Great feeling to finally be finished my first year of uni, and even better to have designed and developed an application and made my own websites – something I never thought I’d be able to do. I was alot happier with my third minisite than I was with the others, but I never got how to include rich media, something I think could have really made my website cool! I am happier with the design of this website and this design is a lot more effective at conveying my message of digital farming.
When I was documenting my final design, I was thinking wow, I’ve made my application really involved and have thought about a lot of things that could one day really improve farming. The main thing I added to my design idea was creating a product out of Farm Hand that could be personalised if users wished to do so. This was achieved by creating modules with the different aspects of farming, such as crop farming, farms that used a lot of machines or farms with cattle, etc, where these different modues can be downloaded from the internet and added to a users phone. This was developed because not all farmers would need/use all the features that are available through Fram Hand and may be put off by this as we like to have thge option to choose. This would also create more costs if Farm Hand came with every feature produced.
I would have like to put more thought into how this product could be used through the interfaces on my site, especially in terms of maketing as I could have made some cool demonstrations with Flash.
I’m signing out once and for all!!! And about to have an awesome time in Byron…..
Blogging from Byron
also – Rob informed me I need to change my Mickey Mouse image into something a little more appropiate and in the context of my iPhone application (Farm Hand), so here goes! Bye bye to the beloved mickey mouse…
Uni is almost OVER!!!!
After my presentation last week, it was suggested that I enable Farm Hand to be more specilised to each individual user. There many different pracitises within farming, which means not every farmer would have a use for all the features within Farm Hand and thus would not need them on their phone. So, I am now changing my product to enable users to pick and choose which features they want as part of this application. This will be done via the internet where a farmer can download a particular feature they will need onto their iPhone, being able to make additions to their personilsed Farm Handn at any time as aspects of their farming change. For example, a farmer which farms cattle or sheep can choose the feature of the monitoring system for stock which uses GPS, not requiring features for running and monitoring machines, whereas a farmer which farms say chooks where machinery is required will need to the feature to enable the running and monitoring of their machines. When this feature is downloaded, the attachment senses required to synchronise a machine to your iPhone, would be sent to the user also.
As seen this will organise Farm Hand in an effective way, where the features of Farm Hand will be split up into seperate modules so each user can tailor this product specifically to their needs. I think this will make Farm hand more appealing to users, as this application has been created on more of a personal level, catering for individual needs.
Our 3 minisite is now due on the 2nd Nov (yeah!!) and this site is to market and advertise our product. I think this discussed change to my application will enable me to market Farm Hand in a more appealing and successful way!
Go me, 2nd person to present and probably one of the people most lagging with this assessment… websites… blogging….
I’m currently figuring out my presentation for tomorrow, listening to The Killers (coz I’m going to their concert!!!!) and thought, I really should blog.
I have been gathering more feedback from my users, and many have responded saying the more information available to them at such disposal, the better, so I been thinking about reliable and smarter infomration services I could add to my application. Thinking about it, being able to readily access information is so vital in many industries, and with Farm Hand, this feature could act as personal consultation device, as many farmers often seek professionals for such services, which just costs money and time. Essentially, its all about having the access to improved information.
As stated in my 2nd ministie, many users were very interested in the potential GPS workings of farm hand as this would provide even greater control and stability over their farming. After doing some research, and thanks to Emma 
I have found that the CSIRO are currently developing an electronic product, called e-farming which uses GPS navigation and a network of electronic sensors to control and monitor their land and stock, via your laptop! This has given me some ideas of where Farm Hand could go with GPS, which I can present to my users to further enhance and market Farm Hand.
So my directions now are to focus on readily available, reliable information features, and to develop some ideas for the potential use of GPS. I’m also wanting to refinethe features of the monitoring/storage features of Farm Hand.
I swear I haven’t forgotten about posting…
Right now I’m at the stage of prototyping and receiving user feedback. Our minitsite 2 is due tomorrow, but we have no idea what we are supposed to do – did I get it right with the first minisite? So looks like I’ll be taking a punt with this one, which means I can get creative… maybe.
I don’t have as much user feedback as I’d like to yet but I have made some changes. I’ve found that because my idea is so broad and there are many possibilities out there for elecrtonic farming I’ve been in a lot of pickles!!!
More on my idea…
Ok, so you might be thinking why would it be beneficial for farmers to have a phone like the iPhone with the applications it currently has, when a different technological device could also be used to add the application I have thought of to it. Firstly, the entertianment side of the iPhone is quite significant and rural people could definatley put this to use. For example, sitting on a tractor for hours on end sewing a large paddock and being able to use iTunes; access the internet, You Tube, emails and watch videos and TV shows would definatley pass the boring time! Google maps would also be very useful when travelling across unknown country areas and just travelling in general. Having the internet available at any time with the iPhone would also be very useful for things such as checking cattle prices so as to keep an eye on the market to know when to buy or sell stock. It is especially useful for staying connected and being able to keep up to date with the latest news as newspaper accessibility is is not a factor in the country. So these are just a few examples of exisitng applications on the iPhone which the users I have in mind will be able to take advantage of.
From my own personal experiences and what my dad does on our farm comes my idea…. Firstly, staying connected is a big issue in rural areas. For instance, when a neighbour rings us to notify us that our cattle are out on the public road. Often dad isn’t around for him to do something about it straight away and by the time the message does reach him, our cattle could have spread out or even caused an accident or damage to other properties. With my application, farmers would be able to easily stay in touch, even without having to use an iPhone themselves. Eg, two-way radios are very popular in rural areas to stay in touch, however they are not very reliable because the radio waves (I think!!) are terrible. With my application, the message from a person using a two-way would be converted into clearer speech for the receiver or an sms and voice mail if the call is missed. Another aspect of my application could also involve being able to turn machinery on and off when needed, such as automatic feeding systems to save actually having to go to the machine itself, often very early in the morning or late at night. Such an application would also be programmed to detect feed levels in sylos, to notify the farmer when they need to place an order for more feed – although this order could also be sent automatically through my application!
My dad is also a property developer, which requires a lot of contact between him and the real estate agent, as well as potential buyers. Our real estate agent has to come out to our property quite often to take photos and see how our land is going, whereas with my application, dad could take photos himself and email the real estate agent. My application would also enable dad to receive news on the progess of sales automatically, as well as being informed when the property of competitors is sold. Automatic notifications would also be sent when properties in the surroundign area became availble on the market, as property development is all about the buying and selling of property.
So as you see there are two takes on my idea – something to do with real estate and makign this a lot more efficient and effective for people such as my dad; or there is the more farm side of things to make farmign easier. I think I need to talk to my dad a bit more and find out what he thinks of this. I need to decide on my specific target market to come up with a more specific application.
Goodnight!
Music is inspirational!! I’ve had another idea…
I really do need to do some in depth research for the ideas I been having so I can figure out what will work and what wont. I do know what not workign for me at the moment and thats my typing skills…. so sorry in advance for any typos.
After todays lecture about the process of interaction design and all that stuff about our users I began to think that maybe I could come up with a better application if I had a more specific user group. So naturally i had a think about my own circumstances, along with that of my family and thought there isn’t really a phone with applications out there that is reliable and effectively caters for people in rural areas. You see living on a farm we experience so many annoying technological problems with phone reception and internet etc and I think this is a huge gap in the mobile phone industry to be tapped into, which has a lot of potential to satisfy farmers.
From what I have gathered so far the iPhone is very much orientated towards people living in suburban, city areas, especially with the very slim line, swish design of the phone which creates a fashionable look. i want to add an application so that the phone is not only for this urban demographic. Take the following applications for instance which make the iPhone very urbanised; You tube - I envisage people using this when waiting for and sitting on public transport where people like to have entertainment at their finger tips – rural people don’t catch trains around town like city people do and I can’t imagine rural people using You Tube on the iPhone in their homes for example, because you can simply use a computer with a bigger screen for this. Even the device which locates resturants as users search – rural people know their resturants available to them in town and usually they aren’t very nice – it would be useful though when we go to the ‘big smoke”!
Well I’m getting hungry now so more on this after lunch. But, so I don’t forget my train of thought, a little reminder for myself - applications on the iPhone that the rural demographic could take advantage of include…… Thus, you can see the iPhone is a technology which could use an application for rural use, as opposed to using some other personal organiser which could do the same things.
Have a nice lunch all!
My posts are working now!!!
Now that I have got the hang of posting correctly I can go crazy!!!
Ok, so going back to my first post which didn’t work, there were a few ideas which may or may not appeal. So back to the beginning…. Naturally I started by asking my friends of applications they thought would be cool – alot of them just couldn’t even be bothered thinking so they were pretty useless. But, one friend suggested some sort of app (I’ll use this now as ‘application’ is just too long keep writing out) that enables you to find lost keys. I’m not sure if this is some sort of problem only he has, but let me know if you guys are prone to loosing your keys! He thought that the iPhone could come with a small accessory that you attach to your keys (maybe in the form a trendy-cool keyring) so that when you loose them you simply press (or touch for that matter) a few buttons and bingo your keys are found! This may work by some sort of beeping that goes off on the keys, however you may not always be able to hear this, or the phone could direct you somehow if the phone could pick up its location with a tracking device. I may be waffling here, so let me know if your confused! I know its really simple, but often simple ideas work and its just a little thing that could make a difference. What do you think?
My idea was an app that enables the user to find the location of the cheapest petrol station at that time. You would simply type in the suburb or area you were in and the phone would then give you the address for the cheapest petrol station in that specific area and of surrounding suburbs.
Oh crap, I have to go, just looked at the time and realised I have to get ready for the Ballet now!!!
have a good night everyone!
