Group C

Group Outline

10.10.09

Currently, people interested in maintaining a sustainable lifestyle do not have a centralized repository of local products or services. Nor do they have a network to share their findings on sustainable living.  We aim address this issue by creating an iPhone application or interface which allows users to find local products or services, rate, and share them.  This application called “Green by Me” will include GPS tracking; personal profiles; ratings and reviews of retails stores, services, and restaurants; consumption aggregation; monitoring of carbon footprint; and broadcasting to other established social networks.



Audience Analysis – Lenora

The targeted audience for this application includes socially active urban and metropolitan dwellers who are college-educated, 21-40 years olds and interested in sustainability. This audience owns an iPhone and is familiar with a variety of digital information and communication technologies. People in this demographic who were born between 1965 and 1976 are categorized as Generation X while those born between 1977 and 1998 are known as Generation Y, Echo Boomers or Millennials. Although there are social, political and economic similarities and differences between these two groups they are not significant enough to cause major issues with the overall design of the device.

Interface Analysis - Melissa

We will review existing iPhone applications and their interfaces, with the intention of determining which designs have been successful for users thus far. This research will include a focus on: social media, GPS integration, map display, online markets, metropolitan areas and profile pages. iPhone usability studies will also be taken into consideration, with particular attention paid to results pertaining to 21-40 year old users.

Sustainability Analysis - Michelle
In order for our application to successfully meet the needs our audience, we will need to be aware of the current and most popular trends in sustainable living.  This includes researching what the basics of sustainable lifestyle are, what the most adopted sustainable living concepts are, and how consumers impact sustainability.


Technical Analysis- Micah
Our application will utilize established social networks and their open web services to create functionality that is particular to our user demographic. The application will be a web driven solution, utilizing a Ruby on Rails framework; the solution should be accessible by any web-enabled device in the form factor that is most relevant to that device. We will commit significant research to understanding collective intelligence algorithms and reputation management scoring systems to be able to deliver some of the core functionality we are looking to reach in this application.