Part of my capstone idea actually originally came from a non computer based idea which was shown to me while I was playing disc golf. There is a tag system at a course where you buy a custom tag with a number on it and make it visible on your bag. If you see someone with a tag on their bag and they have a higher number than you you can challenge them to play for tags. If you win you get their number and if they win they keep their number with the higher the numbers at the end of the year getting higher pay-offs. This system however is not likely to work well because there is no making sure higher number players bring their tags and there is also no guarantee you will just happen to end up at the course at the same time as a higher tag player after a certain amount of winning.
My fix for that would be to have players with tags give the course their phone numbers or emails and the most likely times they will be able to play. By doing this, tag members would have an opportunity to actually challenge people through simple communication rather than hoping to run into another tag player by chance. There could also be some sort of requirement for every tag player to play a challenge every week or two to keep the tags in rotation.
This lead to me trying to develop an app specific to disc golf players that would allow them to challenge each other and win points based on the skill level of the people they’re playing against. The app itself would let users send out invitations to challenge other disc golfers near them, which will hopefully expand the community and heighten awareness of the sport. However I came to realize that I wanted to use my capstone to highlight my web skills in order to build my portfolio for potential employers. With that being said I still really liked the idea of bringing disc golf to a more social level.
At D.R. Disc Golf in Orrington there are things called pilot numbers that you can get only after recording 20 or more games at the course. The pilot numbers allow you to compete in their weekend tournaments, get discounts on discs, and have your handicap recorded. As of right now there are over 500 pilot numbers out after the course opened 4 years ago. The average disc golfer knows and plays regularly with around 10 people. If we take that information and use it to figure out how many people in this area play disc golf we’re looking at around 2,500 people who play disc golf and probably in-between 1,500 and 2,000 people actively playing. Sometimes people are left having to play by themselves when no one else is available when there are so many other players willing to be challenged. The goal of DGS is that people would be interested in challenging themselves more and meeting new people without having to participate in a formal tournament type of match.
With that being said, there comes the issue of getting the equipment you want without spending a lot of money. Granted disc golf tends to be a tenth of the price of regular golf, however that appeal may be what attracts people to the sport in the first place. DGS offers a craigslist-style trading system allowing players to negotiate trades online or at their local course. Lastly DGS sets out to allow players to know where the courses in their area are. Without extra funds to promote themselves, disc golf courses are often left unnoticed by the community and this site sets out to help players discover all the courses in their area, but also to let them know the ones that would suit their play style the best.
My design standpoint of the website was to keep it very clean and modern looking. I have a style that is kind of bold bright and clean which I think I used effectively to create a good looking and easy to use interface. Although the site is still in the beta stage I have been testing it with other disc golfers, the feed back from whom Ive taken into account and sort of expected. Basically my user testing involved people registering, adding posts, and trying to find things on the website then letting me know what was buggy or not functioning in a well designed way. The feedback was as expected, basically that some of the filtering of posts could be more in depth, images are a little blurry on posts, and single pages need to be better laid out. Positive feedback said that the website was involved and easy to understand and use, however the user search was not working.
These are four different existing apps that all do different things related to disc golf and I want to incorporate some features from each into my website.
This site is basically what I based my course listings on
This so far has been a great resource for helping me get started on web desgin
I will need to buy a subscription to watch these tutorials but in my experience Lynda tutorials have been very good and they have two different tutorials on developing wordpress themes.
