by Adnaan Wasey
Originally published on the POV Blog
Somewhat fresh off their own Hackathon, POV’s Adnaan Wasey offers filmmakers, developers, and designers some of the advice POV was given for reinventing the documentary for web.
Before the POV Hackathon got underway, mentors and veteran engineers shared with the teams some advice born of experience. Here’s what they were told…
Understand why there are barriers to communication between filmmakers and developers. Each group’s ambitions inherently put them at odds. While filmmakers and creators are thinking about how they can bring novelty and uniqueness to their content, developers are thinking about rule sets and doing all they can to limit exceptions. Each group must understand that these contrasting philosophies could be at the root of a conflict.
Aim for a “minimum viable product.”Teams should set goals around the absolute minimum set of features that serves to show off their intents. The goals must be achievable in a short time frame because without a working prototype it will be difficult to learn how the product will actually be used.
Never forget your audience. How will users discover the product you are making? As one mentor noted, “Serendipity is not a use case,” meaning users need to be able to intuit how to interact with the product (once they’ve found it). Continue reading
