Blog2_Project/ Semester 2

             FYP Project                    K00121609                     January 03/01/2017 - 05/01/2017

Blog 2: Project Alternatives Considered:

For the ‘Project’ module of this Creative Multimedia Course, I read the RSA Student Design Awards briefs and considered different projects. I was most interested in: 

1)

·       Brief 4 ‘Circular Futures’: this is about a communication solution i.e. a marketing/advertising campaign or an app that provides the idea of frugal, innovation or reuse.

Idea: an app where people would weigh the product they are disposing of e.g. a box which they can record in a supplied app. For each gram of weight of product, they are disposing of they can collect virtual points.

These can be used to collect virtual gifts or along with another business venture. The user would also be informed of how much of the planet they have saved by recycling at each entry.

2)

·       Brief's  2,3,6 'Healthcare': a product that capitalizes in existing lifestyles and access to mobile phones.

Idea: a medication reminder app for all ages and medications taken for physical and mental problems. Basic principle is a database where information can be stored and retrieved through queries for example.

• The idea is that the user interface would be a screen where the user would enter information on: tablet type(s); times to be taken (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly), commencement date. The variations could be set up as scenarios in a drop-down menu e.g. scenario 1 “same med-A every day at same time every day for one week.” There would be insert, update and delete options.

• This user input would populate a database specific to that individual and act like a timetable for taking medications. Alerts for times entered would automatically be set up.

• There would be the master table with alerts running off this and where adjustments could be made.

• These alerts can loop e.g. if medications are the same for the next days, months etc. it can loop to a set user input date at which point the user will be prompted to add another time or other such information if they require.

• Peoples needs differ whether on long-term or short-term medication and the app can be used for both. Also, people on a lot of medications may have complex needs and this app would be a help to them as one less thing to worry about.

Another aspect to this could be a statistics page where, as each alert passes the user is prompted to tick a box if meds taken and this information is transferred into a graphical format which can display the med trends and provide real-time information to the user.

Another aspect could be:

• Pain management: tablet alert times as process stated above. Another part of the app could be to provide a colour swatch of colors corresponding to a scale from 1-10; 1 being the worst pain and 10 being the least pain. This information could be valuable to the person and their caregivers and again could be plotted on graphical output.

• Mood management: tablet alert times as process stated above. Another part of the app would be colour swatches for user to click on the one they most identify with (these would be a colour with e.g. blue with word blue=calm; and then shades of blue etc. The colors will correspond with a number and they are correlated with the medication taken. This can be useful to the user and/or care professional to identify action/slumps in a person’s daily, weekly etc. patterns.

3)

Brief 11 'Educating app':

Idea: A central information point for users to source colleges and courses by location area in the one app. I have found that there are lots of very good individual sites but not a complete comprehensive user friendly app. The UI Interface would be a screen with: welcome to the app/site; please enter your name and email (optional)(data information laws); diagram of QQI and NUI course levels; there would be buttons to click for different options as follows:

Button 1: “Courses by Location” (drop-down menu)

Button 2: “Course Type” (drop-down menu)

Button 3: “College”

Button 4: “Courses by time of year” (spring, summer, autumn, winter)

Button 5: “Day courses”

Button 6: “Night courses”

There could be a geo-locater: used here to show the user where they are in relation to the course location of choice.

Things to add for interactivity: bookmarks, favorites, saved searches, navigation elements, contact information (phone, email, contact address), Facebook, twitter, Instagram, navigation-bar, menus, the user could have their own page (database) within the app to record their searches and access to these with options to insert, update and delete their information.

This idea of being an intermediary between colleges/courses and a potential user has development potential as a business. This would be where there would be an ‘intermediate organisation’ that offers education related services.

Such professionals employed could be Career Guidance staff, Work and Behavioral Psychologists, multi-disciplinary career people, mentors from various organisations to provide advice to users and mentors working in industry would keep the intermediary agency up to date and fresh with statistics on what the workplaces are looking for in students over time.  

There would be psychometric and other suitability questionnaires and their statistical output and recommendations available on the app. There would have to be programming code written for processing and output of results.

There would have to be administration and customer service staff to support the running of the business.

An analogy would be that it would operate as e.g. TripAdvisor does for holidays and accommodation; an intermediary yet very useful and successful. It would have to be clear that it is a intermediary (and not a college or an application process).

The audience and the market for this would-be people thinking of going to college or/and pursuing a career through a college course.

The colleges would be including the major LIT, UL, MIC, also the evening course colleges and other colleges in Limerick.

Button 7: “Career planning tools and tips”

Button 8: “Interview question & answer tips”

An Interactive Chart 9: that is a timeline, where the user can enter along the time line their career progress e.g. 2016-2017 H. Dip in Computing in Creative and Multimedia Programming.

Button 10: "links to useful career websites" e.g. “The Muse” etc.

It could be an app/ business that would grow with the person providing good decision making tools and advice to pursue the course of their choice.