Design and development of an interactive campus map application for Centria University of Applied Sciences

Abstract

This thesis presents the development of a lightweight campus navigation prototype for Centria University of Applied Sciences. The reason for carrying out this project was to build a simple tool that helps students and visitors find rooms more easily and get a clearer sense of how the campus buildings are organized and mapped out. The end result of this thesis project is a campus wayfinding app created as a web application software. The model of this work has a practical, bidimensional street map with floor plans, photos, and a linked text structure. The interactive plan of the prototype provides various distinct methods of connecting to the system from the pathfinding on the map, text search, quick link to opening to Google Maps. A user can search for any room directly, which has a short description of the room type in the app. Everything was developed with Flutter and Dart in Android Studio, a web development environment. In summary, this work gives solid information on pathfinding theory and applies user-centered design approaches for the development of the model for this app. It shows comprehensive specifications of the elements, its visuals and user engagement of an online pathfinding app and offers a feature, an email support on the app for detailed calls or messages for way finding around campus.