Design Document-Revision 3
iTour: Exploring the Space Coast
1. Project Overview (a very succinct statement about the project’s intended impact)
iTour is an interactive tour of a city, where visitors or current residents will be guided around Cocoa Beach to major points throughout the city. The user will be guided to a place using a navigation system on the iPhone, and then asked a question pertaining to that place. Once they answer the question, they will receive information about the area including history in text form and video. They can choose to review the information, or continue onto the next question if they are not interested. Each specific location will have multiple questions, as to widen the range of knowledge.
2. Project Mechanics (what does one see/do when one experiences the project)
When a user opens up iTour on his iPhone, the menu will come up and he will choose to start at his convenience. Once started, a navigation page will pop up and the user will be directed to the first location using the location coordinates. The first question at each location will always be “What is at this spot?” This will make sure that the user is in the right place. After that question, the user will go into the location (if it is a building) or explore that location (if it is outside). They will be asked questions about different objects at that location and based on those objects, will be presented information specific to the area based on that object. After all the questions are answered at one location, the user will be prompted and guided to the next location. At any point, the user will be able to stop the tour, and can then come back and access the tour again at the point where they left off.
Location 1- Ron Jon
Location 2- City Hall
3. Controls (how does one use the experience)
Once the user opens the application, he will encounter the main page. To start the tour, he will click the begin button. Once the tour begins, a navigation page will show the user directions to the first location. When the user arrives at the first location, the first question will pop up, asking the user what location they are at. When the user answers the question correctly, history of the location and why it is important to Cocoa Beach will be available for viewing. The user can choose to read (or watch) the information, or skip it and continue on to the next question. The series of questions will guide them through the location, so the user can experience the place, and also ask them questions about objects around them. Those questions will bring up information about other events in Cocoa Beach.
4. Loading (how does one start the experience)
The user can open the application and access the menu screen. The users will then press start and begin the tour. Once started, the navigation screen will guide the user to a location in Cocoa Beach. The user will then be asked a series of questions in which they will choose an answer. They will be able to choose an answer until they get it right and then given information based on the location, in which they can either read (or watch) the information, or choose to continue onto the next question. If the user decides to take a break from iTour, they can close it at anytime, and then open it and continue on their tour from where they left off.
5. Interface (how does one interact with the experience; if digital, screen functionality)
Users will use the iPhone touch screen to select buttons and answers to questions. They will also use the iPhone screen to follow navigation directions to each location.
6. Project Activity (activity description, regardless of whether the project is inherently digital or physical - how one moves through the experience, various levels of engagement that might be seen, any special perks that you pick up along the way, whether there’s a camera in it)
The user will be actively traveling through Cocoa Beach with our application. The questions will not be available until the user is within 50 yards of the destination. Once there, and after the first question is answered, the user will explore the location looking for objects to answer the next question. This will let the user interact with the location as well as learn history of the city.
7. Script (what is the message that you want to communicate)
With iTour, we want to get visitors, and even residents of Cocoa Beach, to explore the city of Cocoa Beach and learn the history behind it. They will be navigated through the city asked questions about where they are, and given information on the history of the location, as well as other interesting information about the city.
8. Scoring (if there’s a game aspect of the project, how does one get points)
No scoring system
9. Sound Bible (project audio)
Trivia game sounds (correct/incorrect)
Possible voice overs for questions
VHS converted into CD format of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach in the 1950’s
10. Story/Research Bible (project background; story if appropriate, steps to be taken, description of target audience – all the SURE items)
iTour is an interactive mapping system application, enabling a user to be guided around a location using a PDA. By visiting around a town or city using GPS, iTour will direct a user through and give historical facts and trivia through an interactive scavenger hunt via media, images and video.
iTour is an interactive mapping system application, enabling a user to be guided around a location using a PDA. By visiting around a town or city using GPS, iTour will direct a user through and give historical facts and trivia through an interactive scavenger hunt via media, images and video.
11. Art Bible (project art assets, including signage for SURE, screen concept designs)
(2 Images)
12. Design Notes
Online, there have simplified the process of making an app by making a web hybrid app that mimics an iPhone OS app, which is hopefully what we will be doing throughout this semester.
It uses a library which has the HTML/CSS and JavaScript foundation which we need to build upon to make our app.
http://dominiek.com/articles/2008/7/19/iphone-app-development-for-web-hackersExplains the process pretty good, and even has a tutorial on the bottom in which he inserts the Google maps API and grabs the phone's current location and displays some info on that location.
Since the iPhone application is a far off goal, we have decided to make a flash game based on how we want the iPhone version to work. Of course we cannot use real time navigation in flash, but the visual cues and questions with the information available afterwards will all use the same information.
13. Production Notes (digital and physical production)
Demographics: People who use iTour will be visitors to Cocoa Beach, or residents of Cocoa Beach, school children-through college but can be used by anyone
• Dr. Lori Walters- Space Historian
• Google Earth
• Panoramio
• iPhone Development Kit
Discussions on the method of delivery led our group to decide on developing the iTour application for the iPhone. A web based version was talked about so that any mobile device with access to the internet could access our application, this however seemed to be out of our scope. We narrowed it down to a iPhone application that will be developed based off of a Flash animatic demo.
We decided upon a structure for the program that is similar to a scavenger hunt type of trivia game that will teach users about the current location that they are in. We decided on possible locations within Cocoa Beach, FL to highlight and then attempted to come up with trivia questions for those locations. The group then made a flowchart of the various options within the program from start to finish and their respective outcomes.
During this process the team researched various resources to learn more about developing for the iPhone including video tutorials and Apple Documentation. Objective C is the language that is usually used to develop applications in the iPhone environment. Using the Apple iphone SDK or software development kit the team experimented with multiple open source frameworks and API's to embed a GPS mapping system within our application.
Mapview, iUiFramework, and Google Maps API were some of the open source resources we experimented with.
The framework we decided to use is called Cloud Made and can be found at
www.cloudmade.com. This mapping framework allows for the placement of informational markers on any location in the map. Using and modifying this framework allowed us to create our iTour application.
We coded two markers for separate locations in Cocoa Beach for people to visit and interact with. We then inserted the trivia questions and added the functionality to answer the questions and trigger events to occur if the question was answered correctly or incorrectly. If the answer was answered correctly, the screen flips over and presents the user with information on that location including photos and text, and eventually video.[b]
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