It's All Over - My Final Reflection

It's all over! The end of the semester, and another year at UCD.

At the beginning of the semester when we heard that we were going to have the opportunity to make an Android application, I was very excited. I think all my team members were. It was something that we all had an interest in. Once we understood the objectives of the app we jumped right in to designing and creating our app.After only a week and a half we had come up with our idea. We had a few prototype ideas, most of which wouldn’t work with the app inventor we had to use. However, all of the ideas revolved around the UCD Societies. We felt like an app for the societies would be very useful to new and existing students.Our very first idea was to use an RSS feed for events, however we could not make it look aesthetically appealing or fully functional. So we scrapped the idea and adopted a new idea revolving around Google Calendars.

In week 2 we decided to give each other roles as it would speed up the work and if we divided up the work load, in the end we would come up with a better app. I took the role as team leader, app developer, concept development and designer. Later into the semester I also took up the role as app tester along with Hideki.

I did all the app inventor work on my own as we guessed it would be too hard to share an account effectively, without ending up in lots of mistakes in the blocks editor. So I ended up developing the whole app solely. I had the apps functionality and operation sorted after about a week from when I started. I was enjoying the blocks editor that I ended up spending a lot of my free time playing around with it. I focused mainly on the operation of the app, George had volunteered to take care of the apps design while the others were looking after the society databases. They created one with all of the society calendars (which we all created one day), one for Facebook links, one for Twitters, YouTubes and websites. I then took these databases and "programmed" them into the app.

After a few weeks we completed the very first version of our new app and it was very basic in appearance. And none of us were very happy with it. We asked George to come up with some new ideas for icons and buttons and a logo as the ones we had weren't an effective use of the mobile screen space. George came back with the idea to create simplistic logos, and have them in a table formation, as this would use the mobile screen space more effectively. I then took this concept, which everyone had agreed on, and created (using Adobe Photoshop) the app layout and user interface that can be seen in the final app on Google Play.

The most challenging things about the app project was 1. The communication and 2. Contacting societies.

Communication was a big issue at the beginning of the semester. I was creating the app and taking ideas from everybody and integrating them, but somehow one week it turned out that nobody was happy with anything. We got through this bump in the road and focused on clearer communication and we were able to come together and work together effectively as a team.

Contacting the societies was a near impossible task. We tried everything, emailing, sending letters, contacting them on Facebook and asking society members to get onto the society Auditors for us. But even after all of this, we only received a few replies. It was honestly a bit of a nightmare. The app however is fully functional, there is a space waiting for all UCD Societies, we just need to get them on board. And in terms of the project itself...we have ran out of time. However, the app is fully functional, the concept works, and the head of societies Eoghan Murphy loves the app. So I would call the app a success in terms of user interface, function and design, but overall a failure because we don’t have societies adding content to their calendars.....yet.

After a meeting held between Hideki and I and Eoghan Murphy, he told us that he is very interested in the app and wants to take it higher. However he was conscious about our grades and the project itself and didn't want to interfere until we had submitted the projected and the exams were complete. He is talking with UCD about the app and he said hopefully they will like the app and would want to take it to the next level.They would want full access to the app and its content and be able to design and brand it to their liking. I guess you could say we would lose control of our own app, however due to it being a university project, we don’t own it anyway, UCD does.Eoghan did however mention payment for the app. They might pay us for the concept and the upkeep of the app. This is something I am very much looking forward to...if it ever happens...fingers crossed!

Outside of the module I took my own initiative to make my own app using the knowledge I had gained throughout the module. I won't get into it as it’s off topic and not relevant to the group project itself, but if you want to check it out follow this link.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the module, it was extremely interesting and I have learnt a lot of valuable skills.