Day 16: Monday

Today's progress report. The archieve of all of Regent Street is almost complete now. All files are JPEG and have a resolution of 2181,2981. Information on the format and attributes I'll be using for the actual map can be found on my Google Docs at this address: https://docs.google.com/a/my.westminster.ac.uk/Doc?id=dhb4f2gv_03ckwgzf4&hl=en

Day 14 + 15: Thursday and Friday

Here's a little update from the other day.

Day 12 + 13: Tuesday and Wednesday

Here is Cavendish campus, floor 3. It has stairs, lifts and toilets highlighted.

Day 11: Monday

Monday, I brought up the remaining floor plans for Regent street and did a good hours work on them. Enough to highlight the stairs on one floor plan (it's a long process) then went off to Cavendish once I knew I'd get off-peak rate on the tube. Went in, picked up the floor plans from Cathy, so kindly provided by Andrew and had a chat to Roger. Came home and got on with doing the floor plans for a bit. Then I spent some time looking into learning methods that could be integrated into blackboard apps, maybe a mind map making tool that can be used in lectures by students with iPhones, Blackberrys or laptops. I watched a video by David Gauntlett about creative learning methods involving lego that I thought might be useful to this idea. It was!

Day 8 + 9 + 10: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

Day 8, Wednesday I spent the day at the mixing and mashing event at Cavendish where we mostly discussed other app ideas and the implimentation of them into the Blackboard systems. I thought about more app ideas. I came up with some good stuff.

Day 9, Thursday was spent meeting with friends of mine who are programmers and have potential to do some work on the project. I met both people seperately, one in London, one in Harrow. I discussed with them the prospect of programming the app both for the Blackboard environment and for iPhones and iPod touch. Niether of them had heard of the programming language that Alex had told me about the day before called 'Objective C'. Though one of my two mates had worked with C++ before which is in some ways similar. Came home and brainstormed on the ideas I came up with at mixing and mashing.

Day 10, Friday I spent the morning researching what current Web tools are avaliable and related to the new apps I had in mind. In the afternoon I did some designing work on alternate apps other than the campus maps. Also had a look on the internet at logos for similar type maps.

Day 7: Tuesday

Tuesday, I spent most of the day sorting out the maps on photoshop. Having spoken to Alex I know that the other layers can be added onto the map image afterwards and with different levels of transparency. So as soon as I have the other campus maps I can decided upon a uniform image resolution so all the image files are identical in size.

 

I finished the maps for the 4th, 5th and sub-basement floors today.

I got in touch with two potential programmers and have arranged meetings relating to the creation of the ideas I have. One of the meetings is on thursday.

I used the last hour of the day to brainstorm ideas for Mixing and Mashing tomorrow. I've got 4 decent ideas for mixing and mashing tomorrow. I'm determined to (and will) win at least one of the prize catagories.

Day 6: Monday

This morning I spent sometime in Cavendish answering emails and chasing up Estates on the maps for the other 3 campus'. After this I went to Regent campus to check out a few things that the map was unclear about. Getting round the campus was a NIGHTMARE! Even with a map, it's got a very complicated layout. I made a few notes about where there are unmarked steps, which gender the bathrooms are for and places that are decpite looking simple completely inaccessible.

Got home and continued to add layers to the map of the 4th floor and also do all the basement floor.

Day 5: Friday

Friday, odd working hours today. Started early, finished late but had lots of breaks in between. This morning I perfected how the format of the tools would look on the map itself. I completed the 6th floor of Regent and now have the specifications I need for the rest of the floors and indeed: campus'.

The following functions are currently avaliable:

• Large/small print room numbers (and additional information)
• Highlight stairs
• Highlight lifts
• Hightlight toilets
• Hearing Induction loop locations
• Tinted background (for dyslexic users)

By the time this is completed:

• I want it to be functional on iPhones
• Touch sensative map movement
• Have a search box for room numbers
• Easily select campus and floor
• Have a live lift service feed

In the late afternoon I returned to Harrow campus to use the AutoCAD software once more to get ALL my floorplans identically layed out. No doors to be visible (on the zoomed out mode there is just FAR too much details for doors to be on the map) and everything to be in black and white. No room numbers or writing of any kind except whether the stairs go up or down.

Day 4: Thursday

Thursday, a good half hour of the morning was wasted on a wild goose chase trying to find out who could tell me where to find the IT people that could then tell me where to find the software I required. I had to then get a new sign on for the School of Computer science department.

It has given me an idea that could lead into the makings of a good app with mash-ups of database and possibly even maps. An app that would a member of Westminster could use to identify where to find computers with the desired software they require, which campus to find it, how many computers have it and possibly the room's location on a floorplan map.

The morning I spent figuring out how to use AutoCAD and then getting the desired format of map for the app. Basically it mean making everything monochrome and removing unnecisary data. I made all the maps into large scale PDF's to work on later.

In the afternoon I got on editing them on Photoshop and making new layers for the stairs, lifts and bathroom highlighting. The layers can be saved as individual images and layered on in the programming stage of the project. Also I sent an email to David Gauntlett about mentoring.

Day 3: Wednesday

Wednesday, Andrew came through with the maps for Regent. I spent most of the morning inputting all the room numbers onto a Google document spreadsheet so it can be eventually turned into an RSS feed with co-ordinates for the search function. As well as this I sent an email to Brunel University asking for their floor plans and telling them about the project. I experimented with the colours on the on one of the images of Regent. Unfortunately I'll still need to use AutoCAD because the maps in .JPG or .PDF are covered in writing. This I can sort out tomorrow.

Day 1 + 2: Monday and Tuesday

Monday I discussed the project and showed my ideas and mock-up design of the accessibility map app to the team. As maps of the campus' weren't readily avaliable I spent most of the day conducting research and getting in contact with relevent people relating to Westminster. I decided on adding a search function to the map tool allowing users to search for specific rooms on the campus. As well as that, as a result of being in touch with the disability team I decided to add a tool showing where to find 'Hearing Induction Loops' on campus and toggling the background colour (for dyslexic users). I investigated API's also.

Tuesday I spent two hours sending further emails to members of the facilty before heading home to continue work there. After being in touch with Andrew Geehan I was told I'd have the maps I needed soon. While the maps were not avaliable to me I could only continue my research and work on design aspects and other app ideas I had. One of the apps I had in mind was a calender thats touch screen compatible that links in with module RSS feeds highlighting assessment dates and course data.

Project: Accessibility map

My project I hope to produce is an accessibility map for the 4 campus' of Westminster university. By the end of this project I hope to have workable and navigatable maps for all 4 campus' and also another university campus (to prove that this design is an exportable format usable in other places). The app should be runnable on the Wmin intranet system and also mobile devices. My big plan is to have it up and running on a touch screen device such as an iPhone.