GR1 - Task analysis
User analysis
There is basically just one user class, someone that plays card games. Following are some examples of people that would find MetaDeck useful.
Tim is a college student. He likes to play all sorts of card games. He plays cards with his friends every now and then, but they play different games all the time. Instead of having to use different sites for playing various card games, and having to maintain user accounts at each site and learning different interfaces, he could just use MetaDeck every time.
Jack is an Asian parent. He plays this Asian card game called tractor on weekends with his Asian parent buddies. He recently moved far away and can't play with them live anymore. They can't find any sites that support playing tractor online, but he knows that he can always use MetaDeck.
Ashey is a high school student. She and her friends invented this new card game, and they want to play it online. They don't know how to program, so they can't make their own multiplayer card game client for this new game. Fortunately, they can use MetaDeck to play this game.
Task analysis
Highest Level Goal: Play a card game
Subgoals:
- players have to decide on game ** decide teams?** decide rules (implicit)
- players play** deal cards** view own cards
- move cards into play
- decide on winner and losers
- play again
1) dealing
Goal: distribute x cards to y players
Subtasks:
- split cards into y stacks of x cards
Notes:
- occurs at the beginning of every round
- initiates play
-manual vs. automatic
-possible ways to deal:
-how many cards per player?
-uniform distribution among players?
-drawing(as in tractor) vs. dealing
2) shuffling
Goal: randomize card order
Subtasks:
- perform shuffling action
Notes:
-click a stack and shuffle it automatically
3) communication
Goals: convey information between users
Subtasks:
- type message
- broadcast message to other users
Notes:
- should be concurrent with all other activities
-chatbox
-voice support
4) moving cards into stacks
-drag n drop
-ability to rotate stacks
-flip cards face up/face down
5) playing various games
-trick taking games (hearts/spades/bridge)
-solo games (freecell/solitare)
-doing magic tricks
-physical action based games (ERS, 52 card pickup)
-fast paced games (spoons, kemps)
-flexible games (mao, kings)
