Design ideas for my personal project

1. LincolnDouglasDebate.com

2. Main Features
1. Competitions
– Rounds (Ranked & Unranked)
– Tournaments
2. Forums
3. Evidence Exchange
4. Social Network

3. Landing Page
• Clarify: what privileges signing up entails. What being a member
does for you. What you can do freely.

4. Navbar
My Messages (#)
Edit Profile
Sign Out

5. Forums

6. Forums
AJAX updating of the most recently
updated threads in the forum, and
by how many
seconds/hours/days/weks ago.
Sorted by most recently changed.
Ability to search thread.
Each thread is numbered,
for easy reference later.
AJAX updating of current
thread’s most recent
comments. New responses
appear automatically without
page refresh.

7. Forums
Minimize # clicks to content.
Fixed, scrollable Topics Sidebar.
Corner Icons: Add Topic
Picture + Name icons for threads.
Ability to vote up (favorite) comments,
and see who else voted it up.
Highly voted comments get a special
highlight (yellow, etc.)
Chat dialog shaped boxes (caret to
user’s thumbnail)
Don’t forget ability to search thread
JIT loading: infinite scroll
Instead of “Topics”, is Threads. the Topic Title. Lists Topics Threads under Topic.
Back arrow icon adjacent to Topic Title goes back to list of all Topics. Similar Menu,
but e.g. is in bold.

8. Forum Dynamics
• No indented reply trees. All conversations are assumed to be in sequence.
• Get notified when mentioned (@) and when following thread
• Ability to follow a thread by clicking “Follow Thread” -> receive all notifications on it.
• Automatically follows if you comment on it or created it
• Ability to turn Following off in the thread settings / in notification windows of it.
• link: “Unfollow” / “Unfollow this thread”
• Mentions are to be via @username
• AJAX updating of current thread’s most recent comments. New topics appear at the top of the list,
and new replies appear at the bottom (if bottom viewable), without page refresh.
• if bottom unviewable, shows “15 new replies. Click to show.” at top, instead (goes to bottom).
• Fixed-to-Bottom Reply Window, to allow same-window scroll-read of discussion and writing of reply.
• Ability to branch tangents to prevent current topic from being derailed:
• Can Reply as new Subtopic
• Prompts a Subtopic Title field
• creates a new topic, tagged as a subtopic. Beginning of thread: “This topic is a subtopic
of #{parent thread title}”
• First post of subtopic will appear in parent topic, labeled as “Joe Smith created a new
subtopic, #{subtopic.title}. He posted: #{subtopic.posts.first.content}”
• Flag as Spam, Flag as Abuse/Inappropriate
• Links are automatically hyperlinked, detected, and then given a display of descriptive info (ala FB) at
the bottom. First link only.

9. Exploring Forums
Topics Threads
Ala a file browser.
One-page view of
topics and thread
titles.
Ability to add new
topics and threads.
Unclicked
Topic/Thread >>
Explore: Trending
Posts, etc.

10. Forum Contributions
• Vote Ups (only) on Topics & Answers
• No mention of # views. Just # comments.

11. Forum Contributions
• Include guidelines that slide up upon
clicking inside reply box, of what to
encourage and discourage in post
contributions.
• Include a short intro to Markup, what
certain Markups will be formatted as,
and how to format.
• Include custom formatting for:
• cards (warrants): be able to box
& indent evidence.
• arguments for/against: be able to
put a green/red shadow for
for/against arguments.
• for: &&&…&&&
• against: !!!...!!
• cards: $$$...$$$
• HTML escape (safe) out the output.
• Live-preview the output before clicking
Reply.

12. Evidence Exchange

13. Evidence Exchange
Incentives & Standards
• Incentives for people to contribute
– Gain progress: get award badges & points
– Gain recognition: can show up in Trending, Highly Rated, etc.
– Gain social approval: Others can Like it / Favorite it
• Standardized citations
– For online sources:
• Reference EasyBib.com for quick citation generation for URLs. Allow user to copy +
paste MLA citations in a single line field for websites.
– Live-validate the MLA format via Javascript.
– Final format will have necessary indents in mind.
– For non-online sources (books, journal articles, etc.):
• Have standard citation fields: contributors, title, date, URL (opt.), etc.
• Citation automatically gets MLA-styled (via easybib API)
• Standardized format
– Simple format. Can merely emphasize certain parts of the text (via {{…}} )
– Max char. limit (encourage to separate into separate cards if very long).
• Quality Check
– Once submitted, user is shown a pop-up confirmation with preview of the card +
highlighting on. Can choose to edit it to refine it.

14. Evidence Exchange
Format & Organization
• Similar to this, but better.
• Short summary up top. Max 140 Characters.
• Citation follows
• Card follows.
• URL follows. Expands to be more descriptive (ala FB)
• Can favorite a card.
• Allow favorite cards to be exportable to PDF.
• User can toggle on/off the contributor’s highlighting of the card by clicking on “Show
Highlights”. Highlights are OFF by default.
• done via sub(“{{”,‟<span class=“highlight”>‟) && sub(“}}”,”</span>”), HTML escaping,
and toggle fading on $(„.highlight‟)

15. Evidence Exchange
Navigation
• 3-column format
• Search bar.
• Allow for search-and-
highlight.
• Allow hashtags

16. Evidence Exchange
Discussion
• Allow comment threads
• Contribution Time Stamp
• Comments get visibility
via Trending, News Feed
(of user‟s following)

17. Evidence Exchange
Contribution
• Be easy to contribute
• Corner icon at all times
• Releases into a pop-up

18. Badges
• See what badges you’ve collected and badges
you’ve yet to collect.
• Leaderboards: Name, Points, Rank

19. Flow Paper

20. Flow Paper

21. Flow Paper
• Allow Excel/CSV import of flows
(Roo Gem)

22. Profiles

23. Profiles
For answers, comments, and questions,
categorize as such.
A Comprehensive list of Badges after Activity,
should display time stamp and description (no
tooltip).
Recent Badges use a tooltip.

24. Tournament
Admin

25. Tournament Admin
Users
• Tournament Owner is the one who creates the tournament
• Owner can add other users as Admin, who have full privileges over
tournament editing.
• Admin:
– Entry & Registration
– Division & Round Scheduling
– Round Pairings

26. Tournament Admin
Scheduling
• Brackets = “Flights”
• Allow insertion of
custom text that only
tournament admin can
see (e.g., ‘do not edit
scheduling past XPM
on day of tournament.
Ask Jane Smith if you
see any issues.’)
• Allow inline text info
under each match
(e.g., round location,
flip for sides, fixed
sides, etc.)
• Allow text info under
each division (e.g.,
“Flip for Sides; Get to
your Rounds!; ASAP”
• Allow HTML5 Drag &
Drop of Division &
Round orderings
(POST)

27. Tournament Admin
Competitors
• See all competitors
by
– Per Division
– Per Division Per
Round
– Per Division Per
Round Per Flight
– Whole List (all
divisions):
Competitor |
Division(s)
Registered
• Clicking any
competitor name
shows a pop-up of
competitor info:
– Link to profile
– Win/Loss record

28. Tournament Admin
Rounds
• Pairings:
– random
– power match
– power protect

29. Tournament Admin
Registration Settings
• Allow addition of custom text fields to provide further registration info.
• Allow entry limits, according to competition type (virtual, non-virtual,
across both) by
– total attendees
– per division
– per division per school
• Allow cross-entry limits
• Allow organizer to require agreement to custom terms upon registration
• Allow entry deadline
• Allow drop deadline (for competitor drops to a school entry)
• Allow addition deadline (for competitor additions to a school entry)
• Allow fees by (multiple structures allowed):
– per team
– per student
– per student per division

30. Tournament Registration

31. Tournament
Participation

32. Tournament Registration
Features
• Allow different registration types:
– Virtual Competition
– Non-Virtual Competition
• Be able to register as an individual judge, coach, student, etc.
– Only format allowable for virtual competition
• Be able to do bulk registration as a team leader
– can request to add people as part of your team, which would allow you
to register them freely.
• link to specific existing profiles to register them. 1-step process.
• people can become part of multiple teams (e.g., if transferring schools,
judging for multiple schools, etc.)
• Each team member has roles (debater, judge, coach, affiliates)
• Be able to change registrations online (acc. to deadlines)

33. Tournament Rounds
Technical Difficulties
• In the off-chance that the round experiences technical difficulties,
the round can be completely redone / parts of it can be completely
redone.
– Although if one debater is able to redo their speech, then the other
debater must be able to redo their speech previous as well. Then both
must be timed accordingly.
– Then the round must be recorded as having technical difficulties, and
the judge must indicate to what degree the technical difficulties may
have made their decision difficult, meaning that it will be weighed less.
• If this happens in outrounds (crap), a decision must still be made.
– The loss would not be counted highly

34. Tournament
Scheduling

35. Tournament Scheduling
• Be able to print off Tournament Schedule in Print PDF Format