Course: Mobile Application Design and Development
Goals: Use iBeacon platform to design/develop a mobile app that delivers location-aware notifications for events, classes, and even homework.
Credits: Special thanks to Yinzcam for their support of the course and the Pittsburgh Penguins and Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital for their time!

CarnegieHERE is a multi-platform application created a small team of interdisciplinary students. My specific role on the project was focused on UI/UX design as well as content creation.

Our first moves as a team were to decide on the scope of users and features our campus-directed app would support. One problem we ran into here was balancing all the ideas we wanted like food payments and messaging/comments versus what we could reasonably complete within a semester. Once these limitations were understood, we quickly moved to map out our users (prospective students, current students, and alumni) and workflows and wireframes for the different functions of the app.

Parallel to this process, I began developing designs for icons, layouts, and the overall aesthetic of the app. One problem I ran into was maintaining standards across different icons and pages between the several designers we had. We successfully patched that problem by frequently working in person and keeping files updated as needed on Github and Slack.

By semester’s end, our team had a polished app that helps students learn more about their college’s history/lectures/seminars/festivities that could be exportable to both iOS and Android (we discovered that the Android userbase on campus more than necessitated this). With iBeacon’s ease of use and scalability, we included dozens of memorable campus locations and traditions like buggy racing to be experienced through your phone.

Lessons Learned:

Be reasonable within your means, whether they are funding, time, or manpower
Be responsive to other perspectives in order to upgrade your own.