Smart Golf Reservation iPhone App
A. Rahimi, B.A. Shirazi, R. Makamson
WSU REU 2011 – Electrical Engineering
Introduction
This project is focused on creating a smart golf
reservation iPhone app. This will be a convenient
way to set up a tee time while the user is on the
go. To accomplish this goal, our app makes
extensive use of Google maps.
We feel that integrating the iPhone location
services is a much smarter solution to this
problem than just presenting the user with a list
of courses, without having any knowledge of their
current location.
Details
When the user starts the app, they are presented
with the login screen. One of the key features of
this app is that we will not be asking the user to
make an account with us. We make use of existing
services such as Facebook, Gmail, and Paypal that
can be used to securely confirm the identity of
the user. In the settings, which can be accessed
from the main screen, the user has the option to
login with either of these services.
One of the key features here is the radius option; based
on the research that we have done on the reviews that
customers submitted in the app store, the average
customer tend to use radii over 250 miles, so we will
include the option to set this filter up to 500 miles. After
that, the screen real estate is not going to be able to
support the number of golf courses that have to be
shown , and the app will be hard to use.
Maps Option
The other option after the login screen will be the ability
to use the location services built into the iPhone. When
the user chooses that option, they will be directed to
another screen where they will choose the radius. This
user input will tell the app that how much of the world
map should be shown, (centered at the users current
location). After they choose the radius, the user will be
taken to Google maps , which has all the golf courses
tagged on the map within the radius they specified:
Favorites Option
After the login screen, the user will be presented
with three options: Use the filters provided in the
app to find a specific golf course, let the app find
their current location and show them all the golf
courses around them, or just go to their favorites
list and choose a golf course from there.
Filters Option
If they choose to use the filters, they will be taken
to the next page where they will be able to see a
list of filters that can narrow down the list of golf
courses to the specification they have in mind:
At this step, they can also favorite the golf course. This
last step that we described is also going to be the same
for when the user chooses a golf course though using
the filters. After they book the tee time, the user will be
redirected to the home page, and they will be sent a
confirmation e-mail, detailing the price, the time and
name of the golf course at which they reserved a tee
time.
Each golf course has a tag, and when the user taps on
the tab, they will be able to see some basic information
about the golf course, such as name and address.
To see more details the user can tap the “>” annotation
which is located at the end of the tag. There, they will be
able to see detailed information about the golf course.
These information will include the full name, address,
and phone number on the top of the page, and all the
available tee times in rest of the page. The user can scroll
though the available tee times and just choose one:
Thanks to Ryan Makamson for helping me with the project. Many of
the implemented ideas in the app were driven from the discussions I
had with him and Dr. Shirazi.
This work was supported by the
National Science Foundation’s REU program
under grant number: IIS-0647705
The last option that the user will see after the login
screen was the favorites list. Here the screen is divided
into two parts. The top part shows the users favorite
golf courses, and the bottom part shows a history of all
the golf courses they booked a tee time at. The user can
always un-favorite a golf course in this page by tapping
on the star shaped icon in front of the golf course
name. The user will also have the option to completely
clear either the favorites list, or the history by pressing
a clear button that we implement on the bottom of this
screen.
One last Feature
Another feature that is implemented in the app, is the
ability to give the user discounts for reserving specific
tee times. This will be possible though partnering with
the golf courses, and will help the golf courses fill up
the empty slots in their schedule.
Conclusion
All the features that we talked about in the previous
paragraphs were well researched, and a huge
improvement compared to the already existing apps for
this problem. This app will not be target a huge group
of people. It is rather a simple solution to a simple and
everyday problem. We believe that in the end, even a
small step towards making peoples life easier is a huge
achievement.