placements for future Facebook (and other social media) connections and possible feedback widgets. Also seems at the moment that next week we could have the first implementation of the player to the page.

p.s. As vappu is coming I think I will not work much on the coming weekend either, so I uploaded my weeks hours now, but if I will, I will compensate them on next weeks hours.

p.s.s. I hope also that I manage to take some pictures of my vappu activities to please Tero´s (TUT teacher) request of not all work all the time but also do some party. 

Here´s the banner I made today:

And a current screenshot of the main page:

On Pitching

First of all, I would like to apologize for the lack of posts lately. I guess we have been so focused on the actual design process of the project that our priorities have been elsewhere. Anyway, this is a fresh start. Mikko already posted some design ideas, and here are thoughts on pitching.

Last week we had our mid-pitching event, which was truly an eye-opening experience for me. Obviously, I was curious to see other groups perform, but I also wanted to know what these events are all about, as I had heard so many stories about them. Our little show was OK, but there is always room for improvement. Afterwards, I started thinking over the constructive feedback we got from our audience. One thing they wanted to see was the actual player. This was totally understandable: I would have wanted to see it too in their position. Unfortunately, the player was not ready to be published yet. There was also another crucial question regarding Music Cloud: how are we going to stand out from other existing services? This is what it all comes down to. While our team may know that Music Cloud will be a unique product in the sense that no similar service exists, we still need to come up with a decent marketing strategy.

Niina's hours

Week 9

• Sick week
• Design and other meetings 5 hours

Total 5 hours

Week 10

• Client and design meetings 7 hours
• Design and research 8 hours (mock-ups etc.)

Total 15 hours

Week 11

• Service design workshop 3 hours
• Project plan review meeting, client and design meetings 5 hours
• Learning HTML5 and other tools 6 hours

Total 14 hours

Week 12

• Client and design meetings 5 hours
• Learning HTML5 and other tools 8 hours

Total 13 hours

Weeks 7-12: 63,5 hours

Getting back on track

Getting back on track
hours and stories from last five weeks! 

Week 12

Planning & Design : 9h

Week Total : 9h

Week 13

Planning the cloud player  : 8h
UI design : 6h

Week Total : 14h

Week 14

Planning & Design : 14h

Week Total : 14h

Week 15

Graphical Design : 6h
implementing frontend/css/and frontend design: 6h
Learning Diem system : 6h
client meeting: 1h

Week Total : 19h

Week 16

Graphical Design : 15h
implementing frontend/css/and frontend design: 8h
pitching and preparation : 4h
documents : 3h
Blog updatng: 1h


Week Total : 31h


 TOTAL HOURS : 154


We have indeed been quite lazy updating our blog. Maybe we are just bad bloggers or then maybe we have been just concentrating more on the actual progress of the project. Nevertheless many things have been happening! We have taken in use the Diem system, which allows us all to work on the project remotely and collaboratively together, so this will fasten our project development significantly. I have now also took more of the part of the front-end implementing and Vanuhi can now concentrate more on the player design. I have also been desingin the logo several times and came up with several versions of it. Also noticed that logo design is not easy! it is not just making the picture, because that is quite easy, but coming up with a solid and simple idea that will hold till the end , that is hard. Also I have been studying some Photoshop tutorials with the idea of creating more visual outlook. I have been designing several banners and because the layout kept changing quite frequently not all of them are usable. Also we have been doing some interface design of the player, which is a hard part to do in a way that it would truly stand out from the existing services and be new and exciting...this was a very good question from our pitching audience. "how are you making it better than the existing services?" ... that indeed is a question to answer!

Diem system webpage: http://www.diem.fi/
Our project can now be found from: musiccloud.demola.fi
note also, that not all browsers are yet supported but in development mode the pages work fine. We will do also something for this in the future!

Three different versions of a "vinyl cloud" banner idea:

New ideas for register and log-in buttons:

Older desing drafts:

The cloud player idea:

Some old abandoned banner ideas:

The new logo (which I can aprove myself also, at least for now) :

And a screenshot of the current phase of the project:

This week on Wednesday we are having our second review meeting, which I am looking forward to! Also I will try to be a better blogger in the near future, because now I think something important might be missing from this post as well. And of course there is always more deign ideas existing on this laptop, but some of them are just some random psd. files and such, so I don´t consider downloading them too important at the moment. But these that I download should be the most important as for now!

Also Demola is about pitching and pitching and more pitching... I could maybe get good in this, but still require more training... There would actually be an interesting event today (Monday 23.4) about Demola success stories and their pitching, but unfortunately I had already arranged other things for this time considering another project so unfortunately have to skip it for today.

May more things follow, now I will continue working!

- Mikko

Mikko´s weeks 10 and 11

Week 10

Planning & Design : 9h
client meeting : 2

Week Total : 11h

Week 11

Planning & Design : 9h
Review meeting: 2h

Week Total : 11h

Total : 67h

We have made planning of the interface. and also in the client meeting we got a better understanding of the clients desires towards the project and the meaning of the cloud. First we have been designing the main page and the log-in and sign-up functions. We have also gotten into designing deeper functions of the application. 

Week 9 working hours and design ideas , Mikko

Working hours

week 9
Mikko Myllylä , 81499

Document / sprint 0 : 1h
Planning & Design : 9h

Week Total : 10h
Total : 45h

-------------------------

Design ideas:

Part 1 : Independent starting page
- "www.musiccloud.com"
- registeration field / log in
- general info
- label info / links to the artist pages
- advertising / -> store
- newest artists / top hits

Part 2: registered user browsing main page
- user account / my account

Part 3: managing projects / (band profiles)
- user account / my account
- creating artist page ( add project) / store
- manage projects

Part 4 : independent artist page
- the end result
- can be browsed without logging in

-------

Screens:



- starting / main page



- registered user browsing main page



- artist / project management and creating part

My First Two Weeks

Week 7

Meetings and planning: 5 hours
Kick off event: 2,5 hours
Agile workshop: 3 hours
Research (music sites) and studying: 5 hours

Total: 15,5 hours


Week 8


Meetings and planning: 7 hours
Research: 4 hours

Total 11 hours

First Week and second one

Reza Araghi

In this 2 weeks I got closer to project concept tried to model the system

Thing I have done in this week :

1. Making EER diagram for database - 5 hours
2. Exploring other web sites and try to find features  - 2 hours
3. Finding Variation point of the project in software product line - 3 hours
4. coding in symfony 2, making some sample codes and try to get to the final architecture  - 7 hours

Total hours I spent is 17

First two weeks , Mikko Myllylä

Working hours

weeks 7 and 8
Mikko Myllylä , 81499

Planning & management : 8h
Design : 2h
Studying: 4h
Documents : 4h
Other : 3h (kickstart + blogging)
Art: 14h

Week Total : 35h
Total : 35h

We started the project and have been studying the existing similar web applications , clearing the project main idea and goal and done brainstorming on the different possibilities. We have met two times with the project partner. We have also written the Project Plan for Demola together by using Google docs. Also with Niina and Reza we had a design and brainstorming session of the UI and we came to conclusion that developing a User Interface for this kind of highly customizable application won´t be too easy, at least there is many things to be considered. Our starting point is to create a template of a webstore for independent artists and record labels which can be embedded into different webpages.

As a plus for the other existing music streaming services and webstore solutions I found these two different services : www.hitlantis.com and http://www.klicktrack.com/mdt/ , for comparement.

Also I independently decided to make an oil painting with a thought of project consept art. I used photoshop to edit the painting. The feedback for this picture was mostly concentrating on it´s uniqueness.

Here it is:


- Mikko Myllylä