This past week, I focused on solidifying use cases, prototyping the software user-side workflow, and preparing the design presentation.
Following feedback on our use case, I integrated the suggestions to ensure our use cases showcase the most powerful aspects of our project. As a result, I created use cases and walkthroughs for the four core functionalities, enabling us to give a detailed walkthrough of our product as if it were demo day. By narrowing the project scope to improving the student workflow, we were able to focus on the key areas of the student workflow experience that can be enhanced with the SPARK device.
I developed these cases by working on the database design and building a prototype of the context-capturing application. On the software side, I implemented six core features: global text capture to grab selected text from any application, window tracking that monitors the active app, browser tab, or window every two seconds, and context awareness that extracts text from focused elements to build a running history of the user’s workflow. I also implemented persistent storage to save window context snapshots to a database, smart flushing that aggregates and distills captured context after 50 window switches for LLM processing, and text paste-back using Cmd+Ctrl+R to release processed text back to the active application. Together, these features allowed me to explore how much context could be captured and how the workflow could be linearized in the database.
After making progress on my technical deliverables, I worked on the design presentation, focusing on use cases, solution approach, and project management materials. In addition, I created the first draft of our system block diagram.
Next week, I want to work on implementing the groundwork for the data capturing as well as the clean up and delivery of json data, to prepare for LLM integration.
Database
SPARK window