wayfindr-demo-ios

A repo for the Wayfindr demonstration iOS app

Purpose of the Wayfindr Demo iOS app

We know that there is a community of organisations and individuals worldwide interesting in exploring digital wayfinding for vision impaired people. We want to support these people who are planning to explore audio wayfinding in different types of built-environments, e.g. transport, retails, health, entertainment etc. We have open-sourced the Wayfindr Demo mobile app that has been used in the Wayfindr trials so far, in order to provide developers, designers and researchers around the world with a free, open tool to conduct their research in context.

This app serves also as a demonstration of the Guidelines for Mobile App Development as seen on the Wayfindr Open Standard.

We invite all the interested parties to download the Wayfindr Demo mobile app, customise it based on their needs, run their experiments and then share new versions of the app with the Wayfindr open community.

We want the app to be an evolving tool for research and demonstration of wayfinding systems for the vision impaired. This app is not aimed to become a navigation product but a tool for research and demonstration.

To learn more, visit the Wayfindr website.

Dependencies

• Xcode 10
• CocoaPods 1.4.0

Usage

Running the app with Xcode

The following steps are required to run the project:

$ Make

You can then open the workspace file Wayfindr Demo.xcworkspace

Connectivity Requirements

When the app initially launches, Internet connection is required. The beacon SDK used for this sample implementation requires Internet access before first attempt at beacon ranging. For ease of implementation this sample app always requires Internet access on launch.

Bluetooth needs to be turned on at all times in order to communicate with any of the beacons even passively.

Architecture

Overview

There are three modes to the Wayfindr app - User (displayed as Wayfindr), Maintainer and Developer modes. These are expressed as tabs in a UITabViewController. Each mode keeps a separate copy of the venue model and beacons interface. This is to make it easier to split these into separate apps in the future.

Model

The Wayfindr app uses two data files to generate the model. The first is DemoGraphData.graphml which represents all of the beacons and the valid routes between them. The second is DemoVenueData.json which represents all the places of interest, e.g. entrances, exits and platforms at a station.

The graphml file is used to load the WAYGraph representation of the venue. The json is used to load the remaining metadata into the WAYVenue object. The WAYGraph and WAYVenue object are two of the most commonly used model objects.

The last commonly used model object is the WAYBeacon. This represents a single beacon and is a manufacturer independent abstraction.

Controllers

The root controller for the app is ModeSelectionTabViewController. The root controller for the User mode is UserActionTableViewController. Similarly, the root controller for the Maintainer mode is MaintainerActionSelectionTableViewController just as the root view controller for the Developer mode is DeveloperActionSelectionTableViewController.

Interface

The BeaconInterface is the go-between for the app and the beacons. To use a particular manufacturer's beacons, write a driver that implements the BeaconInterface protocol and calls the BeaconInterfaceDelegate as appropriate.

In general, the User mode of the app (displayed as Wayfindr) requires WAYBeacon objects to be provided with the accuracy measurement. This is used to determine the nearest beacon. All other optional beacon information except for rssi is not used at this point. RSSI (Recieved Signal Strength Indicator) can also be used to determine the nearest beacon.

The Maintainer mode of the app uses addional beacon information. That being said, it is intelligent about coalescing data when it sees the same beacon in a short amount of time.

The Developer mode of the app contains a set of tools useful when developing this app, conducting user testing, and preparing for trials.

The VenueInteface is the abstraction of a venue. This is the mapping between your graph and your BeaconInterface. Implement your own model to use your BeaconInterface implementation and graph data. For more information on how this can be done, see section Sample Data / Implementation.

Starting a New Trial

Below are the major steps needed to prepare the prototype for a trial in a new venue and/or with a new beacon manufacturer or protocol. For more information on examples of these steps, see section Sample Data / Implementation

• Create a GraphML and JSON file (or as results from an API call) that define the beacons, instructions, and metadata for the venue.
• Create a BeaconInterface for interacting with the venue's beacons.
• Create a VenueInterface that fetches the GraphML and JSON and prepares the appropriate BeaconInterface.
• Initialize the VenueInterface at the root view controller for each mode.

Sample Data / Implementation

The project contain sample data to explain how to construct the GraphML and JSON data files:

• See DemoGraphData.graphml for an example on how to structure your graph data.
• See DemoVenueData.jsonfor an example on how to structure your JSON file.

An example of how to put these data files into use can be found in the class DemoVenueInterface.

Any mentions of "platforms" or "exits" found in the code are legacy from Wayfindr's previous trials in Mainline Rail and Metro Stations.

Information about the beacons parameters (e.g.major, minor, accuracy etc.) can be found in the Wayfindr Open Standard.

The sample data file uses three beacon identifiers which can be tested without presence of physical beacons by using any iBeacon simulator app. To operate a working demo, use the iBeacon simulator app with UUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001, major set to 1 and three minors 1,2 and 3. To install and use the demo app, you will need an Apple development license. Wayfindr has tested the demo app on an iPhone 6s.

Team

If you want to get in touch, you can reach us here.

• UX Design: Georgios Maninis
• Project Management: Yannis Psomadakis

License

The Wayfinder app is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.