Andrew Simon
acsimon

GeoEvents Requirements

	  Overview
Automatic parsing and visualization of upcoming local events in the Providence area.


	  Users
Although suggested by Mark Dieterich, target users are anybody living in the Providence area, although project could be expanded to other locales.
Users may or may not have automobile access.

	
	  Features [w/ priorities]
5: Absolutely essential
4: Pretty damn important
3: Definitely useful
2: Better than not having it
1: Forget it, I'm going to the GCB.

	   INTERFACE
5	Implement an interactive map interface to clearly display information
3	Driving directions to any location must be accessible with a single click
3	Further details about an event must be accessible with at most two clicks
2	Record user preferences for learning purposes with no incremental user effort
2	Appropriately handle events which are very close geographically
3	Directions must be displayed graphically as well as textually
3	Directions must include driving time estimates
1	Directions must include walking time estimates [which are not linearly related to driving times, especially for short distances]
2	Must include fields for filtering events by time
2	Must include fields for filtering events by type
3	Must be able to locate a particular event by name, description, or address
4	Allow user to input their address
2	Allow user to input personal preferences
4	Must provide link to original article for verification.
1	Optional email or popup alerts about "very good" events, as defined by user
2	Basic password protection for user logins

	   PARSING & DATA ACQUISITION
5	Scan at least one online news source for local events
5	Must update sufficiently frequently (every 15 minutes should be more than sufficient)
4	Must properly collect a sufficient number of genuine events (let's say 90%) 
4	At least 90% of events reported must be real events
4	All events must have an associated address.
4	At least 95% of addresses must be accurate.


	   LEARNING 
1	Remember user's address
2	Suggest events based on user's past preferences
2	Able to handle logins to save user preferences
	
	   STABILITY / PERFORMANCE
4	Minimum 99% up time
Woof!	Every time it crashes, I will kill a puppy; can you live with the guilt?
4	Maximum 1 second to respond to user queries

	Testing
Confirm that given directions actually work
Confirm that times are reasonable (walking times; presumably we'd hijack the driving times from an available map API)
Confirm that response is timely even with heavy user load
Confirm that automatically-selected events appropriately match user preferences
Compare shown results with contents of online news source parsed
Survey puppy population to count casualties