Final Project Report

Christian- Know How to Discern App Final Project Report





1. Brief Description:



My Senior Project, "Christian- Know how to Discern App" is an app for iPhone/iPod touch. It serves as a reminder and as a reference tool for youth who have just been converted to becoming a Christian. The project’s concept is to help Christians be aware of their responsibilities and to know what is right and wrong based on Christian moral belief.



My target audience is youth who are between the ages of eighteen to thirty years old because it is easier for members in this age range to buy an iPod Touch/iPhone and the content is also more appropriate for them (please see my final project proposal under target audience for more details).



During the New Media Senior Project course, I was able to set clear goals for this app and create the design and content aspects of this app. Because of the lack of technical skills and limited resources, I was unable to create an actual app during this course, instead, a flash mock-up was created. This project will continue after I graduate when I could get a hold of technical savvy people who possess the skills to create an app.



The App will consist of two main components: design and content. The design of this app is customized to fit the usability for youth (young adults). All content used in this app are/will be taken from “qualified” Reverends and Pastors who have graduated or are part of Christian congregations. (e.g. Professors and Reverends who are teaching in Tyndale College and Seminary; pastors and reverends who have graduated from Tyndale College and Seminary or other qualified schools; and pastors and reverends from different congregations: Baptist, Presbyterian, Alliance, etc).



The final version of the project will be a mock up and flash prototype to show how the app will look and function. There is also an accompanying photo gallery that goes along with this "app", but only the main scenes are shown.



2. Research and Evaluation:



The idea of this project struck me while I was working with “baby Christians”, I can see their challenges and how they are still unsure of what to believe and behave because of the vast information that hits them from different Christian cults when they are on the internet. During first semester when we had to come up with a senior project idea, an idea struck me that religion and technology can be combined, by using technology to transport ideas. I decided to start my research at current apps but unfortunately, I only found a few Christian-related apps, they (the Holy Bible App) were aimed at strong Christians who already have a deep understanding of Christian values, and already understand discernment. And others (Spurgeon’s Daily Help app

), were aimed at reflections rather than discernment.



My next approach was to do research with journal articles related to religion and technology, youth Christianity and community, and Mobile and applications, I took these directions because they relate to my overall theme, I was able to grasp lots of ideas regarding my project from these different articles. From Kong L’s Religion and technology: refiguring place, space, identity and community I was able to view how religion had made use of technology throughout the ages, from Roehlkepartain, Eugene C. and Scales, Peter C. 1995. Youth Development in Congregations: An Exploration of the Potential and Barriers, I learned that youth enjoy communicating with each other, and it is important to have communities in order to have a spiritual growth a development “life”, I decided to add in a forum and questions area on my app in order for users to interact with each other and pastoral bodies. (more info can be found in my final project proposal)



J. Neilson’s survey for Usability for Teens shows adults enjoy scrolling and reading (compared to the teens and kids group), this allows me to put more text on each screen allowing them to scroll more (and with bigger font helping them to see better).



J. Neilson's Usability for Teens


Animation
and

sound effects
Mine sweeping
for links
Advertising Scrolling Reading
Kids
Teens
Adults
Enjoyable, interesting, and appealing, or users can easily adjust to it.
Users might appreciate it to some extent, but overuse can be problematic.
Users dislike it, don't do it, or find it difficult to operate.



A survey was conducted (both verbally and written) towards forty targeted audience to see how they felt about this app. Majority of the group were happy to use this app and provided suggestions and comments to improve the app. (details could be found in the last section of the progress reports).



A short usability test was done as well (using the mockup/prototype and screenshots) to see if there were any problems the targeted users had when using the navigation on the app. Users had no problems with the navigation as the app had a simple interface and used the standard international symbols as icons.



During the final presentation, I had also gotten suggestions from Prof. Leslie Chan and other peers regarding this app. Prof. Leslie Chan suggested that the app should have a liable source so people can reference back to the source, this has been fixed in the alpha version.



Because there is no existing equivalent to the app in this project, it is difficult to evaluate my project’s success with existing apps, but if compared with the goals of the project it is successful in a sense that it has achieved (or has the components to achieve) what was proposed. Users are able to interact with this app and learn from “daily reminders” so they may learn to hold reflections, reminders, and devotion with the statement which would help them be more firm and contain more knowledge on Discerning. This app also provides a small community for users to interact helping them learn and discuss issues as well. The simple interface which is user friendly enables users to use this app easily without having to learn how to “use it”. Moreover, the deliverables proposed have all be been.



3. Methodology:



For this project, I have chosen to create an app to help users conveniently access information to help them as a reference tool. However, due to limited resources and skills, I was unable to create an actual app, instead I created screenshots and a flash mock-up of the design and content (with the help of pastoral staff) of the app to get a sense of how the app would look if it were on an ipod touch/iPhone. In order to enhance the visuals, I put the screen shots in a flash gallery on a website. I also created a mock up with flash to show how the app would work and function if it were in a ipod touch/iPhone.





4. Technical and other Challenges:



The components (design and content) were created using Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Illustrator CS3 to get the desirable design. I found it difficult to make appointments with Reverends and Pastors as they are constantly busy, but after a few weeks of unsuccessful appointments, I managed to get their advice and knowledge for the content pieces.



Technical challenge was another big issue, originally I wanted to create a real app, but after much research I found it much difficult than anticipated, there are certain programs needed to create and apps ran on a different programming language which I am unfamiliar with. While creating a photo gallery, I ran into different problems, I had originally chosen to create a flash photo gallery using Actionscript 3.0, but there problems with certain Actions and buttons, thus, I changed to using MX (which is an older version of Flash coding). But luckily, in the end, I was able to manage creating a photo gallery. On my Prototype, which is also flash-based, I ran into issues with Actionscript 3.0, buttons, movie clips and scenes did not comply with each other, and there were problems with different frames. It took me over five hours to fix errors and solve problems with each scene for the mock-up to finally work. The Mockup/Prototype can create a similar effect to show how the app would look on an iPod Touch/iPhone’s screen.



5. Relations to ePortfolio: link



Both my project and Eportfolio were both designed towards the audience, so there are design aspects in both of them. As I enjoy playing with technological gadgets, my interest is to become a Project Manager in an IT company. Since this senior project used Project Management strategies to complete, all deliverables and milestones were met, I could use this as an achievement on my EPortfolio as an example of project management skills. This project will be put in my visual works to show I could make use of ICTs to spread information different from others as this would prove my ability to keep up with trends to communicate.



6. Relations to New Media



This App has an important place in New Media as it ties the relationship between technology and religion. The rapid pace of technology has left religion abandoned on the most primitive places of New Media, this app is to show church leaders and organizations that Religion is able to pick up speed with New Media so they could make use of New Media as their tool to spread gospels and to create conveniences to communicate with one another and with others (who are not Christians).





7. Future of "Know how to Discern App"



As mentioned, this App is still in progress, there are still technical pieces to be created, I hope this app will progress to becoming a tool available not only to iPhones/iPod Touches but also to other hand held devices (such as: cell phones, Blackberries, etc). I also hope that there will be more functions for this app as well (such as: quizzes for the user every month to test their knowledge on what they read, etc).





8. Bibliography:



Castells M., Fernández–Ardévol M., Jack Linchuan Qiu JL, and Araba Sey A., (2007). Mobile communication and society: a global perspective. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.



Dempsey, L. (2009).Always On: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity. Retrieved from: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0tbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2291/2070.



Geldof, M (2007). Usability and Internationalization. Global and Local User Interfaces. 4560.





Kong, L. (2001). Religion and technology: refiguring place, space, identity and community. The Royal Geographical Society, 33(4), 01-10.



Neilson, J. (2007). Usability of Websites for Teenagers Retrieved from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/teenagers.html



Roehlkepartain, Eugene C. and Scales, Peter C. 1995. Youth Development in Congregations: An Exploration of the Potential and Barriers. Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute.



Santiago, L. (2009). Bible Verses (free) (Version 1.01) [application]. Available from the Apple iTunes App store.



Smith, Christian and Melinda Denton. 2005. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. NY: Oxford University Press.



Smith, Christian 2003. “Religious Participation and Parental Moral Expectations and Supervision of American Youth.” Review of Religious Research 44: 414-424.



Spurgeon, C. (2009). 43rd Element, LLC: Daily Help Devotional. (version 1.2.4) [application]. Available from the Apple iTunes App store.



Unknown developer, (2008). Webworks and Applications: Go Green (Version 1.01) [application]. Available from the Apple iTunes App store.



Unknown developer, (2009). Webworks and Applications: 9500+ Cool Facts (Version 1.0) [application]. Available from the Apple iTunes App store



9. websites:



ALPHA VERSION: Mock up/Prototype: http://individual.utoronto.ca/stephanie_ng/flash_gallery/ChristianAppPrototype_Interact.swf

the prototype is functional and works like an app so a user can interact with it, a user may play with this to get a feel of how the app works (except for: forums and questions section, all sections work) (click on the app icon to advance into the app)



screenshots: http://individual.utoronto.ca/stephanie_ng/flash_gallery/photogallery.swf

screenshots walks you through the app, as how a user would use it to interact, please press the next button (located on the lower right corner) to advance to a new scene.

Stephanie Ng- Final Project Report
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