Implicaciones teóricas, metodológicas y preventivas

The evaluation of this project is split into four parts, what went well, the challenges daced, future process improvements and future work.

8.1 What went well

The main accomplishment of this dissertation project is that the beta product has been released to the market and is seeing a steady increase in installations from across the world.

The market ratings currently (As at 07/05/2012) have rated the application 4.8 stars out of 5, a high ranking for any application on the market. The uninstall rate is not too high, even in beta testing, with 73 of those installs still active. The image below is from the Android market.

The beta testing is going well, although some problems found their way to the final test round,they are being picked up and reported through the market. The utilisation of a beta test has been useful in both testing interest and feedback from the target audience, and for finding issues. The analytics provided by the 1&1 hosting solution are showing over 300 total visits to the website, with the highest rated referring page being Facebook.com which shows the impact of social media. The project has met the target of creating an Anroid application and selected best marking practises which will be applied upon release of the application.

Time tracking and sticking to the deadlines has been greatly supported by the Microsoft Project Gantt chart. The final aim, to find areas for improvements in the process are discussed in section 8.3. The project met the goals it set out to achieve, although not without challenges along the way.

8.2 Challenges faced

Although the project met the aims it set out to, it was not without some unanticipated challenges. The first challenge came in the form of requiring a service layer between the

Android device and database due to 1&1s security policies. This was found early on in the process and was overcome with the use of server side PHP scripting and a JSON implementation. However, this was not expected when selecting the project and required a larger time commitment than expected.

The next challenge came with screen sizes. Although understanding that this would be an issue when beginning the project, there was still amount of oversight. The design was created with the intention to work on most Andriod devices, and be clear, however suggestions some items are too small on smaller devices have come in the beta feedback. This is particularly difficult to fix, as without removing some of the content, everything needs to somehow fit on the screen which is simply not large enough to contain everything and still be easily visible.

The challenge has resulted in alterations to the manifest to remove devices with “small”

screen sizes. This was not a decision taken lightly, since it excludes some of the target audience, however it was felt necessary until a further re-design can be created for smaller screen devices.

A similar challenge was faced with x-large screen sizes which are shown on tablet devices.

The challenge faced here was that although there is plenty of room to support the content, the correct image resolutions and layout files still need to be provided. This is exactly the same as for other screen sizes, however the x-large category using Android’s SDK has a much wider size range than any other screen size, ranging from the 7 inches HTC flyer all the way up to the 13.3 inch Toshiba Excite. In testing, it was found that the wide range could result in the displacement of images, which counters the applications visual pleasing aesthetics, and takes away from the user experience. Whilst the application does look good on some devices in the tablet category, due to the issues which may occur on the x-large screens, further work will need to be done to redesign how the layouts will stretch at the edges to make a x-large version that will both fit the smallest “x-large” screen, but also stretch appropriately for those even larger.

8.3 Future process improvements

One major lesson which has been learnt from the development of this project is the importance of neat coding practises from the start. During the project there have been times needing large amounts of refactoring, for example when the decision was made to move the

asset loading to the splash screen. During these times, sections of code needed refactoring, introducing a few bugs and ultimately taking more time than it would have if it was originally implemented that way. The result is that whilst trying to fix issues a further time commitment has had to be made towards the end of the project to neaten the code, making it easier to be read for any future development. The change which is suggested for the future process is to write Javadoc with each method whilst developing as the small time to add this to each method for large projects is likely to be beneficial later on, particularly when changes need to be made, a secondary lesson from this is the importance of considering efficiency in the initial application design..

The next future process improvement as already touched upon in the difficulties is to take particular care during the creative designing stages of development to consider the range of devices. It was understood that different image resolutions and sizes would need to be created which are included in the project, however more attention should be paid to accessibility on the small screens, particularly how the text will look. Simply scaling the same layout with the use of different measurements in dp, and different image resolutions is not always sufficient to ensure accessibility on smaller screen devices. In future, further consideration needs to be paid to the effect of reducing the size of the layout for the smaller screens, although implemented successfully some changes are required to the design to make this aspect of the application more user-friendly.

8.4 Future work on Spindroid

Spindroid has had a fantastic start, reaching a good number of devices with fantastic feedback already from the Android market. As with most applications however, there are updates and tweaks which will make the project even better. Continuous support is outlined by Hughes(2011) as a greatly important aspect to developing android applications. With new devices appearing all the time, some changes may be required in future for the support of different platforms, without which bad ratings will appear until eventually cause the project to lose the momentum it has gained. Support for the small screen devices should be added to the project, however this may require a full re-design all the way back to the stages of Photoshop for the layout files. The project works perfectly on normal – large devices, which is the vast majority of android devices on the market, however further attention needs to be

paid to the range of sizes classified as “x-large” within the Android SDK to ensure the application scales properly for tablets and to add support for these devices.

Additional features to keep the game fresh for existing customers and to keep the good developer review achieved so far should be added to the game through updates. To this end, simple additional minigames can be added which can be triggered from the featureboard. A skinning option would be simple to implement by changing the current images for others of the same size. This would allow themes such as a Halloween theme, a Christmas theme or even a particular brands theme.

Further updates to the website and social aspects of the game are also under consideration, such as adding an online forum to emphasise a community of players, and the introduction of leaderboard promotions to attract new players. The database can also be extended to allow for achievements to be uploaded and attached to an account, so users may have a profile with more information than just their coins total (The achievements are currently stored locally).

Finally, a story mode has been considered for future work. Like most games, the starting position would be relatively simple, the user can only spin the reels. Upon achieving a certain amount of credits they can then purchase (with in game coins) the ability to nudge for example once in every 10 spins. Then, with the coins they win from there on they can buy access to the feature board, holds, the super feature and additional minigames. This would allow for a smoother learning curve to the game and add another new element of interactivity, again which is not present on competing Android fruit machines.