Steps in the Process: Interview with a Prospective End User

Now that I am starting to make some headway on my iPhone app coding (baby steps count) it is time to talk to a possible end user to see what his/her thoughts are about having an app for the college. It's always a good idea to conduct studies like this early on in the process to uncover what a user really wants or does not want before you begin coding and have to throw it away or start over again. I compiled a few questions and found a subject who was willing to participate. I felt that selecting someone who already had an iPhone or iPod touch would be helpful since they would already be comfortable with the device and understand its capabilities.

The Interview:
I have interjected my thoughts about the answers under each response.

Question 1.
If you could have an app on your iPhone or iPod touch about the university what would you like to have on it?

I would really like to have access to directory information (student, faculty/staff and departmental phone, email and address listings) as well as access to my email, PeopleSoft accounts, university stored file space. I would be nice to have one portal to access all of clarkson accounts in one spot.

My thoughts:
I had thought about adding an email link or functionality to the app at the beginning because George Mason's app had it on their when I did my initial review. I rejected the idea because I felt it unnecessary given that ability to pipe your email through the mail app itself. When questioned about this, my subject suggested that he would find it very functional to have all of his university interaction within one device.

Although this is now a consideration again I think it will be for a future version of the software and is currently beyond the capabilities that I have in the time I have to complete the project. I would have to do some serious exploration on security issues and interacting with the AD/ldap system that we use for authentication because I think just adding a link to access the email client with safari is pointless and less functional than just having be part of the mail app built into the device.

Question 2.
If you could download a university app that offered you access to the calendar on your mobile device would you like to see all the available options for calendars or would you like to be able to add and delete calendars based on your needs?

I would like to be able to add and delete based on my needs much like what I can currently do with the calendar version online.

My Thoughts:
I thought this might be a nice feature to have the other day when I discovered that there were functions that would allow such capabilities. I had not tied the functionality of this idea to the current capabilities of the online calendar though. It looks like I will have to continue to dig and figure out how to do this one.

Question 3.
Would you find a campus map of the university that offered additional information about buildings or landmarks useful?

It would be cool, specifically for incoming freshman.

I would really like it if it was interactive enough to help me find locations in building that are often hard to find. Some of the rooms in buildings on campus are numbered oddly and make it difficult to find my class. If I could click on buildings and view floor maps that would make it easier to find those hard to get to classrooms.

My Thoughts:
I had the same thoughts here. I think this would be the piest de resistance if I could pull it off. So far this has been much harder than I originally thought and I have been struggling through figuring out how to do it. I did find a ray of hope yesterday, The Pragmatic Bookshelf has some nice video tutorials that are only $5 a piece. I downloaded one on the mapkit and will see soon if it helps or not. I may end up tabling this until a future version as well.

Question 4.
Are you interested in news feeds from the university?

Not really. Some people would but they don't particularly interest me.

My Thoughts:
This didn't surprise me. I figured this will be a nice add to the app for content and some will like it and others won't care.

Question 5.
If an app had a few modules on it that did not meet your needs but one or two that did would you still use it?

Yes, I just wouldn't use the app portion that I didn't like.

It would be nice if I could move the modules around within the app to best suit my needs like I can do with the apps themselves. I would also like to be able to add links to some of my favorite university sites or others that I visit a lot.

My Thoughts:
I wanted to make sure having modules like the news or a campus map would not be a hindrance to users if the portion of the app didn't interest them. I'm glad to hear that it wouldn't matter. If it did I would have to consider making apps with a little more tailoring towards specific audiences. Moving modules around inside the app is a very interesting idea. I suppose it could be done since the main interface does it and I should be able to access any of the same functionality inside the app. The biggest hurdle to accomplishing this would be finding the functions to make it work. I think this is a bit beyond me at this moment but again would be something to consider later. If I could add the ability to delete a module this would also take care of the tailoring problem from question 5.

Question 6.
What are your favorite apps and why?

I use the mail and Safari most with the rest of my downloaded apps being games. I do have an app called RemotePad which is a touch pad for your desktop. It works as a mouse for your desktop. I like it because I got used to using the touch pad on my laptop and miss it on the desktop. With the wireless capability it allows me to use the controller anywhere without it taking up space on my desk.

My Thoughts:
I asked this just out of interest and to see if I could glean any information about how this user uses their mobile device. I figured through a better understanding of this I could tap into this need to make my app more useful.

In the interest of time and the difficulties that I have had getting started I am going to focus on creating the calendar module for now and if time permits I will move on to the map.

Checking out the Landscape

I have started browsing around to explore what other colleges are currently doing with iPhone apps. I have always found exploring the landscape to be helpful in the process of getting started. It is always nice to learn from those who have gone before me and discover some of the best and worst practices out there so that when I am done my apps can hopefully live comfortably among some of the better practices.

What I have found so far (worth noting):

• iStanford - Cost: FREE
  This app offers a directory, athletics, maps, events and courses.
  
  My Thoughts:
  This is a pretty nice app with lots to offer given the price. It has a nice clean and professional design far above most that I have seen within the few minutes I have been searching.
  
  The individual components of the app have their pluses and minuses. The directory must only work on the Stanford network or I am missing the login screen for it. The athletics looks like it is feed from RSS feeds which is a bonus if ours are handled that way as well. Maps, events and courses also seem to be pretty basic and reasonable to implement. So far I think that this will be a model I can use to work from.
  
  
• Ohio State University Map - Cost: $1.99
  A map of the Ohio State campus that allows users to zoom in and out and use the GPS functionality to find there way around.
  
  My thoughts: I'm not sure I would pay $1.99 for a map of campus even if I was a visiting student. If I got seriously lost a lot and didn't want to continue to look like a fool when I had to call my friends to come find me, maybe but I clearly think this type of app should be free.
  
  I think this is a neat and possibly doable idea for my class project if I can get the localization coding down and mesh that with our current flash maps. If I want to go in this direction for my application I need spend speed up my iPhone App lessons and get to Chapter 17 on localization in the text.
  
  
• Penn State University - Cost: FREE
  Basically an application for providing Penn State news to your iPhone.
  
  My Thoughts: Seems very basic and hopefully easy. This should be easily handled by inserting the RSS feed from our news site into an iPhone App. THe text I currently have does not seem to cover this so I did some quick searching on the internet and came up with this auto conversion program, AppLoop. I should be able to figure out how to do this. With a little more research on the coding I came across these links which I will explore further later: How-to: building services into iPhone Applications, How to put twitter updates in your iPhone Apps (info on the NSXMLParser function)
  
  
• ACU MindWire - Cost: $ .99
  Abilene Christian University is using this app to offer education content.
  
  My Thoughts: I am intrigued by a universities use of an iPhone app to extend learning beyond the classroom. This is very forward thinking. I'm not sure that this is something I am ready to progress into for this class but it is something that I might consider working on as a value add for my students in my classes. I will have to think about this one further. It's disappointing that I can not download it and try it out to see under the hood and kick the tires.
  

I have also downloaded the Go Huskies App from Northeastern and IMason from George Mason University. Each of these are free and look interesting but I have not had time to review them yet. So more to come at a later time.