Need help choosing an ipad app

Lostinspace

Hi there,

My client owns a construction company. One of their jobs is to visit a large building once a week and to check all of the doors in the building to make sure they're in working order. So my client is looking for an app for the iPad that basically will allow whoever is checking the doors to track any issues with the doors. Here is how they want it to work:

1. Construction company employee creates a new project on the ipad app. Project will have project title, description, date and comments area.
2. Employee then creates 30 different tabs for example within the app. Each tab reflects each door in the building.
3. Each door has 10 different elements associated with it (e.g. - hindge, door handle, frame, etc...).
4. Therefore each tab would have about 10 elements associated with it.
5. The employee then goes to Door 1, opens up the first tab and checks the checkbox if that element is ok. If there is a problem with that element then the employee should have the ability to add a comment next to it and then save that comment.
6. Once Door 1 is complete the employee saves that and moves onto Door 2 and so on.
7. Once the 30 doors are complete then the employee can share it in Dropbox or email it to whoever and then add a comment when emailing it.
8. The elements should be configurable and once the first element is created it should be east to duplicate it rather than writing it out all over again.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

b.gud

Lostinspace wrote: »

Hi there,

My client owns a construction company. One of their jobs is to visit a large building once a week and to check all of the doors in the building to make sure they're in working order. So my client is looking for an app for the iPad that basically will allow whoever is checking the doors to track any issues with the doors. Here is how they want it to work:

1. Construction company employee creates a new project on the ipad app. Project will have project title, description, date and comments area.
2. Employee then creates 30 different tabs for example within the app. Each tab reflects each door in the building.
3. Each door has 10 different elements associated with it (e.g. - hindge, door handle, frame, etc...).
4. Therefore each tab would have about 10 elements associated with it.
5. The employee then goes to Door 1, opens up the first tab and checks the checkbox if that element is ok. If there is a problem with that element then the employee should have the ability to add a comment next to it and then save that comment.
6. Once Door 1 is complete the employee saves that and moves onto Door 2 and so on.
7. Once the 30 doors are complete then the employee can share it in Dropbox or email it to whoever and then add a comment when emailing it.
8. The elements should be configurable and once the first element is created it should be east to duplicate it rather than writing it out all over again.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

My first thoughts on this are that it sounds like it's a very complicated situation that you are trying to model to the app and that it could easily be a very confusing app to use unless you get the UE right.

Off the top of my head I would say try to break the building down into sections to make it easier to digest. This could be done by floors if there is more than 1 floor in the building. I would also make sure that there is never a possibility that more than 1 door can be edited at the same time, this may sound obvious but is something that could easily be overlooked. It may be possible to force them to doors in certain order to reduce the risk of doors getting mixed up.

A good idea if possible would be to go out with someone who does this regularly and see how they do it and take notes and see if there is a way to replicate how they do it within the app. Also when the app is complete go out with the user for the first few inspections and observe how they use it, I've yet to meet a user who uses an app as I intended it to be used, and make changes as necessary.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, but the main thing I would reiterate is that this sounds like a complex situation that you are trying to model, and has a high probability of the user making an error, so you will need to work very hard to get the user interaction right to reduce the risk as much as possible.


Hope this helps

YoungPayters

b.gud wrote: »

A good idea if possible would be to go out with someone who does this regularly and see how they do it and take notes and see if there is a way to replicate how they do it within the app. Also when the app is complete go out with the user for the first few inspections and observe how they use it, I've yet to meet a user who uses an app as I intended it to be used, and make changes as necessary.

+1 on this idea.
Whatever specifications the construction company give you, I would ask to shadow the expected end user on how they perform this activity.

A possible way of referencing the different doors would be a mechanism for storing pictures of each door, along with other factors (using the compass to determine orientation, floor number, etc.). This can be a one time action when processing the building for the first time.

Graham

It's great that the client is so involved that they've gone as far as almost wire framing the UI for you, it's a good indicator that he/she has put some thought into the App.

It's worth keeping in mind that (along with other apps), the clients frame or reference probably includes spreadsheets, paper forms, clipboards etc. I'd recommend (especially if there's a significant budget involved) prototyping the app, even if it's only with paper prototypes. Prototypes would be even more worthwhile if you could get the guys on the ground to test them/provide input.

Also keep in mind that there may be a better solution that the client would be happier with if it's presented to him.

The Corinthian

This is one of those solutions where almost 80% of the work is done before a line of code is written.

I would spend a lot of time designing the processes handled and getting the UI right before actually starting any coding - the latter for reasons that have been explained above and the former because the entire solution is process driven. Definitely something where at least a partial UML approach should be employed.

onemorechance

With a very quick analysis of this, it sound like all you need is an excel spread sheet.

Lostinspace

Thanks for the replies guys. After some research I've come to the conclusion that Google Docs (spreadsheet and forms) are the best way to set this up for my client. Very user friendly. Thanks again