We are approaching the end of the semester and also, the end of our product developing process and it's time to show our product to the public. Although getting the demo to work properly to show case our product is not something that is challenging for us, especially after all we have done, we still have to consider carefully about this. The following is the issue that I found we faced while preparing for this demos.
The first conflict we had is about whether we should use video to demonstrate our product or not. I myself always think that a good combination of these two methods is the best way to demonstrate a software project: the videos to show something cool that visually impress the audience and the live presentation to communicate with them closely to help them get used to the product. However, due to the scope of our project, which is only V0.2 of a commercial program to public to users, I think the live demo is the best for us. Through the live demo, we can keep contact with the audience. Demonstrating our product lively can also show the audience how easy and user-friendly our program is, to ensure with them that they will not have to deal with lousy troubles, like how to add such tasks, how to delete, etc. Of course, the live demo has some risks, we may encounter some unexpected problems such as laptop or projector stop working unexpectedly, but for me, this is the most flexible and most suitable for our product demo.
Once again, I want to emphasize that this demo is the first introduction to impress the audience, so we need to consider it carefully and make it the best the can do. Making this to be true is not challenging for us after the great jobs we have done. All we need to do is a bit more effort to make the presentation runs well. This is not hard at all and we can do it successfully.
As you have pointed out, this demo needs to be effective as first impression is always the best impression. Getting our product to work for the demo is not a big issue as we have been working hard continuously for the past few weeks, in lieu of the final submission, but becoming complacent at this stage is dangerous. We need to ensure that our software’s defenses are strong, given the variety of commands we are supporting. I also totally agree with you that a live presentation is more effective than a video, even though a live demo has some inherent risks.
ReplyDeleteYes Truong, I agree with you that a live demo would be a better choice here. For the fact that our program requires a lot of human interaction, the audience would want to see something 'real'. I think the main point of a software demo is just advertising, that there is a great product out there called "PlanIt". It is a probably a formal way of conducting a 'salesman' speech, one that will lead people to start using our program after awhile. But at the same time I think we got to recognise one other good point about having a video, beside the point you made, is actually it can be used as a backup if we were to suddenly face any technical difficulties. When technical difficulties happened, it is probably not wise of us to start debugging the program on the spot. We can use this situation, make a joke out of it, use the video and carry on with our presentation. By doing this the audience would still be able to see how the program works and would probably be interested in it at the end of the day. With all that being said, I agree that a live demo is a better option here.
ReplyDeleteShawn Teo Chee Yong
Yes, I agree with you. At first I believe video is better for communication, but finally, I find the benefits of live demo. It is much more interactive and attractive if we run our software lively. Moreover, I do believe it is easier for us to do that since we can control the pace by live demo.
ReplyDeleteJust as you mentioned, it is better to use video if our software has a good visual effects. However, our Planit has only the command line interface. It is quite boring if we just play a video to show the commands. In contrast, to demo lively is a better choice. We can show them the exciting features and even ask them to have a try. It will be far more interesting.