The idea behind my app was to view historic figures from a different angle. Not to learn about them through a dusty old school book but rather to get information about them in a bite-sized fashion and be presented with a location for each event. A second aim was to view their lifes journey in relation to other people who had a significant impact on the world. That is why I ultimately centered the app around Apple Maps to visualize said data.
A further idea was to bring the joy of stumbling upon an unknown landmark to the 21st century. Personally I would never walk through Zurich simply to see where Einstein had studied. However, were I to happen to walk past Zurich University, I would like to know Einstein had studied there, and then have the possibility to learn more about him and his connection with the place. Location tracking has enabled me to set virtual fences around landmarks; once a user then crosses one of these fences, he is notified about his encounter with a historic person and can learn about the relationship between the location and the person.
A superb enhancement to this kind of random encounter was the Apple watch. The encounter is shown on the watch with not only a view of the location but also a summary of what happened there. The user is notified and within seconds they have leant something new about the place where they currently find themselves.
The inclusion of 3D touch when selecting the historic person the user wants to learn more about has led to the user being able to track or untrack that person in an instant and has furthered the usability and user experience. The app also takes full advantage of Landscape mode
The biggest problem I encountered was with the Apple Watch simulator.It often did not behave like the the real device. For example, the Watch simulator sometimes simply did not render the map and thus I was unable to test my implementation. On the actual device however it worked perfectly.
The addition of historic events to the app would be the first thing I would implement next. For example, I could add the story of the American Revolution with the same kind of timeline design currently used for the people in the app. This addition would enable the user to walk through important historical events with the same ease of use and map visualisation that has been used for the historic people.
“Tourist mode” would be another exciting idea.The user would be able to get notified about his encounter based on location instead of people. If someone were to visit a different city or country they could be notified not only when they are approaching a historic event or person they are currently tracking but also when they approach any kind of historic event or person in the city or country they are currently visiting.
Thank you for your for your time. I hope you enjoy discovering my app as much as I did developing it. The bibliography to my app can be found here : http://ow.ly/4ngSys