OR/14/073 Conclusions and moving forward

Bell, P, Shelley, W, Smith, R S, and Tomas, R. 2014. Reusable tools for smartphone apps: innovative activities in the European geological sector. British Geological Survey, OR/14/073.

European geological surveys have widely embraced the use of smartphone apps to deliver geoscience spatial information. Many apps have received thousands of downloads, obtained many positive reviews and won a number of awards. Apps can be seen as a means to enable geological surveys to reach out to a wider audience.

Many skills have been developed and lessons have been learned through these app development activities. In-house development expertise has been gained. Experience has been gathered in a range of open source and free-to-use tools that are considered easy to use. Code and techniques for information visualisation, delivery and collection have been amassed e.g. map interfaces, augmented reality, 3D viewers. All these technologies and techniques are available to be shared with the wider geology and other communities.

A number of the barriers that are perceived to be preventing wider adoption of app development within the geology community are potentially addressed by this survey; the need to support multiple platforms, a lack of software development skills and resource, a lack of reusable software and limited support for reuse across communities. This survey uncovers that these tools and skills do exist and are readily available within the geological community. In particular, the perceived barrier of needing to develop apps for multiple different platforms is addressed through the availability of a range of cross platform development tools and the successful deployment of responsively designed browser-based applications that support multiple mobile devices. The survey also uncovered, however, that more effort needs to be made in promoting the availability of these skills and tools, both within the geology and other communities.

At face value, the survey suggests that INSPIRE has played little or no direct role in the development of apps at this stage of its implementation. However, further examination of the responses might suggest otherwise. There is an acknowledgement that a key function of these apps is to deliver open spatial data in the hope of reaching out to wider audiences. OGC web services are widely used to facilitate this task. Many of the apps developed involve partnership working across different countries and scientific domains. These are all principles and objectives promoted by INSPIRE. Figure 2 indicates that a large number of survey responses came from non-technical responders. It is also possible, therefore, that a lack of understanding of the details of INSPIRE may have prevented the survey uncovering an acknowledgement of the Directive’s role in facilitating the development of apps.

It is hoped that the results of this survey will encourage more organisations to engage in mobile app development, across European geological surveys and beyond. In replying to the survey, participants acknowledged that mobile development needs to be taken more seriously as the popularity of mobile solutions and use of mobile devices grows. Respondents were excited about the new capabilities offered by mobile technologies, including augmented reality apps, the use of a device’s sensors and the different ways of interacting with user interfaces via eye movement.

There is a clear message from a number of participants that mobile websites and a mixed model of web apps and native apps are required to enable organisations to cover all required platforms. The extra effort needed to create native apps should be reserved for the most popular platforms which are overwhelmingly Android followed by iOS at this moment in time.

Apps are helping to bring people together. They offer interactivity, ease of use and novel opportunities for presenting information. They blur the boundaries with how people interact with other information and communicate in living their everyday life. Delivering information through apps allows organisations to reach technology-aware communities, who are increasingly becoming a large percentage of the population across Europe. In some cases this could even involve citizens. A topic that could be explored in further research.

It is hoped this survey can enable more organisations to get involved in app development based on the experiences and lessons learned by those already involved.

The following actions are suggested to enable this skills sharing to start taking place:

• Create a EuroGeoSurveys mobile apps special interest group that facilitates the sharing of the app development experiences gathered in this survey in more detail
• Create a working group to analyse cross-platform development frameworks
• Encourage greater promotion of available tools that are available for reuse
• Create a working group to encourage use of apps that promote citizen science
• Encourage app creators to monitor download statistics as a measure of impact
• Encourage this survey to be repeated and reported in other sectors so that good practices can be shared across public administrations, research groups and other relevant actors, including extensions or separate investigations to directly identify users’ perspectives and impressions of apps