After a few weeks of creating mockups, proposals, ideas, and hammering out some details, the Android team of the Santa Clara Valley Wine Association mobile application have a general gist of the velocity and direction that the application will go in. Here I will describe a few technical things that may be involved in the mobile application's implementation. The goal here is to help any potential clients and users of the application in case they are not well-versed in mobile applications or technology in general.
We first must acknowledge what the average user traffic will be. First off, the people who will be visiting wine associations must be at the very least of a legal age to consume alcohol. Unfortunately this also means a large number of people who are natively born into using technology will be ruled out. Fortunately the ones who do go on wine trails will be of age and will have money to spare. Having money is, of course, unrelated to technical understandings but it is not an uncommon association to relate a good source of income with a good smartphone. So we can safely say that this blog is targeted towards those who have smartphones and are not accustomed to mobile applications but also have a good income. Perhaps not the most eloquent way of describing for whom this blog will be for but I digress.
In Google Maps API 3, mapping solutions for a consumer is a common and key ingredient in web development. (Svennerberg) Another common feature in is social bookmarking. It is bread and butter in this industry to include a select variety of features in an application. (Alexander) Google Maps for mapping solutions and social media. Currently the social media that is most common is Facebook but it is not out of the ordinary for apps that ask if the information input is to be shared via Twitter, Instagram, or other forms of social media.
In order for the client to fully understand the uses of the application, they will have to be come comfortable with not only using their smartphones but additionally comfortable enough to use Google Maps in a mobile environment. This is more common these days when people use their smartphones and its GPS to navigate through unknown terrain. To get the full user experience and to broaden the application's user field we would also include a way to bond with social media.
The best way is to start by using the Google Maps application to navigate yourself to an area that perhaps is nearby. This will help users get accustomed to how the application works before trying to use the API inside a different user interface. If the user has not already used Facebook, another way to acclimate users would be to get a social media account and also use the smartphone application. Facebook can be a tricky and wily jungle for the social media illiterate but it is a powerful tool to connect with people. Facebook, however, like the technological landscape, is always changing. The application itself is never really the same after a few months. Facebook is known for constantly changing and updating the application. Many a time was there when users would complain because of unfamiliarity with an updated interface to only realize the potency and power of it a few weeks later. It is best to sort of "suck things up" and hammer into your brain the new features.
Once the users get used to these sorts of applications will using their respective features in the upcoming wine app will they be able to fully utilize everything.
Svennerberg, G. (2010). Introducing the Google Maps API. In Beginning Google Maps API 3 (3rd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1-3). New York, New York: Apress.
Alexander, B. (2006, April 1). Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? Retrieved October 14, 2015.
