The project aims were to create basically two new services, one very reliant upon the other, the two services were:
- QRTour Service
- URL Shortening service
We had already created a QR Code Generator which the team decided to build upon, the idea was to create a very easy to author system that would allow users to create a guided tour with with resources and activities located around the area, all accessible by QR Codes. The system needed to generate a printable PDF document with titles, descriptions, QR Codes, contact details etc. as well as allowing you to return to the tour for statistics and to amend any of the Points of Interest on the tour.
As we are creating QR Codes, we wanted them to be as small and with less detail to allow for quick easy capture via a reader, to achieve this we needed to create a URL Shortening service, therefore the system converting long web addresses into short addresses and then displaying these are codes.
The team decided that we should host our own shortening service as most that are available at the moment are all registered under the shortest domain name available (.ly etc.), and it isn't known how long these services will be available.
The week (21/3 - 25/3) was a very productive week, being out of the office environment does make a huge difference. We managed to create the following service:
- URL Shortening Service
- QR Code Tour Generator
- Register to create a tour
- Receive an email with registration details including unique tour ID
- Create a tour name
- Add a tour description
- Add between 1 and 7 Points of Interest (PoI) on the tour
- Each PoI has a title, description, and resource URI
- View a summary page of your tour, including QR Code, displayed short URL and link to the stats for each PoI
- View / Print a PDF document of your tour
- The PDF generates a cover page giving the tour name and description
- The PDF then provides a page ready to print of each PoI, these pages contain the tour name, PoI title, PoI description, QR Code, short URI, tour organiser, Elevate details and a disclaimer
- Register to create a tour
By the end of the sprint we managed to have a working system, which is fantastic, it is very much function over form at the moment. We are now spending the next 3 days "mopping up" before closing the development period, the items being finished off are:
- Only correct number of PoIs are displayed on summary page
- Only correct number of PoIs are added to PDF
- Only 3 PoIs are shown on initial screen, plus/minus buttons are displayed to allow adding or removing of additional PoIs
- Text edited in email notification
- Correct header image
- Basic descriptive text corrected on pages
So, as of Thursday we will have a system that does all the above, and will also allow the user to return to the tour and edit any of the details, using their unique ID.
Below is an image showing a sneak peak of the PDF output:
The team will be looking to have another sprint week in the near future, this will be used to complete the following:
- Complete styling
- Complete descriptors and wording on all pages - Help section/tips etc.
- Different Options for PDF Templates - allowing different more than just tours
- Requirements being fed from Testing
- Self Registration blogs
- Hosted internally - Wordpress MU
- Tidying of technical code
- Adding of comments etc.
- Research dynamic adding of PoIs
- Currently using 7 predefined PoIs
- Styling of Short URL Service
We will also be having some user testing over the next few weeks, we will use this feedback to help drive the next sprint.
[...] #QRCode Tour Development Sprint | ELEVATE@UCS Tags: Code [...]
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