Tools and Methodologies
The Ram Bucks Interactive Location Map will be an app purposed with showing the user which nearby businesses accept Ram Bucks and exactly how far their current location is from all those businesses. Based on the user’s current location, an interactive map will load up. The interactive map show the user’s current location, indicated by a dot or a person or something of the sort, and then it will show each individual Ram Bucks accepting business in the nearby area. The user can then choose to pull up more information about each individual business, they would do so by clicking on the business they want to know more about and then the business’s google page information would pop up. The user can then also choose to pull up the directions from their current location to the business in question, either through the directional services of the app or by using the information they found within the app to get there using another app on their phone.
How will this app work? What tools and methodologies will it use to accomplish its intended purpose?
The Ram Bucks Interactive Location Map will be an app that uses the location services in your cell phone, GPS, to show where your current location is. As soon as you opened the app for the first time after downloading it a message would appear asking if you give permission to “Ram Bucks Interactive Location Map” to access your location services; aka. your current location. The user would then have to click yes, for the app to be able to properly create the map.
As for the other aspect of the app, the business locations and information, there is currently a list on the WCU website of all the businesses that accept Ram Bucks. So, we could clearly use this list as the building blocks of our app but because it isn’t clear how often, if ever, this list is updated we would need to create a survey of some kind to send to local businesses to see if they accept Ram Bucks. We could also included within the survey information about how a business that doesn’t currently have accept Ram Bucks but is interested in doing so in the future can make that happen. As well as different sorts of information that we could then include in the app about the individual businesses, like if they offer any sort of discounts for Ram Bucks users.
Now, finally how would the interactive map aspect of the app work? How would it store information about the businesses? How would it update if that information changes? What tools does it use to make the applications it promises possible?
The GIS (Geographic Information System) and Google’s own “Google My Maps” service are the answers to those questions. A GIS system is a system “designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographic data. GIS applications are tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data in maps, and present the results of all these operations.” [GIS Wiki] Our Ram Bucks Interactive Location Map would clearly be a GIS system that uses other GIS applications to accomplish its intended purposes. For example, we may choose to implement a GIS type application like “Google My Maps” service which a Google service that allows the user to create a custom google map of their choosing. With “Google My Maps” a user can do the following and more, Draw: Add points or draw shapes anywhere, Search: Find places and save them to your map, Import: Instantly make maps from spreadsheets (which is how our team could make a prototype of our interactive map after turning the WCU website Ram Bucks Accepting Business list into a spreadsheet), and finally Personalize: Show your style with icons and colors, add photos and videos to any place. These are all functionalities we’d either want for our users or for ourselves as developers, so using a service like “Google My Maps” to create our app and make it a true GIS system is how we would make sure all the applications our project promises are possible.
In conclusion, Ram Bucks Interactive Location Map is an app that uses GPS/GIS, as well as other services/tools that fall under that umbrella, to create an interactive map of a user’s current location in relation to nearby businesses that accept Ram Bucks. The user would have access to their own location, the location of nearby businesses that accept Ram Bucks as well as any information about said businesses we could get access to and upload into the app, and finally the user would be able to see how far their current location is from each business that appeared near by as well as directions on how to get there.
Our purpose, in developing this app would be to take information that is already available to the public, but is not easily accessible, and make it easily accessible for the public’s benefit; through a simple and interactive app format.
