Code Release: Barnes Foundation Wearable Prototype
We’ve got another month of user testing mapped out and you’ll continue to see us posting about the lessons we are learning. All of these tests involve changing variables in the admin side of the application — show more content, show a save for later button, etc. — and then retesting with users.
Since we are no longer changing application code, it makes a lot of sense to open source the project now rather than waiting. The reality is, the faster we release the code, the more quickly others can start testing; what you learn in your testing can likely help us in ours.
With that said, check out the Barnes Foundation github where we’ve got a repo for the Barnes Foundation Wearable Prototype. The team at HappyFunCorp has uploaded the app code for Android Wear and an associated readme file are included; you’ll also find a fairly extensive documentation guide.
If you remember, we made some uncommon choices in our architecture which meant we could get going quickly and colleagues could pretty easily set this up without a lot of technical assistance. That architecture has proven to work well for our testing and while it’s not a production solution, doing things this way meant the overhead for our own deploy and that of others would be a lot less. We hope that means more institutions — including those who may not have access to a large web development team — can take advantage of this release.
The project consists of the Android Wear app, the use of Salesforce as a content management system and backend API, and the Bluetooth beacon hardware. The guide will walk you though setting up Salesforce and the beacon integration — you don’t really need much technical knowledge to get going with those things.
You will need an Android developer to help you plug your own Salesforce API key into the app code and then recompile it for use on the wearable. You may also need a system administrator to help you install it onto the wearable for the first time. That’s the extent to which you may need technical help.
Lastly, you’ll need to purchase some off the shelf hardware. We’ve had some complications with our testing device going end of life, but you can still get the Sony Watch 3 from various corners of the internet, so even that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Cheers!
The Barnes Foundation wearable digital prototype is funded by the Barra Foundation as part of their Catalyst Fund.
Want more info? Read more about the Barnes Wearable on Medium and follow the Barnes Foundation publication, where we’ve got multiple authors writing about our projects.
