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Emilio
Problem 2: The students at Los Andes University who lose personal belongings on campus often need to physically visit the Lost and Found office without knowing whether their item has already been recovered. The current process also provides limited ways to report lost items, receive updates, and securely verify the identity of the person claiming an item. This creates unnecessary trips, uncertainty, and inefficient record keeping for both students and university staff.
Here I am going to briefly present myself, the purpose of the interview and ask for permission to use the recording.
| Question | Purpose |
|---|---|
| ¿Como te llamas, qué estudias y cuánto tiempo llevas en la Universidad? | Get to know about who the interviewee is and how much knowledge/experience he has in the university. |
| Question | Purpose |
|---|---|
| ¿Alguna vez has perdido algún objeto en la Universidad? | Identify whether the interviewee has experienced the problem being investigated. |
| ¿Cuéntame que ocurrió al principio de la situación? | Understand the context in which the item was lost and how the situation started. |
| ¿Qué fue lo primero que hiciste cuando te diste cuenta? ¿Por qué? | Understand the interviewee’s initial reaction and the reasoning behind their first action. |
| ¿Cómo supiste que debías ir a la oficina de Objetos Encontrados? (If they tell me they went to the Lost items office) |
Understand how the interviewee learned about the Lost and Found service, where to go, and how difficult it is to find it. |
| ¿Cuál fue el proceso para poder sacar el objeto perdido? | Understand the step-by-step process of retrieving an item in the office. |
| ¿Aproximadamente cuánto tiempo en total paso durante el proceso? | Estimate how much time and effort the current lost-and-found process requires from the user. |
| Question | Purpose |
|---|---|
| ¿Cuál crees que fue la parte del proceso que funciono mejor? | Identify positive aspects of the current process that should be preserved. |
| ¿Cuál crees que fue la parte del proceso que funciono peor? | Identify the main pain points and opportunities for improvement in the current process. |
| Question | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Si antes de ir físicamente pudieras conocer qué objetos han llegado a Objetos Encontrados, ¿en qué situaciones te habría servido y en cuáles no? | Evaluate the usefulness and limitations of remotely checking which items have arrived at the Lost and Found office. |
| Si al perder un objeto pudieras dejar registrada su descripción, lugar y momento aproximado de pérdida, ¿qué información estarías dispuesto y serías capaz de proporcionar? | Determine what information users could realistically provide when reporting a lost item. |
| ¿qué tan importante era para ti saber que existía un control sobre quién podía llevárselo? ¿Por qué? | Understand how important identity and ownership verification are to users when retrieving lost items. |
| ¿En qué momento crees que tendría sentido que la Universidad se pusiera en contacto contigo respecto al objeto y qué información esperarías recibir? | Understand when users would find notifications useful and what information they would expect to receive. |
- Interviewer: Emilio Zea Martinez
- Interviewee: Mateo Rincon Zarrate
- Date: August 11, 2026
- Duration: 6 min 27 s
- Context: Interview for the Mobile Application Development class about the Lost and Found process at the university.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 0:04
Hola yo soy Emilio Zea y bueno, la entrevista que le quiero hacer es para mi clase de construcción de aplicaciones móviles. Simplemente estamos buscando a estudiantes que se le hayan perdido algún objeto dentro de la universidad y un poco tratar de entender cómo es todo el proceso que pasa para recuperarlos.
No nos importa si el proceso está bien o mal. Acá pues lo importante es cómo es el proceso y qué pasa.
Si quiere, por favor, cuente su nombre, cuánto tiempo lleva en la universidad y qué estudia.
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 0:42
Bueno, yo soy Mateo Rincón, este es mi noveno semestre, estoy en Ingeniería de Sistemas e Ingeniería Industrial.
Una vez se perdió, o sea, dos cosas: una vez el cargador de mi computador y otra vez la calculadora.
Y pues lo que pasó es que cuando fui al lugar de los objetos perdidos, afortunadamente mi cargador sí estaba, pero mi calculadora no. Fueron momentos separados, pero la vez que fui por mi calculadora no estaba, así que me tocó ir recurrentemente a buscar la calculadora hasta que por fin la encontré.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 1:23
Cuando a usted se le perdió el objeto, vamos a concentrarnos en la calculadora. ¿Qué fue lo primero que hizo? ¿Qué fue lo primero que pensó?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 1:36
Lo primero que hice fue hablar con mis amigos, sobre todo con los que había estado en el día, preguntarles si tenían mi calculadora o si la habían visto.
Al darme cuenta que no, al siguiente día fui al lugar de objetos perdidos.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 1:53
¿Se le hizo fácil encontrar el lugar?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 1:57
No realmente. Hoy en día creo que uno solo puede encontrar el lugar de objetos perdidos si le pregunta a los amigos, a alguien que ya sepa o a un monitor.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 2:09
Cuando ya fue, usted me dijo que una vez que fue no lo tenían de una vez. ¿Cómo fue todo ese proceso? Cuando llegó a la ventanilla de objetos perdidos, ¿cómo comenzó ese proceso?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 2:22
Yo llegué y dije: "Hola, se me perdió una calculadora".
La persona que estaba atendiendo el lugar de los objetos perdidos empieza a preguntar de qué tamaño, de qué marca y otras características.
Si encuentra una que coincida con lo que uno describe, te la muestra y pregunta si esa es la tuya.
En mi caso no estaba y me tocó seguir yendo los siguientes días para encontrarla.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 2:52
Pero al final sí la encontró, ¿cierto?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 2:56
Sí.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 2:57
Cuando ya fue y estaba ahí, ¿cómo fue ese proceso de sacarla y que verificaran que efectivamente era suya?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 3:06
Fue algo muy humano.
Realmente solo me decía de qué color era, dónde se perdió, porque ellos al parecer marcan con una cinta dónde se perdió.
Entonces preguntan para que uno no se invente que se le perdió, sino que coincida con la descripción.
Eso es como el factor de autenticación para garantizar que uno sí recupere lo suyo.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 3:32
Cuando lo sacó, ¿le pidieron firmar algo? Es decir, algo como "yo, Mateo, lo saqué" o algo así.
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 3:38
No.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 3:40
¿Sabe más o menos cuánto tiempo le tomó todo el proceso?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 3:50
Desde que se perdió pasó una semana y lo encontré solo hasta finales de la siguiente semana.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 4:00
¿Y el proceso más concreto de cuando ya estaba ahí para sacarlo?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 4:10
Tomó unos minutos mientras la persona que estaba atendiendo me hacía unas preguntas, pero realmente cuando estaba ahí no fue un gran problema.
El problema fue ir recurrentemente a buscar.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 4:28
¿Cuál cree que fue la parte que mejor funcionó de todo el proceso?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 4:34
La parte que mejor funciona, yo diría que es meramente la recogida, solo recogerlo y ya.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 4:41
¿Y la que peor funciona?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 4:47
La que peor funciona, yo creo que es el proceso de que alguien encuentre el objeto perdido y que llegue a los objetos perdidos, y uno no tener ni idea de la situación del objeto.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 5:01
Si usted tuviera una forma de saber si su objeto ya se hubiera encontrado, ¿cree que le hubiera servido bastante en vez de tener que ir recurrentemente a averiguar si estaba ahí o no?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 5:21
Sí, definitivamente sería una gran ayuda.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 5:26
¿Qué tanta información estaría dispuesto a proporcionar sobre su objeto perdido?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 5:34
Pues en un objeto como una calculadora daría toda la información posible para poder encontrarla.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 5:42
¿Qué tan importante es para usted saber quién saca, o que la universidad sepa quién saca los objetos de objetos perdidos? ¿Considera que es importante?
Mateo Rincon Zarrate – 5:56
Me parece importante.
Emilio Zea Martinez – 6:01
Listo, muchas gracias por la entrevista.
Aquí la finalizamos. Gracias por contarnos su experiencia.
In the interview I talked with Mateo Rincon, which is a 9th semester student of Industrial and Systems and computing Engineering in the University of Los Andes. He told me how he has lost 2 items in the university, separately, a charger and his calculator and how for the calculator he had to go multiple times to the lost items office, while for the charger he only had to go a single time.
Then we went deeper on his calculator case and kind of the step by step of the retrieval process. Mateo commented that, at first, he tried to ask all his friends if they had seen it, but when they told him that no one had seen the calculator, he decided to go the next day to the lost item office of the university. He also told me that finding this office wasn't easy and that it is very probable that someone looking for it has to ask another person for its location. Once Mateo was in the office, he had to describe the object characteristics (size, color, brand,etc) and where he thought it was left. The person in charge of the office then proceeded to physically search for an object with those characteristics, and the first time he went to the calculator wasn't there. Because of this, Mateo had to go the next couple of days asking if it was in the office. Finally, when they had it, he described the retrieving process as simple and fast since he only had to give the items characteristics verbally and, as long as he knew, no registry of who took out the item was kept.
In the last part of the interview, I asked a couple of his opinions on the process to which Mateo told me that it was fast, except for the times he had to go multiple times to see if his calculator was there. Also, he felt that there is a lack of information regarding who takes out an item and this may be concerning in some situations. Additionally, he said that having a way to know if your object is already on the lost items office would have been of great help and that he would be willing to provide as much information of the object as possible to make this happen.
| Situation | What? | How? | Why? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mateo tries to locate his calculator after realizing that he lost it at the University. | He first asks the friends he had been with during the day whether they had seen or accidentally taken the calculator. After confirming that they did not have it, he goes to the Lost and Found office the following day. | He wants to recover the calculator and starts with the people most likely to know what happened to it before looking for help through the University’s Lost and Found service. |
| 2 | Mateo looks for the University’s Lost and Found office to search for his calculator. | He relies on friends or other people who already know where the office is, since he finds the location difficult to discover on his own. | He needs to reach the service where lost items are stored, but the lack of easily accessible information about its location makes the process less straightforward. |
| 3 | Mateo repeatedly visits the Lost and Found office because his calculator is not there during his first visit. | During each consultation, he describes characteristics such as the calculator’s size and brand so the staff can look for a matching item and show it to him. Since there is initially no match, he returns on subsequent days until the calculator finally appears. | He has no way of knowing whether the calculator has been found or delivered to Lost and Found without physically checking again. Mateo identifies this uncertainty and the need to return repeatedly as the main problem with the current process. |
| 4 | Mateo claims his calculator once it is available at the Lost and Found office. | The staff asks him to identify details such as its color and where he lost it, comparing his answers with information attached to the item. This verbal verification is used to determine whether the calculator belongs to him, and he is not required to sign anything when taking it. | He needs to demonstrate some information about the calculator to show that it is actually his before being allowed to take it. He also considers it important that the University has control over who removes items from Lost and Found, showing a need for reliable ownership and identity verification. |
Business Question (Type 3): How long does the application take to register a new lost or found item report?
performanceMetrics stores one measurement for each successful report registration. Each record includes the reportType (lost or found), the registration duration in milliseconds, the platform, and the time when the metric was recorded.
When a student submits a valid Lost or Found report, the application uses ReportRegistrationPerformanceTracker to wrap the complete registration operation. The measurement starts immediately before the backend registration begins and ends after Firestore confirms that the report was successfully created.
The measured operation includes obtaining the device location and writing the report to the corresponding Firestore collection, lostReports or foundItems.
Each successful measurement is stored in the Cloud Firestore collection performanceMetrics.
The stored fields are:
metricType: "report_registration"-
reportType: "lost"or"found" platform: "flutter"durationMsrecordedAt
Only successful registrations generate a measurement.
ReportRegistrationTimeAggregationService reads the valid report_registration measurements from performanceMetrics.
It separates the samples by report type and calculates:
- Overall average registration time
- Number of successful registrations
- Average Lost report registration time
- Number of Lost samples
- Average Found report registration time
- Number of Found samples
The aggregated result is stored in analytics/reportRegistrationTime.
The Analytics Dashboard includes the ReportRegistrationTimePanel.
The panel displays the overall average registration time, the separate averages for Lost and Found reports, and the number of successful samples used in the calculation.
Staff users can refresh the analytics to recalculate the values using the most recent measurements.
The Strategy Pattern was implemented in the Smart Lost–Found Matching feature. Its purpose is to separate the algorithm used to calculate the similarity between a lost report and a found item from the service responsible for finding possible matches.
The MatchingStrategy interface defines the operation required to calculate a matching score. BasicMatchingStrategy provides the current implementation and evaluates four attributes:
- Category: 40%
- Location: 25%
- Date: 20%
- Description/text similarity: 15%
MatchingService receives a MatchingStrategy through dependency injection and uses it to calculate the score of each available found item. Items whose score reaches the configured threshold are considered possible matches and are ordered from highest to lowest score.
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Rationale:
The Strategy Pattern was used to separate the matching algorithm from the service responsible for finding possible matches. MatchingService depends on the MatchingStrategy interface instead of directly depending on BasicMatchingStrategy. This allows the matching algorithm to be replaced or modified without changing the rest of the matching flow. For example, a future strategy could use different weights or additional item characteristics while keeping the same MatchingService. This design also improves testability because different strategy implementations can be injected when needed.
Authentication feature. Students can sign in with their Uniandes account and access the student area of the Flutter application. The authenticated Firebase session is also used to identify the user when creating reports and accessing personalized information.
Sensor feature. The application uses the device biometric authentication to verify an existing student session before allowing access to the app. The biometric data is handled by the operating system and is not stored directly by CampusFind.
Student Home feature. The app loads the student's current active lost report from Firestore and displays it on the Home screen. If the matching system finds a candidate above the configured threshold, the Home screen also shows that a possible match is available.
Smart feature. The system compares the student's active lost report with available found items and calculates a similarity score using category, location, date and description. Candidates that reach the configured threshold are returned as possible matches and ordered from highest to lowest score.
- Pattern: Strategy.
MatchingServicedepends onMatchingStrategy, whileBasicMatchingStrategycontains the current scoring algorithm.
Matching feature. When the system identifies a possible match, the student can open the Match Alert screen to review the found item and the matching result before continuing with the claim process.
Administrative access feature. Authorized staff users can sign in through the staff flow and access the Analytics Dashboard, where the implemented Business Questions and process metrics are displayed.
Type 2 BQ feature. The analytics system identifies how many reports have remained for more than the defined threshold in each stage of the process: reported, found, ready_for_pickup and claimed. The result is displayed in the Analytics Dashboard to show where reports are getting stuck.
Student flow feature. After reporting a found item, the application provides the Lost & Found office information, physical delivery instructions and opening hours so the student knows where the item must be delivered.
External service feature. The application reads the Lost & Found office coordinates from Firestore and generates a Google Maps directions URL. url_launcher opens the route in the external Maps application.
- The office location remains configurable in Firestore instead of being hardcoded in the navigation logic.