Evaluation and Data Ethics

Following on from the last Media Sandbox workshop, we've been giving thought to how we'll be evaluating and testing the Blossom Bristol project, as well as giving consideration to how data will be stored.At Mobile Pie we run all our projects according to Agile methodologies - this involves constant cycles of building, testing then feeding those test results back into the next build stage. The testing isn't just a bug hunting exercise, rather we get the app in front of people and gauge their reactions either by observing them or through conversation. With Blossom Bristol we'll also be showing the app off to potential partners and feeding their thoughts into the final version.As Blossom Bristol is a location based game, we could potentially be dealing with some sensitive information (notable the ability to see where someone is at a certain time). To avoid putting ourselves in any unethical situations we've given ourselves a number of rules:

• Don't collect private information about players, e.g. email addresses, without permission. We've avoided the need for this by using Google Account authentication - meaning we can keep users' data secure without getting hold of their email / password.

• Don't keep precise lat/lon information on players - as we're planning on splitting the city into a grid anyway there's no need to keep this information exact.

• Keep all data secure - we're using the Google App Engine to store data - if it's good enough for Google it's probably good enough for this project!

• Remove data when not needed - if there's no need to keep player's information after a certain time we'll remove it.