UQ (and the larger brisbane area) has a number of sports facilities catered towards team sports that are available for use. However, organising games of basketball or netball can be tough and time consuming, making spur of the moment games inaccessible. Activ-mate aims to bridge this gap and bring together likeminded individuals who are looking to play they’re favourite sport on a whim.
Activ-mate is a team sports organisation platform that allows users to register and find local games happening near them. Once someone starts a game, this information is shared to other users on the map and a live player count is shown for that venue. Additionally, users can add friends and share there activities with them.
Name: Aiden Richards
Student number: 46990930
The system provides a simple application that allows users to host, notify and attend various sports games in there local area. Users will be able to select a venue and what sport they’re playing which is then broadcasted to any user who has expressed interest in that sport and venue. Additionally, users will be able to express interest in events happening, and register future times that they plan to play at a venue. Finally, the application will take advantage of a sportsmanship rating system that allows users to identify positive and negative players in their community.
The scope for the MVP of this system will include the features:
The key quality attributes deemed most critical for this project were Reliability, Scalability and Extensibility, with the reasoning stated below. Additionally, whilst not deemed as high priority as those previously mentioned, Security and Reliability were worth noting and will be taken into consideration throughout the architectural design and implementation stages.
Reliability was deemed the most critical quality attributes as users need to assured that
This is especially relevant as there will likely be a spike of people responding to a sporting event soon after it is created. So the system will need to perform reliably in both high and low demand environments.
Extensibility is also highly important to the project, as the proposal is a relatively bare application function wise. New features could be easily added over the lifespan of the application, such as being able to create competitions or tournaments, registering full teams or having a user experience level tied to each sport. Due to this, architecture should be designed to allow the addition of new features without a significant overhaul to the applications architecture.
The final key attribute that Activ-mate requires is scalability. Due to the nature of the app, day of the week and time of day will drastically alter the number of active users, with more games likely to be taking place on weekends and afternoons. Due to this the app needs to be able to deliver effectively with varying user loads. Additionally, as the app grows, it will need the ability to handle a growing number of users and venues being added to the map.
To evaluate reliability, we will conduct functional testing to ensure that all core features, such as broadcasting activities, receiving notifications, and registering for events, work as intended. Additionally, we will simulate high-demand scenarios to verify that the system performs consistently under varying loads. User feedback will also be collected to identify any reliability issues in real-world usage.
Whilst ideally, Extensibility would be evaluated by implementing a small, non-critical feature, such as a user experience level to assess how easily the system can accommodate new functionality, this may not be possible given the constraints of the project. Instead, the extensibility of the system will be determined through code reviews that will be conducted regularly to ensure modularity and adherence to design principles that support future growth.
Scalability will be tested using Apache JMeter to simulate varying user loads, including peak times such as weekends and afternoons. Stress tests will measure the system’s ability to handle increased traffic, ensuring that performance remains stable as the number of users and venues grows. Metrics such as response time, throughput, and error rates will be analyzed to confirm that the system can scale effectively without degradation in user experience.