Post from Geoff Yost
A core concept that drives sustainability is the notion of maintaining something for the future.
Our group, planning for the development of a CofC Sustainability smartphone app, is laying the groundwork for something that will be both a functional product and an illustration of that core concept.
Having begun the process of developing an app in my work at the George Street Observer, I was extremely interested in applying my knowledge to another project. In particular, I researched the cost expectations, implementation strategy, and ways we could integrate various forms of media into the user experience.
From a cost perspective, I was the only member of the group with any expectations. I reached out to friends in the development community, and determined that the baseline cost was going to be $50-$100 per hour, based on what we proposed to a developer. This was important when we took our ideas to the Computer Science department’s Software Innovations Lab. While their proposed costs were higher than we were expecting, it was important that we had the understanding that app development is expensive.
As we looked more into what feature sets we wanted to implement, I proposed that we build the app in stages, staggering the cost, and adding functionality over time. From that suggestion, we built a strategy that ranked our most important features as priorities. So, the app that will eventually be built will begin with core features, and others will have the opportunity to add to it over time.
Next, I proposed adding media elements, like a podcast and links to the Office’s blog, as well as push notifications. I saw push notifications as critical to the app’s success. Notifications allow for engagement for user. They’re familiar to those who use smartphones, and offering features like a tip of the day, or event reminders will breed habitual use of the app among users.
Along the way, I thought of some perspective Steve Jobs gave in March at the conclusion of one of his last public appearances.
“Technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the result that makes our heart sing,” Jobs said.
This app is exactly that. Technology won’t solve our sustainability issues. Classes won’t solve our sustainability issues. Marrying the two together, though, will help us pursue that end of maintaining something for the future.