Ranger's Master Builder App

[RandomRanger]

This is a project I'm picking up myself to help make suit making as easy as possible for newcomers. The plan is to build a system that educates the user on all the different aspects of suit making, construction, research, materials, etc. without ever asking them to think so that my grandma could do it (hypothetically). I took on a minor in Technical Communication because it was only 1 more class on top of my User Experience minor and never expecting to use it... but here we go!

Master Builder Outline

docs.google.com

Here are some of the snippets from the original thread this started in:

I remember when I was starting my first suit, finding all the resources to figure it out felt a little convoluted. Yes, there was a tutorial index, which a bunch of helpful links and summaries, but that's not quite the same as a more formal approach. I'm going for a minor in User Experience, and Technical Communication, and so one project I'm looking into is spinning up some guidance software/page that walks someone through the process of building a suit more formally w/ plenty of hand holding, with the hopes that it helps new users not feel overwhelmed. I'm just leaving this note here to remind me what I was talking about when I go to think "what was that thing I wanted to do again"? No plan of action yet, as I've got other projects for the moment. I hope to tackle this some during this summer though.

A rough map of my flow concept can be found here: Master Builder Outline if anyone wants to offer suggestions early on. It may read like a reorganized tutorial page like the one we have, but my thoughts are to have it as more like an app that takes you through in a slide by slide/section by section manner, where the user clicks on images and makes only simple choices. The goal is to reduce the amount of thinking they have to do to as close to zero as possible. That page contains lists, the lists are not all inclusive, it's just fancy filler text. I want to turn this project into a master compilation of the 405ths collective knowledge, and given how wide spanning that can be I have to make sure the solution I use is flexible in content delivery, and staff updateable.

 

[Sean Anwalt]

Apps have been difficult to pull off in the past, I know.

Think what I'm going to do is just sit back and watch for a bit, see what you come up with, then render harsh judgements and comments.

 

[RandomRanger]

Apps have been difficult to pull off in the past, I know.
Think what I'm going to do is just sit back and watch for a bit, see what you come up with, then render harsh judgements and comments.

I think that's the most accurate way to describe this. I see this more as an experiment than the promise of some grand new system.

 

[Sean Anwalt]

That's probably best. A grand new system would be tok much.

If you came up with a special outside system the 405th could reference, that goes through the entire build process, that would be great, and allows you all the freedom to do whatever you want. But to mess with our current standing system, I'm actually quite against. We just had a forum change about the time you came on board, and i dunno if my old brain can take it!

 

[RandomRanger]

That's probably best. A grand new system would be tok much.

If you came up with a special outside system the 405th could reference, that goes through the entire build process, that would be great

This is what I had in mind. I'm not a fan of tearing up the floor boards either, especially if I'm unpaid haha. I've replaced and rebuilt enough systems to know it sucks.

 

[FANGS]

I don't think that this topic actually belongs in the forum area for site support since it isn't specifically about that, but it doesn't really fit well anywhere else either so I'm going to leave it here for now and see how we do.

 

[RandomRanger]

FANGS replied to the thread... uh oh, what'd I do this time.

Yeah, it doesn't necessarily fit neatly into any of our categories. If using this thread triggers some sort of notificaion to staff like "user has posted ___ on site support, please fix ___" and interrupts work flow, I could move it to off-topic or try to update it less frequently.
I've a knack for the niche.

 

[FANGS]

Nope....it doesn't trigger anything but my trying to keep things where they belong.

 

[RandomRanger]

Phauxelate this is the thread I was talking about, feel free to parooze it and see if it's something you'd be interested in building if I designed it.

 

[Phauxelate]

MMmmm. I was thinking about building something along the lines of an app interface to browse the website, and an app notification system instead of using emails

This is more along the lines of a helpful guide, not an app interface for the website

 

[RandomRanger]

This is more along the lines of a helpful guide, not an app interface for the website

Yes

 

[Phauxelate]

Well, that's kind of good news for me, because it means I still have an original idea and am not trying to compete with your pet project