The challenge.

Half-way through Fall Semester 2009, our client, a news website covering Arizona politics, approached ASU’s New Media Innovation Lab. The request: create an application for the iPhone that allows Arizonans to get in touch with elected state and local officials, taking advantage of the device’s GPS functionality.

The solution.

My partner Elizabeth Shell and I informally interviewed the client along with a handful of Arizona iPhone users (of both the politically savvy and not-so-savvy varieties). The interviews generally confirmed our hunch about how the app would need to present the content. Users would need to quickly identify and connect with officials based on their current location, but would also need to navigate to the right person based on name, jurisdiction and office.

This was the first iPhone application project for both me and the New Media Innovation Lab. While reading up on iPhone development, we discovered a handy iPhone user interface file. Although the mockup was never totally consistent with the nuances of the iPhone interface, we found them incredibly useful in communicating to the app developer (who also had no mobile app experience) exactly how the thing needed to look and function. Click here to view the early prototype.