ArtNotesOw

en W

atso

n Kirk Barron

This is the ‘Navigation Bar’. This a common feature of most iPhone applications

This is a notebook and contains images that are tagged with metadata that describes the content of this particular folder as “Jewellery”

This is the ‘Navigation Bar’. This a common feature of most applications. We will get to this feature later...

Once the application is launched the user is presented with some pre-created notebooks with several sample images.

Notebooks are dynamically created based on ‘tags’ assigned to images.

You might notice that there is a common theme throughout the application...

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The ‘Export’ button will save the selected notebooks to the handset’s Photo Library so you can view them as you would normally

These icons indicate that the device is in ‘Export mode’ and the user may select a notebook to export.

Icons appear in each cell. This is a common method to indicate that an item may be selected.

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Accessing notebook images from ArtNotes outside of the application requires that they are exported to the iPhone Photo Library

A confirmation dialog appears to ensure a user does not accidentally export a very large number of images to their Photo Library

A confirmation dialog is a common method to reduce unwanted mistakes

Some interface elements are prescribed, while others are tailored to meet usability needs. For examples, the dialog box...

The user is alerted when the export procedure is complete.

Because ‘exporting’ happens in the background, it is important to notify the user when it is complete.

All exported images are saved in the Photo Library to a folder called “Saved Photos”.

Most applications that export images will use this common folder.

Apple prescribes that all images are moved to this photo album.

The ‘Back’ button is a common and very essential navigation element

The name of the image and the description are taken from the metadata and displayed beside the thumbnail.

A thumbnail image is displayed to help the user identify the image

This is what a notebook looks like inside.

It shows a preview of each image.

Images that appear in this notebook may also appear in other notebooks. This all depends on what tags are associated with the image.

These four icons allow the user to access additional information related to the image.

This is a much larger preview of the image. Using the now familiar ‘pinch’ gesture, the image can be resized.

Pressing this will delete the image from the device.

The image is framed to give a Polaroid style effect.

Users can switch to other views by tapping one of the 4 icons at the bottom of the screen. These offer additional information related to the image.

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‘Metadata’ is an essential component of any image. It provides information about the image you see.

These fields can be edited by the user to help identify and describe an image.

Tapping this image accesses metadata associated with this image.

Using and modifying metadata will help users categorise and find images quickly and accurately.

An image can even hold information about where (geographically) it was taken. This way users can find where a particularly good photo was taken.

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Tagging images is a common method to help categorise and sort images.

Tapping this icon accesses information relating to how the image is categorised.

If an image doesn’t already have a tag (or you remove all of the tags) then an ‘unsorted’ notebook is dynamically created to store these images.

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Tags that are created can be assigned to an image by switching them on or off.

The keyboard is a generic iPhone feature to allow the user to enter text.

An image can be categorised using as many tags as is wanted. The more you tag it, the more notebooks it appears in.

Once a tag is created, it is available for selection for any image.

Clicking Yes take the user back to the parent notebook; clicking No will take the user back to the image.

Pressing the remove button generates a dialog prompt – just to be sure you really do want to delete it!

Common elements such as dialog prompts are prescribed by Apple. Others exist to improve the usability of the application.

The iPhone allows the user to take a picture and use that, or take one already in the Photo Library

Pressing the ‘Import’ button offers a selection of methods to import an image into a notebook

When an image is imported, the name is set to “Imported Image” with a description that includes the date and time it was imported. The user can then update these at their leisure.

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Users can search Flickr and download images to their notebooks.

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Flickr is one of the many potential image repositories online that could be searched.

Future development would enhance the product and improve its appeal and integration with these online services.

Tapping an image will show a larger preview and additional information about the image.

There are so many images on Flickr that sometimes you don’t quite get what you were expecting – like a photograph of “Steve ‘Mountain Man’ Montgommery”.

The vast quantity if images requires a method to cycle through images while keeping load times and bandwidth to a minimum.

A description already in the metadata is displayed.

Pressing the ‘save’ button will add the image to a notebook

Tapping the image will zoom to offer a full screen preview allowing the user to decide if it’s worth adding to a notebook.

The inbuilt GPS of the iPhone can be used to do more than just navigate...

Tapping a pin shows the title of the image taken at that location.

Images can be taken using the iPhone camera and ‘geotagged’ by using the inbuilt GPS. This pinpoints where in the world a photograph was taken.

Navigating to this screen centres the user on their current position and displays where images already in a notebook were taken (assuming they have a longitude and latitude set in the metadata).

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The About page is an essential component to promote developers and those brave enough to fund their work

‘ArtNotes’ was developed by Dr. Owen Watson & Dr. Kirk Barron from the University of Bolton.

Thanks to JISC for funding this project, and special thanks to David Flanders.

The application was, unusually, written in C# rather than the traditional Objective-C.

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