Developer interview 'Edward Reynell'

Introduction

Ahoy! I'm Ed, an Information Systems student from South Africa with a massive love for the outdoors as well as mobile tech. My first introduction to mobile development was through ‘homebrew’ Game boy Advance development. The idea of writing a small app/game on the PC and then watching it come to life on Game Boy hardware seemed pretty cool. Recently I've been a bit out of touch with mobile dev (actually, all development!) but widgets have recaptured my interest in a big way!

Why mobile widgets?

I've always been more of a designer than a coder so being able to spend less time programming and more time designing the widget to be as fun and intuitive to use as possible was a massive attraction to me. The ease and speed of development when compared to most other methods of producing mobile apps was also a huge plus point. The fact that Opera/Vodafone widgets are based on existing, proven technologies also means that they're accessible to a huge number of web-developers. Almost anybody with a bit of HTML, CSS and JS knowledge can easily apply it to widget development. And with the cursor hidden, widgets look like native Symbian apps! I’ll definitely be churning out more widgets when new ideas come to mind.

What inspired you to write the Widget?

The idea for my widget was started by realising how useful it’d be to have a quick, easy way to tell whether I was above or below the legal blood alcohol content for driving. I’d seen a few online blood alcohol calculators but they were designed to run on PCs and seriously mobile un-friendly. Although the results are estimates (and should never be used as fact), the calculations are based on solid concepts and are able to give the user a relatively good idea of where they stand. I thought the option of being able to SMS a friend or driver with a pre-composed message if the user was above the legal limit was a valuable added feature.

How have you developed the Widget?

The total development time, although not constant, took about three weeks.

Being away from the world of web-dev for a while, I first had to re-familiarise myself with things. Having a seriously talented friend help me out with the learning process made things a lot easier, thanks David!

To begin with I did a serious amount of reading through the Betavine Widget Zone, this gave me a good idea of what the Opera widgets platform is all about. Picking apart a couple of widgets to see what made them tick helped too.

I started the design process by constructing the title screen and getting a look and feel going which I could use throughout the widget. All the graphics/themes were done with the help of Paint Shop Pro, coding was done in Notepad++. Other than that the trusty old Opera widget emulator was constantly running, waiting for the next installment of SteerClear alpha ;) Every once in a while I’d upload the widget to my Nokia 6120c to make sure things were running as expected.

Have you any advice for other developers?

If you’re new to Opera widgets the best thing you can do is head over to Betavine’s Widget Zone and browse through the resources listed there. It’s full of seriously helpful stuff for anybody wanting to get started. Presentation and usability is key with widgets so spend time thinking through the UI design and menu structure. Try to keep fonts large, screens un-cluttered as well as clear, hi-visibility colour schemes. Although the Opera widget emulator is pretty good, having real hardware to test the widget on is a must. Things crop-up on the real hardware that you’d never had expected when using only the emulator.

What’s good and what needs improving?

I found uploading the widget to Betavine quick and well thought out, being able to keep track of the different versions and keeping tabs on how many people download the widget is also great. The Opera widget emulator did cause me some compatibility issues. (It’s super useful for quick testing but not really a hardware substitute.) The feedback from the testers at widget.vodafone.com/dev during the approval stage was also a bit cryptic at times.

How did the BV website help you?

Again, Widget Zone was a great place to start. (The PDF ‘User Experience Guidelines’ is gold) Being able to download other developers’ widgets and browse though their code also helped make things easier to grasp.

Do you have a demo/video clip?

Sure, I’ve finally put one together… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBTVBvZ1g

What is your favourite app/Widget on Betavine and why?

I’d have to go with Wots4Dina. I love cooking so this little widget is great when I’m away from a recipe book and need some ideas!

What feature would you like to see brought to the Betavine platform/community?

As suggested by a couple others, a wiki could be really useful. Other than that things are spot-on.

How did you hear about the Vodafone-Betavine Widget competition?

I discovered the comp by chance, only three weeks before the final round. Needless to say I immediately started brainstorming ideas. Massive thanks to Vodafone & Betavine for running it! It was an awesome idea having three prize bundles every week rather than one or two big winners.