Student Guide Mobile Application

Table of Contents

Summary ............................................................................................................................................. 3

Background and motivation ......................................................................................................... 3

Background ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Motivation ........................................................................................................................................ 4

Related work ...................................................................................................................................... 4

Interaction design ............................................................................................................................ 8

Sensors............................................................................................................................................. 8

Interaction with the Application ............................................................................................. 8

Implementation ............................................................................................................................... 10

Evaluation .......................................................................................................................................... 13

Critical reflection ............................................................................................................................. 13

References ........................................................................................................................................ 14

Appendix A: Screen shots ........................................................................................................... 15

Summary

The Student Guide Application will be used by students, when they are first

coming to Jubilee Campus of University of Nottingham for studying English

language pre-master course at CELE centre. It will help them to find out more

information about the Nottingham University, Jubilee Campus and it will guide

them to find the CELE Centre buildings more easily.

Background and motivation

Background

The Centre for English Language Education is an essential part of Jubilee

Campus and it was established nearly 20 years ago. This Centre supports

international students who need to study English Language at University. It

offers the entire range of programmes from English preparation courses for

undergraduate and postgraduate international students and English research

degrees for Academic Literacy and Academic Purposes. Moreover, CELE is now a

part of School of Education and it is the largest specialist English centre for

Academic Purposes (EAP) all over the world (Education, 2013), as shown in

Figure 1.

Figure 1: (Centre for English Language Education) from (group, 2013)

Motivation

Students when come for the first time in the University they are not familiar

with buildings and facilities of Jubilee campus. They also need to find CELE

Centre buildings. This application helps them to find the Buildings without

spending much more time.

Related work

LocalEyes Accessible GPS and Points of Interest application:

This is one of the android applications which guide blind users to find their

locations and point of interest around them. GPS and Compass has been used in

this application. The GPS helps the blind users to find the interest places and the

Compass tells the blind users to orient mobile screen horizontally and also it

navigates them for those points. The target group of this project was blind and

low-vision users who they have problem with finding places and for those places

they have never seen before. It also tells the user what are around them and

what exactly they are (Behmer and Knox, 2010).

Life on the Edge: Supporting Collaboration in Location-Based Experiences

In 2005 a group of researchers created a Savannah game which is an

educational game as shown in figure 2. In this game the school pupils learn

about the environments of African country especially about the behaviour of

lions that they are living there. This game has been tested in the virtual playing

field the area of this field about ninety by sixty meters. Six groups of pupils in

that field have played with PDAs as a role of lions and they have looked around

that filed for finding a resource that lions require to hunt. Additionally, GPS has

been used and is has installed at the back of each player because the GPS is

used for tracking player’s poisons when they are moving around the virtual

game environment. Moreover, also Wi-Fi is used for connecting the PDAs to the

local server. The Local sever is providing the game rules and also managing the

game (Benford et al., 2005).

Figure 2: (Savannah Game Interface) from (Benford et al., 2005)

Erbil Tour Guide

This is a Tourist guide application that has been created by Dawand Sulaiman

who is an IOS apps developer. In this application he introduces the city of Erbil,

The capital city of Kurdistan Region in the north of Iraq. Tourists can find more

than 100 places of the oldest inhabited city (known as Erbil and Hawler). This

application works offline and users can use it in online option too for using Erbil

City Map. Dawand has used the map of Erbil City to identify some interest places

of the Erbil City such as, Universities, Hotels, Churches, Attractions, Museums,

and Restaurants and so on as shown in Figure 3. For each places a detail page

is available when the user touches the interest points, it directly goes to the

detail page of the touched point. In that page user sees some information about

the selected place. This app also tracks user location and the user knows how

close to the desired place of the Erbil map(Sulaiman, 2012).

Figure 3: (Erbil Tour Guide IOS Application) from (Sulaiman, 2012)

Can You See Me Now?

In 2006 a group of researchers in Nottingham University and Blast Theory

created a game between an online player and a runner player on the street. The

street player uses HP Jornada handheld computer or PDA to hunt the online

player as shown in figure 4 and 5. The HP Jornada handheld computer was

connected to the local server via WIFI network and was attached to a GPS

receiver via its serial port. The GPS receiver registered the street player’s

position when she moved throughout the city and the WIFI catches the

information of the player and sent back them to the server. More than 50

players can play online with this game and walk round the virtual city and see

the positions of the other players and they can communicate with them via text

messaging and with another player using walkie-talkies. All players should be in

the right zone when they are playing of the game this zone area is about 500 to

1000 metres(Benford et al., 2006).

Figure 4: (Street Player) from (Benford et al., 2006)

Figure 5: (Online Player) from (Benford et al., 2006)

In Summary, four of the related works have been explained. During the creation

of the Student Guide application the 4 idea of the described related work have

been used. Firstly, In the LocalEyes application the idea of using Compass

sensor for directing the students for the CELE Centre building has been used.

Secondly, from the Life on the Edge Savannah game GPS sensor has been used;

the same idea for locating Student to the current location and knowing the

distance of the CELE Centre Building has been used in Student Guide app.

Furthermore, the idea of identifying the desired location on the Static Map of

Jubilee Campus has been used from Erbil Tour Guide ios app. Finally, Student

Guide app uses mobile device as a replace for PDA device which was used in

“Can You See Me Now?” App.

Interaction design

Student Guide is a mobile application has been designed for guiding students

when they are coming to Nottingham University for Studying English Course at

CELE Centre on Jubilee Campus. It works on both Android and IOS smartphones

effectively and this has been designed by using the JavaScript language through

getting benefits from the Appfurnace website.

Sensors

In this application GPS and Compass Sensors has been used. The GPS sensor

has been used for showing Jubilee campus and CELE buildings distances form

the current place of the student. Also, Compass sensor has been used for

directing student for the CELE buildings.

Interaction with the Application

First the Student opens Appfurnace player application and he selects the Student

Guide application. The main pages of the application will be opened. It includes

four pages. In the first page he can touch University of Nottingham button after

that the UON page will opened and it includes information about University of

Nottingham with a sound. Then, he can use back button to go back to the

previous page. Moreover, he can open the Jubilee Campus page which is a

second page of the main page. This includes a big image of the campus, campus

distance text view, (video about the campus) and the three buttons of (Jubilee

Campus Map with Viewpoints, Jubilee Campus Buildings and Buildings Distance

with Compass). The three buttons direct him to the Jubilee Campus Map with

Viewpoints, Jubilee Campus Buildings and Buildings Distance with Compass

pages respectively. Map and viewpoints page just shows a static map of the

campus with viewpoints of the desired buildings. And the viewpoints direct him

to the buildings page. The Jubilee Campus Buildings page also directs him for

the Buildings page. Buildings Distance with Compass page shows him the

distances and directions of the buildings which they are applied through GPS and

Compass sensors. Furthermore, the Google Map page just shows the current

location of the student and he knows where his place is exactly. Finally, The Help

page displays information about how the application will be used, as well as it

displays a QR code picture of the application which allows other users download

Student Guide application as shown in figure 6. In addition to the design, the

map and pictures of the Jubilee Campus and its Buildings has been used with

simple labels and buttons see Appendix A, as shown in figure 6.

Figure 6: (Student Guide Mobile Application Design)

Implementation

I have created an account inside the Appfurnace website. Then, I have

implemented the Student Guide application by using JavaScript language as

shown in figure 7.

Figure 7: (Appfurnace Dashboard)

The following parts of that application have been implemented:

The actions of the Buttons

Buttons such as, Back button has been implemented via a onBack() function and

it navigates the user to the previous page.

function onBack() {

// show the last page

navigate.back();

}

The Buttons for navigating the user to a specified page a special function has

been used such as showJC()to show Jubilee Campus page.

function showJC() {

// navigate user to Jubilee Campus Page by using the name of the page

navigate.to('Jubilee Campus');

}

Application Design

I have uploaded the relevant images, icons, audio and video files to the

application and I have used the widgets part of the Appfurnace website for

designing the whole pages of my Application as shown in figure 8, see the

Appendix A.

Figure 8: (Appfurnace Interface)

Implementing the audio sound file

I have created the global variable of the uploaded sound file, then I have used a

playAudio() function for playing it and a pauseAudio() function for pausing it.

Finally inside the uonBack () function button I have stopped it via stop ()

function, see the Appendix A and B, (Benford, 2012).

Implementing the Alert Beep, Popup, and Vibrate

I have implemented those actions via popup(), navigator.notification.beep() and

navigator.notification.vibrate() functions for entering Jubilee Campus area,

Amenity, Dearing, and International Buildings areas, see the Appendix A and B,

from UBI (Greenhalgh, 2013).

Implementing the Jubilee Campus, Dearing, Amenity, and

International distances (GPS)

Firstly, I have implemented the toRadians() function for converting the angle

from degree to radians.

Then, the getRadiance() function for calculating the circle distance between two

latitude and longitudes via Haversine math formula (Greenhalgh, 2013).

Secondly, I have got the Jubilee zone, and the three buildings zone via

af.geoFeatures.getFeatureByName("zone name") and getCenter() function for

getting those zones center. Finally, I have used a moved() function for handling

the location changing of the user by using the defined getRadiance() function

and displaying all the distances in the Jubilee, Amenity, Dearing and

International distance labels by using GPS Sensor.

Implementing the Dearing, Amenity, and International directions

(Compass)

According to both (Greenhalgh, 2013) and (Benford, 2013), I have enabled the

compass to start working via startCompass() function and on onSuccess()

function , I have implemented the directions of the Amenity, Dearing and

International buildings using the needle, headings, and magnetic headings of the

Compass Sensor. Finally, I have stopped the Compass sensor using the

stopCompass() function.

Evaluation

The Student Guide application has been tested by One Student at Nottingham

University. During the testing he answered some general questions about the

Application technical work and overall design. He said the Student guide

application design is great and consistent. Colors which are used are relevant

and also the text is readable. Also, it is a simple and convenient to use.

Moreover, this app is guided me in an easy way to find the CELE Centre

buildings and I have not seen any difficulties. Finally, I suggest expanding your

application and adding more buildings such as Business School and the school of

computer science will make your application definitely reliable for use see

appendix D.

Critical reflection

The Student Guide application is my own idea because when the first time I

came to the Nottingham University specially Jubilee Campus; I faced some

difficulties until I found the CELE buildings. That is why I created the guiding

application. One of the difficulties of the course that I face it is difficult to find

the idea and implement it. Also the other one is the code limitations of the

Appfurnace. With regard to the strengths points of the coursework, the

coursework has many benefits. Firstly, interaction design and creating an

application with the Appfurnace is actually very easy. Secondly, creating an

application for the mobile devices and using the mobile devices are both the

strengths of the coursework too. Moreover, the Appfurnace allow the user to run

own application in both Android and IOS systems and it also allows the users to

use some Sensors such as, GPS, Camera, Accelerometer…..Etc. Finally, the

Appfurnace allows the user to update own application after changes. In addition

to the Student Guide application, after the evaluation of it with him, it actually

got a very good outcome according to his own testing. I had a background in

programming but not much and a little information about the sensors. But this

coursework potentially helped me to learn JavaScript and understand the

sensors such as GPS, Compass and so on.

References

BEHMER, J. & KNOX, S. 2010. LocalEyes: accessible GPS and points of interest. Proceedings of the 12th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility. Orlando, Florida, USA: ACM.

BENFORD, S. 2012. Tutorial 4: Dynamic Content [Online]. Available: https://appfurnace.zendesk.com/entries/21234793-Tutorial-4-Dynamic-Content [Accessed 10.05.2013 2013].

BENFORD, S. 2013. Compass showing the direction to the next point [Online]. Available: https://appfurnace.zendesk.com/entries/20824397-compass-showing-the-direction-to-the-next-point [Accessed 08.05.2013 2013].

BENFORD, S., CRABTREE, A., FLINTHAM, M., DROZD, A., ANASTASI, R., PAXTON, M., TANDAVANITJ, N., ADAMS, M. & ROW-FARR, J. 2006. Can you see me now? ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., 13, 100-133.

BENFORD, S., ROWLAND, D., FLINTHAM, M., DROZD, A., HULL, R., REID, J., MORRISON, J. & FACER, K. 2005. Life on the edge: supporting collaboration in location-based experiences. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Portland, Oregon, USA: ACM.

EDUCATION, C. F. E. L. 2013. Welcome to CELE [Online]. Available: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cele/index.aspx [Accessed 11.05.2013 2013].

GREENHALGH, C. 2013. G54UBI - Jubilee Guide Example.

GROUP, T. U. O. N. O. F. 2013. flickr gallery [Online]. Available: www.nottingham.ac.uk/gallery/flickrgallery.aspx [Accessed 11.05.2013 2013].

SULAIMAN, D. 2012. Erbil Tour Guide [Online]. Available: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/erbil-tour-guide/id588033628?mt=8 [Accessed 01.04.2013 2013].

Appendix A: Screen shots

Step 1: Open the AppFurnace application Step 2: Select Student Guide Application

Step 3: Details page of the application Main page of the app

The University of Nottingham Page The Jubilee Campus Page

The Jubilee Campus Map with Viewpoints Page the Jubilee Campus Buildings Page

The Buildings Distances with Compass page the International House Page

The Amenity Building page the Dearing Building Page

The Jubilee Campus Alert with vibrate The Jubilee Campus Alert with Beep

The Amenity Building Alert with Beep the International House Alert with Beep

The Dearing Building Alert with Beep

The Location Zones