TrackIt - Computer Prototyping

Platform / Software Requirements

The TrackIt software is a mobile application that runs on the Google Android OS. The version that we tested our app on is Android 2.2 API Level 9. We tested the code in both the Mac and Windows environments, using the Eclipse IDE. Thus, our software can run on any computer that utilizes Eclipse packaged with the Android OS SDK (the SDK is provided for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux). Since our software is a mobile app, an emulator is needed to run the software, and these steps will be documented in the next section, "How to Run".

Files and How to Run

Since our software runs on a mobile device, an emulator is needed to run the app on a desktop/laptop.

Download and install the android emulater. We use Droid 2.3 with API level 9.

Load the apk and you should be able to start the application. If you have any trouble Bryan Drake (bdrake@mit.edu) can you help you get this set up.

TrackIt.apk

Source

Source and Eclipse project files are here. TrackIt.zip

Prototype Depth Discussion

Additional Paper Prototype

Before we started development on the computer prototype, we decided to implement an additional paper prototype to address the issues with the final paper prototype for the GR3 assignment. The screenshots of the most recent paper prototype (which was tested on a couple of users) are displayed in the below PDF:

UI_PaperPrototype3.pdf

API Incompatibility and Android Learning Curve

During development we encountered inconsistent behavior when trying to access the Enter Expenses/Edit Receipts screens. We were unable to get the screen to work in the final version on all machines. The screen should appear as below, but this is still a known and serious issue that we expect you to encounter. The learning curve of Android was steeper than we had expected and we should have allocated more time to this, especially given mobile programming is new to each of us.

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  1. Anh Dang Viet Nguyen

    - Texts are all too small, please run it on a device to see how big it should be.

    - List of reports are too simple. if traveling to a city twice, how can we distinguish between names? How's about adding report date to the name?

    - Should add some header or indicator or separator  before you list all the receipts names. Otherwise it can be confusing since different types of data are placed right next to each other.

    - Those three icons to show statistics, etc. don't really look like buttons that are click-able.

    - Some visual feedbacks and nicer homescreen will be great.

    - We acknowledged that you have learning curve difficulty but when you make and arrange components, please keep in mind fundamental things such as font sizes, text, and spacing. Also post questions on Piazzza or email when you face hard issues.