Welcome to the documentation pages of the Rate-A-Talk of openCX!
You can find here detailed about Rate-A-Talk, hereby mentioned as module, from a high-level vision to low-level implementation decisions, a kind of Software Development Report , organized by discipline (as of RUP):
- Business modeling
- Requirements
- Architecture and Design
- Implementation
- Test
- Configuration and change management
- Project management
So far, contributions are exclusively made by the initial team, but we hope to open them to the community, in all areas and topics: requirements, technologies, development, experimentation, testing, etc.
Please contact us!
Thank you!
People use Rate-A-Talk app to share and fetch the most popular talks.
Do you ever get overwhelmed by the quantity of talks and how scattered they are through social media?
Rate-A-Talk aims to make your life simpler and provide a platform where you can discover the best talks suited for you! In the app, you can find all kinds of talks, from Machine Learning to Perfomative Arts. But what sets us apart from the competition is the ability to rank the talks and their speakers in a colaborative way! Thus, you can find the best speakers to listen from.
So, what are you waiting for? Sign up today!
- Actor: Attendee
- Description: Allows the user to search for a talk post. The user can search by name, location, or even date. The search redirects the user to the post of the talk
- Preconditions and Postconditions: The user may want to learn more about a talk, like the date and location. After the search, he/she will know everything about it.
- Normal Flow:
- User: Clicks in the search bar.
- System: Opens the search submenu and presents the last searches from the user.
- User: Types and sends the name of the talk
- System: Searches in the database for the talk, and returns the results.
- Alternative Flows and Exceptions:
- User: Clicks in the search bar.
- System: Opens the search submenu and presents the last searches from the user.
- User: Clicks on one of the suggestions.
- System: Searches in the database for the talk, and returns the results.
- Actor: Attendee
- Description: Allows the user to rate a talk that he/she attended. After the talk, the attendee will be able to rate from 1 star (very bad), to a maximum of 5 start (excellent).
- Preconditions and Postconditions: The user wants to rate a speaker. After rating, the app processes the rating and displays the new speaker rating.
- Normal Flow:
- User: After the talk, clicks on the link given by
- System: Opens the search submenu and presents the last searches from the user.
- User: Types and sends the name of the talk
- System: Searches in the database for the talk, and returns the results.
- Alternative Flows and Exceptions:
- User: Clicks in the search bar.
- System: Opens the search submenu and presents the last searches from the user.
- User: Clicks on one of the suggestions.
- System: Searches in the database for the talk, and returns the results.
- Actor: Speaker
- Description: Allows a speaker to create a talk. The speaker introduces information about the talk, like the date, place, duration and other speakers. When finished, the post of the talk will be accessible to all other users.
- Preconditions and Postconditions: The speaker wants to create a talk to let other users know about it
- Normal Flow:
- User: Click on create post button
- System: Directs the user to the Create Conference Page
- User: Adds the information needed and clicks on create talk
- System: Adds the talk to the database. Redirects the user to a Done it! page
- Alternative Flows and Exceptions:
- User: Click on create post button
- System: Directs the user to the Create Conference Page
- User: Adds the information needed and clicks on create talk
- System: Verifies that a talk with the same Title, Date and Place exists. Throws an error
As a user I want to be able to rate a talk so that other users can evaluate the talk's quality
Scenario: Rate a talk.
Given The post of a talk that I have attended
When I tap "Rate talk"
And I insert a rate
And I tap "OK",
Then the talk's post appears- Value: Must have
- Effort: XL
As a user I want to be able to leave a comment about the talk so that I can give feedback to the speakers and organizers
Scenario: Leave a comment about a talk
Given A talk's post that I have attended and rated
When I tap "Leave a comment"
And I tap "Comment"
And I write "Hey that was great!"
And I tap "Leave Comment"
And I tap "See all comments"
Then my comment appears- Value: Must have
- Effort: XL
As a user I want to be able to see the current rating of a talk so that I can make the decision if I want to attend it
Scenario: See rating of a talk
Given A talk's post that is presented in the feed
When I am in the talk's post
Then the current rating appears- Value: Must have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to edit the given rating to a talk so that I can correct possibles errors I made in the previous rating
Scenario: Edit rating of a talk
Given A post of a talk that I have rated
When I tap "Rate talk"
And I insert a rate
And I tap "OK",
Then the talk's post appears- Value: Must have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to edit my talks post so that it can reflect the most current and up to date information about my talk
Scenario: Edit talk's post
Given A talk's post that was created by me
When I tap "Edit post"
And I write "Windows" in "Title"
And I tap "Submit"
Then I am in feed screen- Value: Could have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to edit my profile so that I can update my current information or correct errors in it
Scenario: Edit the user profile
Given My profile screen
When I tap "Edit Profile" button
And I write "pickipicki" in "New Name"
And I tap "Submit"
Then "pickipicki" appears- Value: Could have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to insert a query in the search bar, get matching results and interact with them so that I can look up talks that I might be interested in
Scenario: Search for a talk with a query
Given The home screen
When I tap "Search Bar"
And I write "Por que laranjas" in "Search Bar"
And tap the "Search" icon
Then "Por que laranjas são gostosas?" appears- Value: Must have
- Effort: XL
As a user I want to be able to create a post for a talk so that other users can see the post and attend the talk
Scenario: A user wants to create a post
Given The bottom navigation bar
When I tap "Create post"
And I fill the necessary info to create a post
Then the talk's post is created- Value: Must have
- Effort: L
As a user I want to be able to interact with the feed results (pick one and go to the respective page) so that I can obtain more information about the talk I am interested in
Scenario: Interacting with feed
Given The feed screen
When I tap a post talk
Then I'm taken to the talk's post- Value: Must have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to check my profile so that I can see my current information
Scenario: The user wants to check his information
Given The home screen
When I tap "Profile"
Then My profile is presented- Value: Cool to have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to see the comments left about a talk so that I can better comprehend its quality
Scenario: The user wants to check out the comments
Given The post talk screen
When I tap "See all comments"
Then The list of comments appears- Value: Cool to have
- Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to see all the talks in the app so that I can find one that satisfies me
Scenario: The user wants the see all talks
Given The home screen
When I tap "See all"
Then A list with all the talks appearsValue: Cool to have
Effort: M
As a user I want to be able to see all the posts I created so that I can remember which talks I introduced to the app
Scenario: A user wants to see the posts he created
Given The Profile screen
When I tap "posts"
Then a list of talks appearsValue: Cool to have
Effort: M
In this section we'll describe the logical and physical architectures of our project.
In order to provide long-term maintenance of the code and allow easy understanding about it, our project was diveded in six sections:
auth: Tasks resposible for the user athentication in the app. The login and signup backend are done by this module.database: Communication between the firestore database and some models of the app, so as the information from the cloud can be retrieved and also uploaded.model: Models for each structure of database.screens: Module responsible for drawing the app and allows the iteration user/program.services: Module that estabilish the communications between the app and FireStorage services. The main goal for this service is to upload and download stored images.widgets: Module with useful widgets created by our team. These widgets were packet so as to be used in scale and mantain the code structure.
In our app's physical architecture only 2 entities are featured: the Firebase server where the database with all the information required by the client; and the app itself, which the user interacts with.
Regarding technologies, we used Flutter (with the Dart programming language) for the frontend and Firebase for the backend because of how much they streamline the development process.
The following user stories were implemented:
-
As a user I want to be able to rate a talk so that other users can use my rating to decide if they want to attend it in the future
- Implementation: in a talk's page there's a button that takes the user to a page where they can rate the talk
-
As a user I want to be able to leave a comment about the talk so that I can give feedback to the speakers and organizers
- Implementation: in a talk's page there's a button that takes the user to a page where they can leave a comment
-
As a user I want to be able to see the current rating of a talk so that I can make the decision if I want to attend it
- Implementation: in a talk's page there's a field showing the average rating
-
As a user I want to be able to edit the given rating to a talk so that I can correct possibles errors I made in the previous rating
- Implementation: when a user leaves a rating by performing the steps mentioned in the the first story, it overrided any previously given rating to that talk
-
As a user I want to be able to edit my talks post so that it can reflect the most current and up to date information about my talk
- Implementation: in the page of a talk submitted by the user which is currently logged in there is a button which takes the user to a page where they can edit the talk's information
-
As a user I want to be able to edit my profile so that I can update my current information or correct errors in it
- Implementation: in a user's profile screen there is a button that takes them to a page where they can edit their info
-
As a user I want to be able to insert a query in the search bar, get matching results and interact with them so that I can look up talks that I might be interested in
- Implementation: the query inserted by the user in the search bar is compared with the tags, description and title of the talks in the database in order to filter the results
-
As a user I want to be able to create a post for a talk so that other users can see the post and attend the talk
- Implementation: the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen has a button which, when tapped, takes the user to a screen where they can input information about a new talk and submit it
-
As a user I want to be able to interact with the feed results (pick one and go to the respective page) so that I can obtain more information about the talk I am interested in
- Implementation: the talks shown on the feed detect when they're tapped and this event triggers a transition to the screen which shows information about the selected talk
-
- Implementation: the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen has a button which, when tapped, takes the user to a screen where their information is shown
-
As a user I want to be able to see the comments left about a talk so that I can better comprehend its quality
- Implementation: in a talk's post there is a button which takes the user to a screen where the comments are shown
-
As a user I want to be able to see all the talks in the app so that I can find one that satisfies me
- Implementation: in the feed there's a button which, when tapped, takes the user to a screen where all the talks are shown
-
As a user I want to be able to see all the posts I created so that I can remember which talks I introduced to the app
- Implementation: in a user's profile there is a button which, when tapped, takes the user to a screen where all the talks submitted by them are shown
The design of our app is straightforward. By looking at the code it's easy to understand its structure and how it was implemented.
However, some parts of the backend will be explained, since it can be a little hard to understand the overview behind it.
In general, the backend was responsible for the communication between the application and the database. Forms and display of stored information are the main operations executed for the backend.
The more complicated feature to be approached here is the algorithm for a recommendation.
- First things first, a talk created by a user can't be recommended to its own creator.
- To a conference be shown it can't have already happened.
- The minimum rate of a conference in the recommended section is 4.
- If the user's rating to a conference with a certain tag is >=4 in at least one conference with this tag, then it will be considered a favorite.
To test the code and the functionalities, we used Mockito and Flutter_Gherkin.
Only some features were tested. The selected ones are:
In this test, we used Mockito and the default tools flutter has for tests. The tests aim the consistency of the recommended conferences algorithm and also verify the existence of some specific elements in the Login screen.
In this test, Flutter Gherkin was used as the testing tool. This tool requires the definition of several steps in order to translate from Gherkin to Flutter.
This test verifies if the user can edit his name.
In this project, every time a group member developed a feature, he would first create a branch dedicated to it. He would only develop the feature inside this branch, alone or with another member of the group. When the feature was done and tested, the developer creates a pull request. This pull request needs to be approved by a minimum of two group members (excluding the developer).
This management allows a better work flow for every collaborator and diminishes the total number of errors related to collaborating workspaces.
In order to facilitate team communication and organization, GitHub Projects was used to do the Project Management of this project.
The project has 5 columns: Backlog, To Do, In Progress, Done and User Stories. These columns are quite self-explanatory. It is important to note that, at the end of any iteration, the tasks that weren't finished are passed to the next one, so that the In Progress column appears empty at the end of every iteration.