T
his can be a very simple app, drawing from only a handful of panels, or could obviously get very complex and multi-layered.
The basic premise is to use a simple quiz format that returns panel recommendations at SXSW Interactive based on the user’s answers.
This would be done using track formatting and if/else statements. If they pick this answer it would lead to another particular set of questions, else if they picked another, it would lead down that track, etc…
For instance, taking the initial hard tech track, the next four questions might be: Are you more interested in: AI? Robotics? Transportation? Wearables?
Each of these would lead to a next set of questions which might ask if the user is more interested in an advanced panel or a beginning/intermediate panel. At this point a panel recommendation would be returned which had been coded as the end for that particular pathway.
It seems like a lot, but it’s pretty redundant – each pathway will use the same code, so it’s really just figuring out if there’s a way to reduce that redundancy. Also, 8 panels per track may seem like a lot to go through, but having spent that last month or so going through the SXSW schedule I think finding 8 panels for each will be relatively easy. I only wish I could make this much bigger and access many more of the panels.
I would really like to investigate a way to have a handful of panels fit each pathway end, and if the user wasn’t interested in the initial return they could press a button saying, “give me another recommendation.”
This may be too ambitious but I think it would be a really cool functional bit of programming that also serves to give people an idea of what is happening at this world-famous digital conference.
Here is the link for my app! There have been some changes but enjoy.