mtimofiiv.net - portfolio - pacific national exhibition iphone application

The Application

Overview

The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) is a recurring fair in Vancouver. They have been around 100 years (as of 2010), and as such needed some new ways to help reconnect with some of their target audience, now more tech savvy than their counterparts last century. The idea of an iPhone application was devised, which could allow people with iPhones to get not only updates about the PNE but also be able to view what attractions are on at that moment, as well as read up on any events or other news items the PNE would like the customers to know.

They needed an app where all its content could be changed at any time without requiring updates from the App Store. So, the whole app had to be built as a "client" kind of app where it preloaded all the data from the PNE's servers each start up.

What I Did

My work on the app began at the very beginning, when the idea was first pitched to the client. It then needed all the usual steps that any project requires, and as the only iPhone developer avaliable for it, I was tasked with planning, design, production and quality assurance, all from beginning to the end. At that point I had only a brief glimpse into making applications on the iPhone, but any frustrations I may have had were soon solved, as work steadily progressed.

During the planning phase, I had to design an interface for the app to be interacted with, which would make it easy to access the features as well as include everything in the small 320x480 pixel screen. Wireframes were produced, as well as interaction maps and design mockups.

After that, raw production began. I coded the whole app from scratch, as well as a PHP based "dashboard" for the PNE's employees to be able to easily modify the app's data. This, like the app itself had to be both branded and usable by anyone.

From this the quality assurance began, as I had to hunt for bugs, which most certainly would exist.

How & What

• Wireframes and Interaction Maps in OmniGraffle
• Design in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
• App code in Xcode, using the NibleKit framework
• Coda for making the Dasboard's code
• Custom XML database with XSLT for organization

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