2. Design Specification - Pug-Life-INFO-461/allowance-gamification-app GitHub Wiki

Problem Statement

As parents get busy and household tasks begin piling up, there is the problem of who completes what tasks. Often times parents assign tasks to their kids. The problem is created when children are lackadaisical and have little motivation to complete these tasks. With fixed allowances, this poses a problem with task complexity. For example, if a child receives an already set allowance, tasks that are more difficult to complete, get neglected.

Solution

Our solution is to reduce that task management complexity by creating a web application that is easily accessible and learnable. It has features that allow parents to assign tasks and their children to accept and complete those tasks to get point based rewards.

Features

Parents

Create Tasks

Rationale) The Parent must create a task for their child to execute. Without a task, a child cannot perform any tasks. They can set detailed requirements and due dates.

Set the amount of virtual money received for the specific task
Title for the task
Due date
Description of the task
Assign the task to specific children

Determine the Redeem system

Rationale) The Parent must set the boundaries of what can be rewarded with the given amount of virtual money. They are the ones to decide how much effort translates to the type of reward. Each family comes from a different financial background, so they will each have a unique reward system (lower financial backgrounds provide lower value rewards and vice versa).

Specify the reward
Actual money
Prize / Activities
Specify how much virtual money needed to redeem each reward

Confirm the Completion of Tasks

Rationale) When a child completes a task, the parent should confirm that the task done satisfies the requirements. Once the task is confirmed, the task is either removed from the task dashboard or stays (depending on task recurrence) and is added to the child’s task history.

Confirm the task is completed
Distribute the virtual money
More work is required to complete tasks
Add comments to explain what more need to be done
Reset a due date
Notification sent to the child

Children

View Tasks

Rationale) A child must be able to view the available tasks to decide which one to complete. Children are able to view, read and comprehend the task description before committing to it.

See a list of tasks that parents assign to them
Click a task to see details

Accept Task

Rationale) There will be multiple tasks to be completed and to know which one is in progress, the child will accept the task. Accepting tasks subdues conflict between siblings as it lets them know if another child has a task in progress rather than arguing who completed the task first. It gives freedom to children to pick and choose a task and acknowledge that assigned task so parents know that task is being worked on or it is in progress.

A task is only distributed to one child

Adding Task to List

Rationale) Children are able to add a task to their to-do list but they do not have to commit to that task unless they confirm or accept that task. Similar to Amazon shopping cart feature.

Similar to Amazon cart before checkout
Multiple kids can add one task to their to-do list but whoever accepts the task completes it gets the reward.

Confirm the Task is Done

Rationale) When the child is done doing their task, they mark it is done. This signifies the parent with a notification that the task is complete and calls for them to check if it was actually completed.

Parents see that the job is well done and that task is confirmed.
The task stays as pending until parent confirms completion of a task

Redeem Rewards

Rationale) We want children to be able to use their accumulated points/digital cash to redeem for an actual cash or another reward that parents designated.

Send notification to parents what rewards were redeemed