Challenge Summary
We are preparing to build a new interface for TopCoder Studio member profiles in order to make them much more informative and useful than they have been in the past. We're turning to you, the Studio membership, for help in planning this exciting new project. What do you want to see in your profile and those of other members? How can your profile enable you to display your creative identity, impress potential customers, and work more efficiently?
This is your opportunity to shape the future of Studio. Just tell us in words how member profiles can be made useful for you, for customers, and for the whole Studio community. What features have you been dreaming about? Tell us everything and anything you'd like to see! This is not only a chance to win cash prizes, but to see your ideas come to life in the new and improved Studio.
Prizes
The top five submissions will be awarded $750, $350, $250, $150, and $100 respectively. We will also award $100 each for any additional submissions we may decide to purchase.
Requirements
The new Studio platform will offer two views of each member profile. The public view will display information that is visible to all Studio members and customers. The private view will present tools and information that are only accessible by the profile owner, similarly to the My TopCoder area on the main TopCoder site. We want you to propose features for both views.
In regard to the public view, there have been many discussions in old forum threads about how Studio profiles should capture the performance of each member. We have seen various proposals for reliability ratings and numerical measures of success. You are free to revisit these ideas, but you should absolutely not feel confined by them, nor should you be bound by past assumptions about how the Studio process works. For example, the registration procedure for contests and the type of documentation that is available prior to registering are subject to change. Studio is an evolving platform that can accommodate new ways of doing things.
Suggestions in years past have included: incorporating self-edited portfolios into member profiles; allowing members to comment on one another's work through feedback walls; providing a space where customers and staff members can give special recognition for exceptional efforts; granting achievement points for accomplishments beyond contest placement, such as an impressive Studio debut, a high number of passing submissions, and participation in Bug Races and other activities. If you agree with any of these, set out in detail how you think they should work. Then look beyond them to think of what else could and should be done.
As for the private view, consider how Studio member profiles can offer all of the functionality that is currently offered on the main TopCoder site, and more. This includes things like payment history and complete records of past contest participation. We want Studio members to be able to access their information and get their work done without having to leave the Studio website. Again, look beyond the existing feature set. What other personal tools can we offer to make your life easier?
Guidelines
When you think about how member profiles could reflect Studio performance, you should allow for creative freedom and the subjectivity of client feedback. We do want to compile statistics that will help you measure yourself against others, but we recognize that Studio members are creative people who often take risks in their work. We have no intention of trying to sum up a Studio member's performance with a single number as in the algorithm and software tracks. Instead, try to think of numerical measurements that will let us group competitors into ranges of achievement.
Another factor to take into account is that there are different disciplines within Studio, varying from graphic design through wireframing to idea generation, and that many members choose to specialize in some areas rather than others. We want member profiles to give all types of competitors a chance to shine.
We're especially interested in seeing performance measures that lend themselves to visual representation, such as colorful charts and badges. You may present a rough sketch of an idea if you think it would help to clarify it, but this is by no means an art contest. This is an idea contest, so we want to see good ideas above all.
Organizing Your Submission
Your submission should be primarily or entirely textual, containing a detailed description of your ideas for the public view and private view of member profiles. Separate your ideas into two sections, one for each view. If you are making only one submission, you may focus on just one view.
Within each section, please format your ideas so that they are easy to read, using a consistent structure such as bullet points or subtitles for each major idea. For example, you might have a separate heading for achievement badges, performance numbers, design portfolio, and so on. The submission should propose a complete and cohesive strategy for member profiles, with the ideas in each section fitting together well.
Although we allow up to five submissions, you should only make multiple submissions if each one is comprehensive and substantially different from your others. Within these constraints, you are free to describe any number of alternative approaches and extra features. In fact, we encourage you to do so. You can't have too many ideas!
Target Audience
The public view of member profiles will be visible to the entire Studio community. We want to build something that will be informative, appealing, and useful to all members and prospective customers of Studio.
The private view will display personal tools and information to an audience of one, namely the profile owner.
Judging Criteria
We will take into account all of the considerations above to choose the ideas that we are most interested in implementing now and in the future. We are looking for creative and unconventional ideas that we can actually implement. The more detail you provide about how each idea would work, the better. For example, if you're proposing a statistical measure of performance, what is the formula? If you want to display badges, what achievements would they be awarded for?
Submission Files
Write your ideas in whatever widely available file format allows you to express yourself most clearly. Plain text, OpenOffice, Word, PDF, JPEG, PNG, and HTML are all acceptable, as are any other formats we may approve in the contest forum. Video and audio files are not permitted. In general you should pay attention to the forum for any additional clarifications or requirements we may issue, and of course we encourage you to ask for guidance on any questions you may have.
To complete your submission, upload the following materials.
Submission: A zip archive containing the file or files in which you propose your ideas.
Source: The same as your submission, with the addition of source files if applicable.
Preview: A 1024x1024 representative screenshot of your work in JPEG or PNG format.
Please read the challenge specification carefully and watch the forums for any questions or feedback concerning this challenge. It is important that you monitor any updates provided by the client or Studio Admins in the forums. Please post any questions you might have for the client in the forums.