Phase 2 Dialogue Reflection

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There was a lot to be done in phase II of the project. First of all, as a group, we consulted with Dr. Fontenot and came to the conclusion that the government entity persona would be unrealistic and too challenging to implement specifically the policy feature. Initially, we wanted to manually put different policies into a strong entity table but this turned out to be too much work for the timespan we had. We decided it would be more beneficial and useful to instead create a business persona which could fill out a business emission calculator survey similar to the general user. I created the ER diagram for this new persona and helped come up with the new features such as also calculating the percent of country emissions. I also assisted in the creation of the wireframe with Anjola. Combining the ER diagrams was harder than anticipated because we were confused about weak entities and how they were applied. In addition, we had to fill in some attributes (survey answers) that we knew were subject to change such as aircraft type because we didn’t know what data we were going to be working (correlation to emissions uncertain). However, once we had our combined ER diagram, I created the tables (in Google drawings) for the diagram so that we could translate it into actual SQL code. It was confusing navigating all the steps in slide 10 for things like many-to-many relationships but I eventually completed the tables and helped to write the create statements. In terms of visual improvements to the blog, I looked through blowfish example sites and found a group author display feature. I added the group author profile which appears on the landing page with a waffle icon. I also enabled the searching by tags feature and helped to create the Google Slides wireframe. For ease of use, I added a GitHub icon to the navbar and the group author profile which links to our GitHub repository.

During the week of phase II, as a dialogue we were very busy. My favorite sight that we saw was the Brussels Atomium. It is a very iconic and weirdly appealing structure which is a lot bigger than I imagined it to be. Inside was even more intriguing with the flickering light section and also the historical section. I also enjoyed visiting Microsoft Europe and hearing about how Microsoft uses that office to mainly negotiate policy with the EU. Overall, Belgium has been a great experience and I’m excited to continue to engage with the atmosphere here.