Project Partner Visit Guidelines
In either week 2 or 3 of the semester, depending on the Project Partner's (PP) convenience, the team will visit the PP's site with a goal of developing an understanding for what the PP's day-to-day activities are like. Students should not be concerned at this point with talking about the details of their project, or with demonstrating what parts of the project already exist; instead, they should aim to learn as much as possible about the needs of the PP or its users.
Students should pay close attention to the following, as applicable:
- Workspaces of the users
- Tools used
- Characteristics of PP's users
- Technical expertise of users or anyone expected to use or maintain a delivered project (as applicable to team's project(s))
- Social context of the PP, including their operating budget, workplace culture and attitudes, religious affiliations, for-profit or non-profit status, ultimate goals of the PP's organization, etc.
The Project Partner visit is intended to make the teams and the project partners familiar with each other to facilitate a better design process. Teams will have an opportunity in week 4 to demonstrate or present their prototypes with their project partners. At that meeting, teams should be able to describe how their prototype(s) address the specific needs of the project partner (or how they don't but will).
EPICS may provide parking passes for project partner to visit campus. It is wise to ask the project partner how they would like to proceed. Some are unfamiliar with navigating Purdue and may not want to spend time locating suitable parking. Others are quite comfortable with Purdue.
Please coordinate with EPICS if your project partner will need a pass.
- Indianapolis - ET 101A
- West Lafayette - ARMS 1200