Rationale

I chose to design an application for the Karori wildlife reserve, otherwise known as Zealandia. My app aims to provide a more fun and interactive experience for people visitors of Zealandia. It offers them a mobile way to research information about the wildlife, as well as encourage them to walk the tracks and bring themselves closer to the wildlife the sanctuary holds. Because iPhones are extensively popular in New Zealand, I chose to model my app to fit the 320x480 screen dimensions, suited for iPhones. This also allowed me to test the app constantly during the design process as I own an iPhone 3. 

The target audience are people visiting the sanctuary, followed by future visitors, staff, NZ toursists and anyone interested in our native wildlife. This challenged me to create my app for a wide audience range; allowing children, adults and families to engage, learn and enjoy themselves whilst walking around the Zealandia reserve. The layout and colour scheme I chose suits the branding of Zealandia, as seen through their current website and advertising.

I used J Query mobile to create the app, as by default it already mimics the standard iPhone layout. I broke my information into 5 different sections, each one identified by a different icon. This allows different types of user interaction for the different categories, and more freedom for the user to navigate. To re-insure the user knew what page they were on, I added active states to the buttons which would change colour. 

As mobile apps are a reasonably new form of technology and often include interactive methodologies, I decided to create a few of my pages as implications to potential possibilities if more money and time were available. Three main functions these include are the AR map, the produser photo gallery, the live feed web cameras and the QR code awards.

AR map- The augmented reality would work by pin-pointing the user's location with their phones in built GPS. The view through the camera would become altered based on the users co-ordinates and display various locations of wildlife around Zealandia.

Produser photo gallery- Users have the opportunity to produce their own content for the app, by taking photos anywhere within the sanctuary and submitting them to upload to the Zealandia app.

Live feed webcam- The live wildlife nest cameras would operate through cameras placed in weather proof boxes, installed beside the animals nest or feeding area. The Live Cams section of the app would stream this video live.

QR code awards- The QR code rewards would be unlocked by the user as they scan the QR codes placed on information boards around the sanctuary. The QR code scanners would not be built into the app, the users would use a QR scanner app pre-existing on their mobile phone.