Abhik Pramanik CS 160 Section 3Edward ChuFrank SiaoDavid TongProject Proposal: E-LeaguePROBLEM:Consider the task of organizing a weekend game of football. A person would have to find twenty-two players. All players would have to be in close proximity of each other, available on the chosendate, and fill certain positions such as quarterback, lineman, and receiver. This in itself is a toughproblem within a group of acquaintances. If a person doesn’t know twenty-two people eligible toplay, another layer of complexity is added: a person would have to find people (strangers ifdesperate enough) interested in playing. The problem complexity doesn’t end here. When twenty-two people are involved, organizing who is bringing the needed equipment and finding centralizedlocations (plural because often times these locations are taken by other groups) to play is quitechallenging. This problem becomes multiplied when considering creating tournaments and leaguesthat involve more than twenty-two players. Finally, when generalizing this to any multiplayer sportwhile involving people around the world, we have a problem that begs an integrated web solution.TASK:Organize a competitive or friendly multiplayer sport game/tournament/league:1. Find and filter eligible players that fill up a user-defined roster2. Determine which players are bringing user-defined equipment3. Set a centralized location and alternative locations to play4. Determine dates that allow the previous three tasks to be fulfilledEXISITING SOLUTIONS:There are currently two existing solutions that attempt to solve this problem:Sports leaguesYouth leagues such as Pop Warner and AYSO soccer have brought organized sports to children fordecades. However, these leagues fail in completely solving the problem in that they have an agelimit, do not let individuals limit the scope of games and tournaments ( a group of friends cannotexclusively play with themselves ), and dates are not flexible. There are also professional leaguesthat provide organized sports to older generations that not only suffer from the last two problems ofAbhik Pramanik CS 160 Section 3Edward ChuFrank SiaoDavid Tongyouth leagues but have a level of competition that some individuals would rather do without ( theyoften want friendly games ). Group SpacesGroup spaces such as Yahoo! Groups provide a way for all tasks to be accomplished. However,the interface to do this is tedious as it strives for abstraction so that it can be applied to a multitudeof group tasks not just organizing sports. For example, it is tough to organize an event with itsinterface. It does not provide a template that consists of the fields for the organizer to inputinformation such as location, time, and roster. What it provides is simply a table system that allowsthe organizer to define these fields and fill in values for these fields. We think that this function canbe improved by having the interface directed toward organizing a multiplayer game. Moreover, itdoes not have any infrastructure for special events such as leagues and tournaments. Being ableto visually modify and display the brackets and evolution of the tournament would be very helpful.Finding players is the biggest challenge in organizing a sporting event, and group spaces have avery weak profile system to allow organizers to find strangers to play.SOLUTION:Our solution will solve all the tasks laid out.PLATFORM The platform will be web-based.INTERACTION STYLE The interaction style of a player will be similar to that of Facebook. A player creates a profile thatdescribes his/ her friends and sporting interests. The player will get notifications of invitations togames/ tournaments/ leagues. The interaction style regarding organizing a game/ tournament/league will be similar to that of Yahoo! Groups in that space will be created that allows theorganizer to tweak and assign roles to every aspect of the sporting event and invite other players tojoin via the profile system.BACKENDThe backend will be a database that communicates with the web-based application and feedsrelevant data to the user interface to display when needed. For instance, when the organizerAbhik Pramanik CS 160 Section 3Edward ChuFrank SiaoDavid Tonginvites players he/ she will want to get a list of players and filter them according to his/ her desires.The database will extract all player profiles and run algorithms to provide the UI with only profilesthat pass the filters. NOVEL FEATURESAllows a person to create varying levels of organized sporting events from simple pickup games toleagues.1. Find and filter eligible players that fill up an user-defined rosterAllows an organizer to limit who can play to his/ her group of friends or to his/ her friend’s friends, etc via the profile system.Allows an organizer to confidently add strangers via the profile systemProvide a roster of positions that can be scaled to account for number of players2. Determine which players are bringing user-defined equipmentProvides forms that players can sign up for designated responsibilities3. Set a centralized location and alternative locations to playAllows an organizer to find a centralized location via a map system similar to Google Maps that automatically finds centralized locations.4. Determine dates that allow the previous three tasks to be fulfilledUses the database and algorithms to find optimum dates using player, location and equipment availability.The interface is tailored to creating sporting events and the organizer will not have to create thespace from an abstract group template. To provide flexibility the organizer will still have the ability tocustomize the interface to his/her needs.DEMOGRAPHIC:Our target audience consists of those who enjoy sports and other group gaming activities. Typicalusers consist mostly of males between the ages of 18 to 50 years of age who enjoy an activelifestyle. This demographic can be further categorized into different personas that represent aAbhik Pramanik CS 160 Section 3Edward ChuFrank SiaoDavid Tongsegment of the market. The first persona is the older working male who slaves away at his desk 50hours a week and does not have time or opportunity to play sports. Instead he becomes more of aspectator as he spends more time watching sports than playing it. Football Sunday becomes aweekly ritual. Our interface will provide him with a venue to become active and participate in localgames based on his schedule. Another persona is the young
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