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Project Idea



Project Name: Wildlife Spotter


Format: Smart Phone App



Overview


This application will help eco-tourism and wildlife conservation. With a user-generated account people are encouraged to take and upload pictures of their wildlife encounters in their local environment or holiday destinations. These pictures are date stamped and geolocated for the user community to view and react to. Informative content can be found on particular species to an area for possible on-the-spot identification, along with contacts to the nearest wildlife rescue services in the area of visitation. Eco-tourism-based advertising would drive the commercial viability of the application with suggestions made for accommodation, tours, restaurants and other activities for the user to view, with the latest content added or from a tagged map for general browsing and exploration.



Motivation


Several factors have added to the need for an application as we are proposing.


Description


New users would be greeted with an engaging landing page that leads to a registration form and invites them to create a unique wildlife avatar. The application would need permission to access the phone’s camera, photos and Global Positioning System (GPS) data with a disclaimer about user privacy.


New users would be given an optional quick tutorial about how to use the app with a text window version or a video overview to highlight key features. After the user has finished/skipped the tutorial they end up on their dashboard page with some options such as profile update, Gallery, etc.


The dashboard will display their animal avatar, username (real or otherwise), their wildlife interests and their gaming stats to date, as well as any news updates. They can connect, compare and interact with other members through Spotters, Spots and Spotties. Spotters are other members that they can follow and be followed by. Spots are the number and variety of animals they have captured with their cameras. Spotties are the equivalent of a like, in the form of an animal emoji used to encourage and support other users.


Spotters can be sourced in a couple of ways. New uploaded content of other Spotters will be featured on a member’s dashboard as a rotating slide show, with the ability to add Spotter follows. The other way is based on their preferences in their profile selections, suggestions will be made to them each week. Spot categories will be broken into some basic groupings like Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Insects, Amphibians, Fish & Crustaceans and Other.


A camera button, when pushed, brings up a framing page that captures the animal picture when actioned. Users will need to tag their wildlife picture with a generic animal grouping that will have an alphabetical suggestion/selection list in the tag field to aid users. Upon selection, a more specific identification scroll bar with species photos and a more info tab will come up. This identification bar will be specific to the area the user is in based on their geolocation from GPS data. There will also be an option for ‘not sure’ or ‘cannot identify’. Other users will then have the opportunity to help identify the photo. A ‘spotted’ button will be used to add the photo to the server/database to be included in a nationwide map.


Once registered the app allows users to take photos of wildlife in their backyard using the camera phone.  The photos are used to identify the animal & the user earns a “Card/Sticker” for each animal they collect.  As part of gamifying the experience users earn rewards as they collect more animals  and can compete against their friends to earn badges.


picture of wildlife spotter badges

Application advertising would be placed on the dashboard interspersed between new uploaded contact and on the Australia-wide tagged map as members are browsing various parts of the map with options to find out more information that links them to direct website and booking sites.  



Tools and Technologies


Wire-frame software

The challenge for finding wire-framing software/ tools is an application that is available to some or all members of ‘Fully Developed’. There are many products on offer for this type of work, but many are paid for versions that have short trial periods or restricted access with their free offering. Two free options that might be good to work with are ‘Justinmind’ and ‘Pencil Project’. Paid versions with workable free trials options are ‘Adobe XD’, considered an industry standard, and ‘Figma’ is a popular platform also. Brief descriptions are included below.


Justinmind

This is a free downloadable tool that allows control over visual design elements, web interactions and mobile gestures in the simulated prototype. It contains an instant preview feature as you design. The viewer allows simulation testing on iPhone, iPad and Android devices (Justinmind, 2021). You can export the prototype as an interactive HTML file. It has pre-installed UI kits for iOS and Android that are regularly updated(Webflow, 2021).


Pencil Project

This is an open-source and totally free downloadable application or as a Firefox extension with support from an active open-source community. The extension is an older version that is not actively supported (Hufford 2021). It has easy GUI prototyping, built-in shape collection, diagram drawing support, inter-page linking and projects can be exported in a variety of file formats, such as PDF, PNG, SVG and webpage amongst others (Pencil Project, 2021).


Adobe XD

An Adobe product that works seamlessly with other ‘Creative Cloud’ products. Comes with a full suite of easy-to-use prototyping tools. Requires an Adobe subscription to access full functionality. However, it comes in a free version with limitations (Webflow 2021).


Figma

This is a paid-for web-based design and wireframing app with a generous free trial offer that allows for work on up to 3 projects with two editors at any one time (Hufford 2021). It doesn’t have pre-installed IU kits, but it allows you to upload your own. Design elements are easily created in one panel with an uncomplicated workflow. The prototypes can be previewed on different mobile screen sizes and access to individual elements allows the export of CSS code (Webflow, 2021). The first paid tier is free for students who have a valid email address (Hufford 2021). ‘Figma stands out as a powerful cloud-based alternative to tools like Sketch and XD’ (Myre, 2021, para. 1).


Graphic design software


Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is the industry leading image manipulation software. Adobe Photoshop could be useful in our project for creating “mock-ups for the front end of our website or app” (Edelmayer, 2019). This would enable us to have a clear idea of the layout of our website or app and get agreement from everybody on exactly what we are building. Another potential Adobe tool that could be useful is Adobe Dreamweaver, even if not using Dreamweaver's webpage generation functionality this could also be a useful tool for rapid prototyping of the layout and content of the site.


Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a useful tool for “high precision designs” (Adobe, n.d.), it allows for the creation of “vector graphics” (Adobe Illustrator, n.d.) which allows for scalability and greater control over the graphics that have been created for the website and app. Adobe Illustrator also has typography tools that could help us in the creation of an aesthetically pleasing website. This tool would also allow us to have “faster file opening, improved effects, simplified vector paths and freeform gradients” (Adobe Illustrator, n.d.) and this would allow for better control over the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of our website and app.


Gimp

Gimp is compatible across many platforms including GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and more. It is a free, open-source image editor GIMP has customizable options as well as 3rd party plugins. Not only does it allow for “high-quality photo manipulation” (Gimp, n.d.) but it also allows for original artwork creation. The graphic design elements would be particularly useful for our project as it could allow us to create things such as “icons, graphical design elements and art for user interface (UI) components and mock-ups” (Gimp, n.d.). This would be useful as it would enhance the visual elements of our webpage and app.


Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform that could allow us to create visual design elements for our webpage and app it allows us to create logos, templates and charts. Canva also has photo editing features, palette generating features and font combinations to help with styling a webpage or app (Canva, n.d.).


Presentation Software


Adobe Premier Pro

Adobe Premier Pro is a timeline-based video editor originally launched in 2003 and is geared towards professional video editors. It supports high-resolution video editing as well as professional level tools for audio. It supports Windows and Mac and costs $20.99 a month or $239.88 annually.


Davinci Resolve

Davinci resolve is free allowing you to use the program in almost its entirety but puts some things behind a pay wall, these features are however much higher end. For instance the free version allows you to export media at 4K resolution while the paid version allows up to 32K resolution. Another thing is performance, while the free version allows some GPU acceleration when plaything things back rendering is still done on the CPU while paying for it allows full utilization of the GPUs allowing for rendering to also be done through it instead of the CPU. Overall, the version in which you pay for isn’t a necessity and the free version would work fantastically without paying a cent.


iMovie

iMovie is a free editor that is only available inside the Apple ecosystem allowing it to be used on the iMac, iPhone and iPad. With iMovie you can create professional looking videos without an editing degree. Easily add photos and videos to your projects, trim clips with your finger and add seamless transitions and fade audio like a pro” (Apple, 2021).


Openshot Video Editor

This is a completely free open-source project that has cross-platform functionality (Linux, Mac and Windows) and supports a variety of video and audio file formats. It allows for use of unlimited tracks and layers, with a range of video effects, such as transitions, speed changes and frame accuracy editing, plus other, along audio mixing and editing features (Openshot, 2021).


Client-Side Technologies


Angular, React and Vue

Front-End Languages we could use are Angular, React and Vue which are JavaScript single application frameworks (Huspi, 2019). This would be useful because it would allow us to make use of Apache Cordova or similar frameworks to produce mobile applications across both Android and iPhone, as well as a web application if desired. Thus, eliminating the issue of needing to develop the same application multiple times. (Cordova, n.d.). Apache Cordova also makes it easier to use common web-technologies such as JavaScript and HTML (Cordova, n.d.).


Project Management Tools (Kanban Boards, Version Control, Issue tracker)


Project management tools including an issue tracker could allow us to keep track of identifying and resolving any issues in the “life cycle of the project” (Mind Tools, n.d.).


Local Development Environments and Development Servers


Local development environments such as VS Code, Atom as well as Development Servers such as Xampp or npm server packages would allow us to check our work locally while we are developing, and it could allow us to test what we are creating. Having a development environment is important as it could allow us to deploy the final project with minimal bugs and would allow our team to reach our goals for the project on time (Holland, 2017).


Data Base Software Platforms


MySQL, Google Firebase, AWS Dynamo DB. Having these database software platforms allows us to store data securely.



Server-Side Technologies


Visual Recognition Software

The software listed below would enable our group to easily make use of image recognition and machine learning software without developing it ourselves from scratch all we would need to do is call the end points associated with that service using our own back-end service such as AWS Lambda or something similar.




Back-End Languages (Python, Node.js)


Back-End Languages- Python, or Node.js (The advantage of these languages is that they are the most compatible with serverless or microservices, or a microservices based technology.) The benefit of using serverless compatible languages is that it could allow for quicker deployments and updates, decreased latency, greater scalability, lower development costs (Cloudflare, n.d.).The major cloud vendors such as AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, Azure functions all have some level of Python support and are examples of microservices based architecture. (Full Stack Phyton, n.d.)


Security Features



Skills Required




Outcome


What will be the outcome?

The outcome will be a phone app that works across both Apple and Android devices. It will be free to download from the respective app stores and will include advertising and sponsorship content that will make the application commercially viable. The application will be a way for users to get in touch with their natural environment and be more willing to explore what lives in them. The application will foster a community of like-minded people, with the ability to share and learn from others. Users will then be motivated and aided to plan and book their next wildlife adventure to explore the wonders of this great country.


How will the original problem be solved?

This application will promote greater awareness of Australia’s unique wildlife and the environments that they live in, as well as the pressures they are facing from human induced climate change and development. It will be an active way that users can become responsible tourists and help in the collection of data about wildlife, Australia wide. It will provide a strong platform to promote tourism and more specifically eco-tourism to people coming out of severe lockdowns and restrictions in most cases, from the pandemic.


What impact will this development have?

This application would allow users to interact with wildlife, helping them to understand their natural environment better, as well as a resource for learning and a way to contribute to environmental monitoring. It will provide resources for people who have found injured wildlife, which would help in the greater success of recovery for those animals. It would promote Australian tourism in a more engaging way, and it could be scaled up to become a world wildlife explorer’s application.



Reference List