Before the coding and implementation of the tools begin, the following choices need to be made: type of device, web app or native app, operating system type and type of interactions.
5.3.1
Devices
Laptops and desktop computers are widely used in educational settings. Students typically use a mouse and keyboard as inputs; trackpads are also common. Since 2007 when Apple
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launched the iPhone, touchscreen devices (smartphones, tablets and phablets) have become common (Allen et al., 2010). They provide gestural interactions not readily available with other input methods. They can give more freedom in the design with less reliance on visible buttons or other user interface elements. The tablet form factor has been chosen as the primary target device because of its movability and good screen size. As mentioned in Section 4.4.3, gestures are becoming a major way of interacting with computing devices.
5.3.2
Web and Native Apps
There are two primary ways applications are delivered to devices: as a web app or website or a native app for a specific platform such as iOS or Android (Chien et al., 2014).
I Web app
A web app usually has a high level of interactivity and allows users to complete some task. Irrespective of the device, access to the applications content is through the web browser. Since almost all devices have a browser, users can access the web app without having to install anything new (Charland and Leroux, 2011). A web app relies on a single code base; it makes updates much faster and cheaper. Also, the web is an open platform; this means anyone can access it without any proprietary software or operating system. This openness ensures that the application will be available in the future than a native application. However, web apps usually developed using HTML5 and CSS may suffer from slow performance. This is especially the case when the web app makes use of images, audio, and high interactivity. Also, in most cases, it is not possible to use the web app in an offline mode since the web requires an internet connection. A web app is constrained by the capabilities of the browser, this means that for touch interfaces on smartphones and tablets, only basic gestures like tapping to follow a link or swiping between images in a slideshow can be used. Other gestures do not work well in the browser or may be reserved for navigating the browser, itself. The other drawback to a browser-based web app is that mobile browsers only have limited or partial access to a device’s capabilities like the GPS, accelerometer, or notification system.
II Native app
A native app, on the other hand, is one that is built specifically for one operating system, such as IOS or Android for mobile devices, and Windows or Mac OS for desktop computers (Allen et al., 2010). These are self-contained applications that do not require a web browser, but they can only be used on the operating system for which they were built. These are apps that are downloaded or installed directly onto a device, and they
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will only work on that particular device’s operating system. The main advantage of a native app is the potential for much faster performance. Because the app is already installed on the computer or device, they only have to download data when needed. Another advantage to having an app already installed on a device, is that it gives the ability to work offline, when there is no internet connection. Native apps also provide the ability to use more gestural interactions on touch screen devices (Charland and Leroux, 2011). This is very important for this research as it provides the opportunity to implement and customise custom gestures. The biggest disadvantage of native apps is the cost and time investment required to create them. In many cases, native applications have to be developed for the major platforms and screen sizes to provide wider access.
Unlike the web, it is not possible to publish a solution directly to end users. Once a native app is built, almost all operating systems require the app to go through a submission and review process before it is ready for full use and available in the app marketplace. Often the rules are not always clear. Each platform has its patterns for typical uses of different touch gestures. This often makes the development painful and time-consuming.
For the MuTAT application, the choice of a native app was made so as to have very good performance in the implementation of custom gestures and the ability to work offline when there is not internet connection.
5.3.3
Native apps: iOS, Android, or Windows Phone?
An important decision is on which platform the development should be done. For smartphones and tablets, there are four major players: Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS, Blackberry and Microsoft’s Windows Phone (Grønli et al., 2014). Amazon has also released their Fire Phone, but they are yet to become mainstream. At the end of 2013, Android led with almost 61% of the market share, followed fairly closely by IOS with just over 36%. The next players are much farther behind, with Windows Phone at just 2% (gartner.com, 2014). Android and Apple are the major market leaders. Because Apple builds its hardware, iOS has relatively few devices. However, this makes it much easier to design for and test. Android, on the other hand, has hundreds of different devices on the market, all with varying screen sizes and resolutions.
The present study does not aim at immediately producing commercial software available on the major and best platforms but rather focuses on providing a tool for testing the concepts of the semi-automatic framework on real student users. Getting a tool out quickly on the tablet
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first gives important feedback and data from real users. The iPad was chosen as the hardware platform for the application because of its smooth implementation of multi-touch functions and the increasing availability of tablet types devices in many schools (UPI.com, 2013). The application was developed with Apple’s native programming language, Objective-C, using the iOS development frameworks.
5.3.4
Interactive touch gestures
Gestures and Interactions are the basis of touch device designs (Shneiderman, 2010). The most common gestures are tap, double-tap, swipe and pinch gestures. The tap is the simplest of interactions and the most commonly used. The tap is used to select an object or advance in the navigation hierarchy. A student can double-tap a section of content to zoom in on that area of the screen. It is also sometimes used to open something, such as an application on a device. The double-tap is not always immediately discoverable since there are almost never visual cues to indicate that the action is possible. The swipe gesture occurs where the finger slides across a particular item on the screen. Doing this will often reveal options for interacting with that item, or it can be used to delete the item from a list. This is widely used in lists on the iOS and Android platforms. Swipe is also used to move forward and backwards through a series of photos or screens.
The drag sometimes called pan gesture occurs when the surface of the screen is touch with the finger or thumb and then moving the finger or thumb in some direction, without releasing it. As this occurs, the content that was touched is dragged around with the finger. The long press gesture also called touch and hold gesture occurs when an object on the screen is selected and held for a few seconds before being released. It is used primarily to trigger more options to appear for whatever is being targeted. It can give access to actions such as delete, edit and share. On all platforms, it can be used to enter an editing mode for an item or screen, such as the home screen. Usually, users need to learn what that tap and hold does before it is understood. The pinch and spread gestures are very common interactions and are usually used to zoom out and zoom in when looking at a website, a photo or some other type of content. The different interactions and subtle animations will be implemented in the MuTAT to provide a rich variety of interactions.