FASTRAC Project

Content Updates on Wireframes

2004-11-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
I've incorporated the content I've received so far into the wireframes. On those pages, I've added a line at the top that says status: received. I've also updated the content development page to show the content received.

So far, all I've done is copy and paste. However, I think much of the content will still need a bit of web editing for wordiness, chunking into headings, and bullets, etc....general web content standards for ease of reading. I will work on this as the content arrives. So, please don't grab any content for the "real" site yet.

See ya later alligators!
T

2004-11-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

I updated the wireframes (finally) to be in synch with the database and info from the content meeting. I added headings for the design standards page. I'm thinking we should maybe make this a combo instruction/design standard reference. Basically, I'm thinking it should contain all information they need to maintain their site. One reference for visual as well as other maintenance info. What do you guys think?

T

2004-11-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I went into the database tables and added in the data types. Also, I made some revisions in the list of fields and deleted a couple of tables that seemed to list possible values as fields.

Please take a look and make further revisions.

Content we need

2004-10-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

Below is a list of the content we need for the 'Our Project' section of the site:

1. List of 12 universities participating in the competition.
2. Team member photos. Please use this form to submit your photos.
3. Brief descriptions of the 4 grant donors: 2-3 sentences each.
4. Satellite testing information, in addition to the current test info we have.
5. Role of team meetings: a description.
6. Conference experiences: info from the participants. Please use this form.
7. Revision of the community outreach text for verb tense and details.

NOTE: the content submission forms are up but they don't work yet. I'll finish working on them on Sunday. Check them out, though!

2004-10-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a link (I think) to my doc with all my contributions...

TammyContentTasks

2004-10-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here are the links to my deliverables.

Wireframes:
Documentation (tech specs) section
Education section

Sections site map

Terms and Labels (Word doc)

-Rachael

2004-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

You might already know about this, but I just discovered the UT Web publishing guidelines.

There's quite a bit of useful info, including sample color palettes that work well with "UT Orange".

2004-10-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

A good idea while we are working on our individual content sections...
As we go (or when we are done), we should reread the user/task matrix and the audience profiles and double-check the scenarios and tasks in them against our sections. (Most all tasks and scenarios should be able to be accomplished somewhere.) I think it wil help us identify gaps and make sure we've included all the good work we've done so far!

T

Site updates

2004-10-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone,

I just got done making some updates to our project site. I updated the navigation to include links to deliverables that we have already completed or ones that we have some content done (even though they are not complete yet). As I was arranging the sitemaps, I noticed that one png file was very wide and required horizontal scrolling. So I went ahead and re-arranged the layout, creating a gif file with my changes. There are no changes to content, just the arrangment. Tammy, would you please double-check because I don't want to screw up what you intended there. The original png files were left untouched in the images folder.

Also, I updated the timeline to reflect our group discussion and listed the content areas we assigned to each of us. Please take a look at the updated timeline and let me know if everything is there.

I think that's all,
Mariela

2004-10-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I updated a couple of things on the proposal (in my intro section and in the roles section). Since Dr. Turnbull noted on our feedback a couple of weeks ago for us to denote times for rotating roles, I put in a table and synced our role rotation with phases of the project. Let me know what you think.

Alex, I also went ahead and put in the technology assessment...simply because I was in the files and it was easy for me to copy and paste while I was there. So, if anyone else wants to make any edits or anything, you can do it in the web site instead on of on the blog.

Side note, I need someone to explain div tags to me. I've never used those and keep getting them (automatically) in places that they don't need to be. I delete them and everything is cool, but tis starting to get annoying :>) I have always used tables to control all layout of my pages, so I need a div lesson at some point :>)

Thanks!
T

Can somebody read it (grammer check) and give me some advise what else to add?

2004-10-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Technology Assessment

Software
Based on the goals and scope of the project, we have decided to use PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) and MySQL as the back-bone of the new FASTRAC website as well as HTML as the front end of the website. Since the new site will serve as a communication channel for the inner members and the public, we need PHP and MySQL to build an interactive website that also has data management capabilities.

Both PHP and MySQL are open source products that are easy to use yet with high portability. PHP, is a server-side open source scripting language designed specifically for the Web. It can be embedded within an HTML page and will be executed each time the page is visited. MySQL is a relational database management system that will enable us to store, search, sort and retrieve data efficiently. It uses SQL (Structured Query Language), the standard database query language. It is also a web-oriented open source product.

Server Platform
The server is currently going through an upgrading phase, so the space for storing the site and files remains to be determined since the server will be used to host several websites. There may be an initial phase where content lives on the system's internal disk. Even during this time, there should be no shortage.

The server currently has dual 2.6GHz Xeon processors with 1GB of memory and a direct connection to the gigabit distribution layer of the network. It is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 3 (Taroon Update 3) and is patched regularly for security. Currently, the active software tree includes:

httpd-2.0.46-40.ent
mysql-3.23.58-1
perl-5.8.0-88.7
php-4.3.2-14.ent
php-mysql-4.3.2-14.ent

Website Development Tools

Macromedia Dreamweaver
HTML

Graphic & Visualization Tools

Adobe Photoshop
Flash
Microsoft Visio
Macromedia Fireworks

File Transfer Tool

additional Keyword list

2004-10-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

Mariela, Thanks for adding these to the list and print them for us.

AFOSR
Announcement
Event
Goal
GPS
Origin
Relative Navigation
Tracking Stations

Alex

2004-10-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I have posted the Audience Profiles and Content Inventory from the cd. I've also posted a "new" deliverable called Audience Prioritization. I think we have a lot of audiences to deal with and it could be a challenge for us. Therefore, I talked to Greg last week and had him categorize into primary and secondar and rank them for us. That should help us make design decisions. Also, his comments heavily colored the audience descriptions and scenarios. I think it would be cool to add a cartoon image of a user for each profile when we get a chance. We could use them in wireframes and storyboards, etc. So, take a look when you have time. And see you at the team meeting today!

T

2004-10-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

I have just uploaded the concept map. I would appreciate any feedback. Please don't hesitate even if you think that I should start from scratch. I ran into a problem with this task: When I include a lot of detail, it gets repetitive and the map does not consist of concepts any more. When I get very abstract, the map becomes a generic system representation that might not be useful to us. Help!

2004-10-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

My draft of the user/task matrix is now online.

Should I go ahead and link it into the navigation system or wait until its finalized?

Can you think of other user groups or information needs that I have left out?

Looking forward to hearing your comments...

2004-09-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I've uploaded the Description portion of the project proposal. Feel free to comment and/or edit. I just want to say that I think the work we've done so far is awesome! I, too, love the scope diagram. I have a couple of questions about whether some of the post operational features that are under Working will be fully-functional or just front-end interfaces, but we can can clear that up the next time we meet. It isn't hugely important right this minute and it would be easier to discuss face to face, I think.

Again, awesome work everyone. I can't wait to get started on the analysis deliverables this week!

Proposal updated

2004-09-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

I just added my sections of the proposal. Please feel free to edit if you see any problems or send your suggestions to me.

Thanks!

Project site updated

2004-09-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

I want to inform everyone that our project site has just been updated to include all the files for deliverables we plan to have. We can just add content to those files as we go along.

Notes: Client Mtg 1

2004-09-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm posting notes from our first client meeting (Tuesday, Sept. 24th) so that we have a record of interaction in our blogger. I'll provide you with my password in case you want to log in and add anything to these notes.
...Mariella, can we post Jeff's word document with his comments to our class web site?

______________________________________________
Fastrac Goals
______________________________________________

Primary: Winning the nanosat competition.
Winning this competition gives the Fastrac team the opportunity for their nanosats to be launched into space. The team believes they are 1 of the top 2-3 teams in the running. They believe their web site will be integral in putting them ahead of the others who either don't have web sites or have very basic web sites. The Fastrac evaluation will be on January 9th. They will have 10 minutes to discuss a lot of things. 2 of those minutes will be used to demo portions of their web site to the judges. In order to give them a competitive advantage, they believe that their site needs to demonstrate the following:

demonstrate Fastrac's community outreach efforts, which is part of the Fastrac mission
demonstrate the automation of many tasks--primarily document management, but also radio operator uploads, groundstation scheduling, and reporting on satellite status

(To this end, I think our main goal is to implement as much of the above as we can in order to help them win.)

Secondary: Easy maintenance of the external and internal web site.
Currently, the external web site does not have changes made b/c of no knowledge about how it was constructed. Uploading documents to internal site is cumbersome b/c of ftp and having to use a manual naming convention to allow for finding documents by type. Naming convention is currently broken or out of date. They would like documentation and instructions and well commented code.

Secondary (Low): Easy transition of int contents to ext site post-operational.
These needs are currently fuzzy. They are not sure if it would be the whole internal site or just some parts, etc. Not a high priority at this point.

______________________________________________
The Web Sites
______________________________________________
(Pre-Operational means before the competition and/or before launching nanosats into space.)

External (pre-operational)
This site has traditional external information such as copy about the Fastrac program, team members, graphic, pictures, etc. This will be where community outreach and some automated tasks goals are met.

Main Goal: To demonstrate the community outreach portions of their mission

Secondary Goal: the front-end representation of automated tasks to be developed in the future (radio operator uploads, satellite status reporting)
Internal (pre-operational)
This site houses private documents that team members share with each other throughout the project. This will be where document management and some other automated tasks goals are met.

Main Goal: quick and easy document management (i.e. the ability to quickly/easily upload info to, locate, and download info from the internal site)

Secondary Goal: the front-end representation of automated tasks to be developed in the future (groundstation scheduling)
Integrated (post-operational)
Much of the internal information may become public post-operational. At this point, community outreach and all automated task goals will be involved.

Main Goal: To get the amateur radio operators to gather and upload data about the Fastrac nanosats in space. The radio operators control radio frequencies used to track data on nanosats; therefore, the fastrac team will need to rely on them for gathering data on their nanosats. Any features that will encourage the radio operators to help will be key.

Possible Main Goal: To get aerospace companies to support the Fastrac team and launch their nanosats into space (only in the event that they do not win the competition)

______________________________________________
Audiences
______________________________________________

External
A. Competition Judges
B. Educators: High, Middle, Elementary
C. Students: High, Middle, Elementary
D. Fastrac Sponsors
E. Amateur Radio Community
Internal
A. Competition Judges
B. Fastrac team members
Integrated
A. Amateur Radio Operators
B. Aerospace companies (if don't win competition)
C. Educators
D. Students

_______________________________________________
Possible Features/Functionality
_______________________________________________

External

Content
A. Lesson plans for educators
B. Sponsor information, links to sponsors

Working Functionality
A. Low.. form for radio operators to pre register to express interest
B. Low..Form for uploading news (monthly pre-op), weekly or daily (post op)

Non-Working Functionality (Front-End Only)
A. Form/instr. to upload text files w/nanosats in space stats
B. Satellite Status Viewing
C. Ultimate vision...live feed to satellite feed (is this related to status?)
D. low..Rankings of radio operators by call id and how much data uploaded
Internal

Content
A. ???

Working Functionality
A. Simple search to locate documents by (1) type, (2) ??
B. Form to upload new documents (ability to select type, etc??)
C. Password login to secure upload and download of docs

Non-Working Functionality (Front-End Only)
A. Groundstation scheduling (to share ground stations w/other univ)

_________________________________________________
Design Requirements
_____________________________________________

UT web page design requirements
Fastrac logo
Department logo
Seem to really hate the massive amounts of orange on current site
Easy to maintain later (need documentation/instructions/good code comments)
Exciting, not boring, hold people's interest

_____________________________________________
Action Items
_____________________________________________

CD of all Fastrac contents for our content inventory by Friday Sept. 24th (Jeff)
Get in touch with Chris Wilkinson to learn more about their server and other technological concerns (Rachel)
In-depth understanding about their mission as it relates to community outreach (review other examples of community outreach--competitor web sites and other web sites in general)
In-depth understanding (requirements gathering) concerning their document management needs
In-depth understanding (requirements gathering) concerning radio operators and their uploads
In-depth understanding (requirements gathering) concerning ground station scheduling
In-depth understanding (requirements gathering) concerning satellite status viewing

2004-09-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Mail forwarding being set up.
It should be working now.

Alex

Map for plotting users

2004-09-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I mentioned that I had seen a php-generated map that can display info submitted by users, something along the lines of having a dot for each radio operator who contributes telemetry. I went back and found the map I was thinking of and you can see a demo here. Take a look! The picture of the world map can be any map we decide to put in the background. We can even modify it to have people plot themselves on a space map. The php script is available for free download, if we get to that feature at some point towards the end of our work.

Today's Meeting

2004-09-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

Hi Alex,
I will be there today. We can all go after class I guess. Lucky that it turned out to be right after class. Jeff sent us draft answers to the questions today to guide the meeting. So, if anyone hasn't checked their mail, we have materials! Yeah!

See ya'll later today..

2004-09-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
Who is going to go to the meeting on Tue?
I think all of us can make it, right?

confirm with me and then I'll send a mail to Jeff to confirm the meeting.

Alex

Greetings!

2004-09-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Hi group! Just wanted to let you know that I have made it here and reviewed the work you have done so far. The Web site looks great and I think the interview questions are useful and thorough.

I'll be at the interview on Tuesday. Please let me know if there is anything I can be working on in the meantime. Hopefully I can make up for my absence as we proceed in compiling our proposal.

Look forward to meeting you all and getting started on the project!

Rachael

2004-09-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Awesome Mariela! I think it looks just great. FYI, I think our times are not set correctly. I changed mine just now to be correct. I don't know if this changes it on everyone's or we have to change individually.

Temporary project site

2004-09-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

Hello, group,
I just got done with some updates to our project site. Since we are still waiting on our ischool account to get activated, I have placed the site temporarily in my Webspace. Please take a look at it at https://webspace.utexas.edu/mah5785/satellite/ The timeline did not come out exactly as we discussed because it looked strange to combine stages of the process in the table format and I had made some mistakes in the week count in my notes. Everything is really flexible, so we can change it as we see fit and learn more about the project from our sponsor.

Client Questions for Mtg. 1

2004-09-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Hi Alex and Mariela. Based on our group meeting today, these are the questions that we want to ask Jim during our first meeting. I've added a few more that I thought of while transcribing these. We are posting our questions on our blogger so that we can all review/modify them. Afterwards, Alex will copy and paste them into an email and send to Jim in order to help Jim prepare for our meeting. See you guys next week!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your Organization

Tell us about your organization, its inception, purpose, goals.
Tell us about the people involved in your organization.

Your Current Site

Who created the current site? How old is it? Who provided the content?
What do you like about the current site?
What do you dislike about the current site?
Why are you having the current site redesigned?
Do you know anything about the traffic to your current site (who, how many, how often, etc.)? How do you currently drive people to the site? Will these methods change with the new site?

Audience/Goals

Who is the intended audience for the site? In other words, who are you trying to reach with your content? Is this audience different from your current audience in any way?
What is the purpose for you site? What goals are you trying to achieve?
What is your vision or expectations for the new site?
What would you like to achieve with the redesign that the current site is not achieving?
Upon site completion, what conditions must be present for this project to be considered a success by your organization?

Stakeholders

Who are the stakeholders for this site redesign? In other words, list anyone that will be involved with this project in any way. For example, who is commissioning the redesign? Who will be providing content (text, graphics, video, etc.)? Who will be involved in the approval process (at any stage)? Which of these people need to be included in reviews throughout the process?

New Site Content/Design

Who will be providing content to us during this redesign? What type of content will they be providing? Does all of the content currently exist, or does some of it need to be created?
Do you have any specific design requirements for the new site? In other words, are there any items that you will expect and/or must see included in the new design? For example, do you need particular logos, etc.?
Are you expecting changes to your current site design or a complete redesign?

2004-09-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

yea.....good job, Tammy.

I already send Jeff a e-mail asking when he can meet with us.
Hasn't got any reply though.

as to our group account....it is still in process.
Shane(system administrator) told me it may take another couple of days.

Alex

2004-09-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. We have a blog to share our comments about our project. This way we don't have to keep up with lots of emails flying around and have a history of our project communication. Let me know if there are any settings that you would like me to change. I'm looking forward to working with all of you!