UGA for Apple Watch
UGA buses stop at hundreds of places around Athens and getting on the right one at the right time can cause some unnecessary stress. Luckily for UGA students, the UGA mobile app provides easy access to information on where bus stops are located on campus as well as live data on where each bus is.
Even with UGA mobile app, getting across campus in 15 minutes is still a challenge. In order to use the app, students have to pull out their phones while juggling bags, homework, and coffee. It doesn’t have to be this difficult.
As an extension of the official UGA mobile app, the UGA app for Apple Watch takes the exact same bus data that students are familiar with and makes it accessible on the go. Now you can get from the IM Fields to the Arch with just the raise of your wrist.
UGA Mobile App and the Problem
The UGA mobile application is the official application for the University of Georgia. It is the best place for students, faculty, alumni, and visitors to visit for everything UGA.
The mobile app provides all sorts of resources for users including Athena, eLC, Dawg Check, Campus Map, UGAMail, Deck Check, Parking, and Meal Plan to name a few. The most heavily used resource in the app is UGA Bus.
Using the UGA Bus resource in the app gives everyone access to bus stop and route information for UGA busses. This allows users to access live data on where buses are on campus at all times of the day.
It is an extremely useful resource that thousands of students take advantage of every day, but getting around campus can be a daunting task even with the app’s help. Making it to class on time while climbing up and down the many hills on campus with coffee, homework, and a laptop in hand is no easy feat.
Many students find themselves in this position and taking out their phone isn’t always possible.
To better improve the experience for all users of the UGA app and the UGA Bus resource, as well as to provide a solution to this problem, the UGA for Apple Watch app was created.
Version 1.0 of the UGA for Apple Watch app will take all of the same live bus data that the UGA mobile app offers and make it available with just the raise of the wrist.
UGA for Apple Watch App and Features
The Apple Watch app itself is very simple. In two clicks most users will be able to complete their desired task. For now the app specializes in gathering and displaying stop and route information for UGA buses.
To begin, open the app on your Apple Watch.
First, tap on the UGA Bus button.
A screen will now display every stop on campus that UGA busses service. These stops are sorted by their distance to your current location.
Select the stop you’re standing at to see when the next bus will arrive.
It’s as simple as that! Seeing when the next bus will arrive has never been easier.
Impact, Technology, and Client
The UGA for Apple Watch app will have a direct impact on the University of Georgia student body. This local impact will make it easier for all mobile app users with an Apple Watch to navigate campus.
The UGA Bus resource is the first of many possible additions to the Apple Watch app. In working with EITS and the Student Government Association, this app will hopefully see continued updates and improvements as time goes on.
The app was created in Xcode using SwiftUI and CocoaPods, and was made possible with help from EITS by providing access to UGA APIs.
Capstone Journey
This project began in August of 2019. I was a member of a team as an undergraduate that began development and research on a WatchOS app that would ship with the official UGA mobile app.
Using the final product that I had developed in 2019, I restarted development as a grad student in 2020 on an improved version of what is now the UGA for Apple Watch app.
Between that time I tossed around several ideas for new products that included a web app for the Guide Dog Foundation, a web app for the American Institute of Architects Atlanta, and a YouTube channel dedicated to the most viral photography trends, all on an iPhone.
Once I settled on revisiting and revamping the WatchOS app I quickly surpassed the app I had developed in 2019. I found better guides and was able to gain access to vital APIs. All of this got me to the end of 2020.
As the new year rolled around I started hitting walls in the development process. Even getting to the point I had required me to step way out of my comfort zone, and I had quickly found the edge.
I was determined to get this app working for real and elicited help from my professors and most regularly the NMIXpert program. As I will mention again in the “Valuable Resources” section, Luke Lashley played a pivotal role in getting this project functioning as I envisioned.
I met with Luke twice a week for 3 months getting everything working as intended. Luke taught me as we went and together we researched ways to solve problems and then solved them. I came to him with lists of things each week and we would spend the entire hour making improvements on the app until finally it was done…ish.
I don’t believe any product is truly finished. There will always be things that can be added and can be done to improve the product. It’s incredibly exciting to see all the hard work over the past few years finally pay off, and I look forward to seeing students across campus using my app.
Lessons Learned
I learned a LOT from doing this project. As with all projects there were many pivots along the way, but all led to the creation of a great solution for my community.
Style Guide
The Style Guide for the UGA for Apple Watch App follows the University’s published style guide. There are several other guidelines that led to certain design decisions. These guidelines were very important for maintaining simplicity on such a small interface.
The first guideline is to “Target a Single Feature or Task.” I did this by keeping the user’s focus on a single task on each view. For the first view, this is to tap a button.
The next guideline is to “Enable Quick Interactions.” Navigating through each view takes the user seconds, and the information they’re after is easy to find.
I also made sure to “Design and Build for Independence.” While this app is downloaded with the iOS App, it does not rely on the app itself to work.
Additionally, it is important to “Make Your App and Interface Highly Glanceable.” Each view is organized and seeing the desired information is done quickly.
The final guideline I used was “Keep It Simple.” This is one of my own guidelines and is something that helped guide my decisions throughout each step of the process.
These guidelines are all equally important in designing and developing an effective user experience on such a small interface.
Competitive Advantage Report
I researched and discovered several things before beginning development on the WatchOS app. I began by searching for demographic research of the University of Georgia, which makes up nearly the entirety of my target market. Unsurprisingly the average age of students is 18–24 years old.
I did some further research and found that the racial diversity is 70% White followed by 10% Asian. I also looked at the gender breakdown of students at the University of Georgia and found that nearly 60% of the student population is female.
More information is available at collegefactual.com
I also pulled data from a previous version of the UGA for Apple Watch app, UGA Bus. The group found that 92% of surveyed students use the UGA mobile app. Additionally, the majority of those students cited that the UGA Bus resource was the most used.
Another important figure showed that 66% of surveyed students own an Apple Watch. More information from this groups research can be found on their project website:
The last thing that I discovered in researching was that there was a similar product available for residents of Washington. This app proved the feasibility of this project.
View the Competitive Advantage Report for more detailed informtion.
User Testing
User testing provided several valuable insights. Overall, it confirmed many decisions I had made throughout the design and development process. 100% of users were able to navigate through each view. Users most commonly stated that the app was straightforward, easy-to-use, and simple.
There were of course several points of improvement. Users left feedback about a bland design, a desire for more detailed route information, and the addition of titles on each view. I took these comments into consideration before making edits. This feedback led to the addition of more color on the views and titles on the top of each view.
There were two key limitations to make note of in user testing. The first was the sample. The sample of 11 users did not all fit perfectly into the target market, but in collecting data from some recent graduates I was able to gather feedback from a non-pandemic perspective.
I also conducted testing on a prototype rather than the app because it was not ready for testing at the time user testing was conducted.
View the User Testing Report for more information.
Valuable Resources
Building this product took a lot of time and required a great amount of learning and research. I began by following a tutorial here on Medium for Making a WatchOS app with SwiftUI from scratch, with data fetching:
This was extremely helpful for getting the UGA Apple Watch app off the ground. Using this tutorial, I was able to build a working WatchOS that was grabbing data from the API that was provided to me from EITS. It was a major step in the right direction and surpassed anything I had created before.
Getting the data to populate a table in the app wasn’t just enough. To add in live data I had a lot more work to do. I googled everything that I could, but was quickly lost.
I was determined to get this app finished and was able to enlist the help of NMIXpert Luke Lashley. Luke and I met twice a week for 3 months working on getting this app working as I had designed it to. Without his expertise I would not be where I am today. Leaning on him to teach me and guide me through the development process was an integral part of the project.
Developments and Pivots
As previously mentioned, lots changed with this project since it began in 2019. The final product in 2019 looked like this:
It was a great way to gather user feedback and hear how interested people were in the product, but it didn’t really do much more than work as a proof of concept.
Besides switching projects first from the YouTube channel to the AIA web app then to the GDF app, I really latched onto the idea that I was going to make the UGA Apple Watch app for real. Little changed and I began developing an Apple Watch app for the University of Georgia.
The first step was starting over. I first created a News app (mentioned above) that looked very similar to the end result of the UGA Apple Watch app. I learned so much following the tutorial and used my own variables as a way to just populate a table with some static data provided to me by EITS. It was here that I began to slow down. The API that I used was more complicated than I expected, and with Luke’s help I was able to put the pieces together.
We began by pulling stop data from the static API and using that data to pull route IDs to link the two together. The whole process was working and seemed promising until Luke suggested we start over.
I’m being a little dramatic here, but it did require me to go back pretty far to make the changes. These changes were to append all of the data we were gathering to a dictionary instead of an array. This should have been something that I did from the beginning, but after making that change we had a much smarter, more efficient application.
The next big road block we came across is one that really scared me. It was something that neither I nor Luke knew how to fix and took a lot of research and help to solve. In the end Luke suggested we should use a time delay in the form of a DispatchQueue to prevent threading errors. This made it so the route data could populate the dictionary before being called on in the next step.
It isn’t a perfect system and is still something that needs to be worked on, but the fix is enough to get the app working. After coming up with a solution to the threading errors, I added a loading animation to improve the user experience and sorted the routes by time. After that the app is as it is today, working.
It all came together nicely in the end, and though it still needs work to improve performance, I am extremely proud to have made a working UGA for Apple Watch app.
My EM
I decided to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Georgia pretty early on in my college career. I was ahead credit wise and have always had a desire to obtain a higher degree. When I heard about the Emerging Media Double Dawg program at UGA, I went straight to my advisor to discuss. At the time I had also just finished taking my first new media course, Intro to New Media (which I had been very much talked into by a friend), and instantly knew I must take more courses in new media.
My advisor, Brittney Minor, and I didn't know anything about the Emerging Media program, but together we bugged Megan Ward and the rest of Grady and UGA for answers. I knew that I wanted to continue taking as many new media classes as possible, and EM was a great way to stay in school and gain a degree that aligned with my new found passion.
By the time I completed my undergrad program, Entertainment and Media Studies, I had taken just about every new media course offered. I was so excited to take my first official grad class and loved every minute of John’s Customer Experience course. I had known taking every new media course as an undergrad, whether on grad level or undergrad, that I was in the right place, but never more than while taking that first EM class.
For rest of 2020 and spring of 2021, I continued to learn and grow as a designer, developer, and critical thinker. I was hired as a graduate assistant and worked in the New Media Institute doing everything from website updates and designs, to video production, to inventory, and even putting mics on presenters as they took the TEDxUGA stage.
Emerging Media was and still is a huge part of who I am. Everything I learned along the way starting with Intro to New Media, which has a VERY special place in my heart, led to this project, the UGA for Apple Watch app.
I hope to continue to learn and grow as a creative, critical thinker, designer, and doer. I can’t wait to give back to the New Media Institute and will always think back on my memories of the Emerging Media program fondly.
Reflection and Advice
Working on this project has been a roller coaster. Things went super well and super not well. Solving each problem along the way in the development process was very rewarding, but came with lots of hard work.
Overall though, it is an extremely rewarding project and a great way to wrap up my Emerging Media master’s degree. I have learned so much along the way about design, development, and most of all how to learn.
I have several bits of advice, number one is to lean on those around you. People like Luke are out there along with professors who are there to assist you. It never hurts to ask, and their insight and guidance is invaluable.
Number 2: Be OK adapting, calling an audible, and thinking quickly. Failing fast is so much better than working for months on something to find it already exists or won’t work. Have multiple ideas to work with and don’t give up when plan A, or B, or even C doesn’t work out.
Number 3: Hard work will pay off, don’t get discouraged. I dove into the deep end from the 10M platform for this project. By utilizing all of the design principles I learned and soliciting help from those around me I was able to focus on making just one thing better than the day before.
Number 4: Things will break. You CAN fix it. Good Luck!
Deliverables and Links
All project files and deliverables are available on the project website.
