Takeda: We were in the same class when we were first-year undergraduates, and that's how we met. We found out that programming was our common interest, and since then, we have been working together on programming.

Takeda: In April 2020 when the first semester of our second year started, we were notified that classes would be held online, so we explored what we could do with PandA. Honestly, we felt that the platform left room for improvement to be more user-friendly with minor changes, and we anticipated that we could make it happen on our own. That's how we started the development of Comfortable PandA in the middle of May, completed it in about five days, and released it.

We announced the release of Comfortable PandA via Twitter and the LINE application that I also developed and released. The news was swiftly retweeted, attracting nearly 1,000 users in the first month of its release. The number of active users continuously increased with the start of the AY 2020 second and AY 2021 first semesters (see the image on the left). As of July 21, 2021, a total of 3,221 people were using the application. Note that this figure is solely based on Google Chrome users. If you combine Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari users, the total number of active users will reach somewhere around 3,500.

Takeda: There are four major features. The first is the color-coding function for the course tabs at the top of the PandA screen. Originally, the tabs were white, but now they are color-coded in three different colors according to the time remaining until the due date of each course assignment.
Green is within 14 days, yellow is within 5 days, and red is within 24 hours, making the colors intuitive and easy to understand, just like traffic lights.

The second feature is the list of assignments with due dates for each course. A three-line icon appears on the right side of the menu bar at the top of the screen. By clicking on the icon, you can see a list of all the assignments that are currently due.
This feature also allows users to sort assignments by the due date, check the ones that have been submitted, and add assignments that are not available on PandA.

The third feature is the assignment notification badge. The user is notified with a red badge displayed in the course tab if a new assignment has been posted since their last access to the site.

There is some sort of communication issue with PandA regarding assignment notifications. For example, newly posted assignments are barely identifiable on PandA's course site. Despite the "notification" option available on the instructor's side, it all depends on the instructor whether to use the function to notify students when a new assignment is posted to PandA. If the instructor gives assignments during class in a mumbling tone, they can be easily missed.
These are what we call "silent assignments" - miscommunicated assignments between the instructor and students. With the assignment notification badge feature of Comfortable PandA, students will not miss these silent assignments.

Last but not least, the "Push the Favorites Bar Limits" function was added following the major upgrade of PandA in March 2021. As a result of the major upgrade, the number of course tabs displayed in the favorites bar is now limited to 10.
From the instructor's point of view, 10 course tabs in the favorites bar may be enough, but this limitation is very inconvenient for students who are taking more than 10 courses. To overcome the inconvenience experienced by student users, we came up with the "Push the Favorites Bar Limits" function, which allows students to add as many favorites as they want.

Other features include a "cache function" that retrieves data from PandA every few minutes; and a "color universal function" that allows users to change the aforementioned green, yellow, and red colors as they wish. These functions are compatible with four major browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari.

Takeda: I was not satisfied with the limitation, and I wanted to get rid of it somehow. However, I knew it was difficult to do so with my skills alone, so I asked Mr. Kawano for advice, and eventually, he developed the "Push the Limits" function for Comfortable PandA.

Kawano: I, too, felt that it was inconvenient to have only up to 10 course tabs saved in the favorites bar, so I was thinking of making an extension separate from Comfortable PandA. Coincidentally, Mr. Takeda told me that he wanted to add such a function to Comfortable PandA. In the end, I decided to develop a new function for Comfortable PandA rather than creating a separate one.

Takeda: That's right. First, my interest in PandA was sparked when I learned that PandA was based on "Sakai," an internationally recognized LMS developed in the United States. It really struck me that a Japanese university was using a unique system from overseas.

Driven by curiosity, I did some research and found out that PandA is designed with a REST (REpresentational State Transfer) API (Application Programming Interface), which is an interface for external access. The API allows us to link PandA's data to our system and add new functions. All in all, this interface gave me the impetus to develop Comfortable PandA.

Without an API, it would have been impossible to create Comfortable PandA in the first place. I am very happy that Kyoto University has designed PandA with such a system. I don't think there are many other universities that can do the same.

Takeda: In the meantime, we plan to continue the management, but we may not be able to fully handle it after we proceed to graduate school. With this in mind, we are currently discussing the possibility of integrating the functions of Comfortable PandA into PandA itself at some point and having it managed and maintained by the Institute for Information Management and Communication.

Takeda: We would rather be very happy if that happens for real. The integration means PandA will already be a comfortable service for users, doesn't it?

Kawano: I would also be happy if Comfortable PandA were merged to its parent.

Endo: Same here. The original purpose of this project was to make PandA itself more user-friendly so that we could work on assignments without missing anything important.

Kawano: I think there are many students who want to improve multitudes of systems of the university. It would be ideal if students could be part of the improvement. For example, as mentioned earlier, if APIs are readily accessible, I think those students who are familiar with programming would voluntarily try to improve some university systems. Unfortunately, however, there are no systems other than PandA that have APIs set up. It would be more convenient if APIs were made available to the extent possible.

Takeda: Student participation would be more encouraged if each service, including APIs, had a terms and conditions of use, such as "you may use or improve the service without permission under such and such conditions." When we released Comfortable PandA, we looked for such terms of use, only to find that there were none. We had no choice but to release it as an "uncertified" application.