FlashPoll: A Location-aware Polling Application for iPhone: Examining Differences Between iOS and Android Users in the Context of Mobile Polling Applications

Abstract

There exists a wealth of methods to make possible the learning of people’s opinions, values and desires – including polls, surveys, studies, focus groups and so on. The FlashPoll project, of which this thesis was a part, aims to shorten the distance between citizens and those who wish to learn about them. It works by letting such a person – an administrator or decision-maker – create a poll and assign it to a geographical area, wherein citizens who use the FlashPoll app will be able to see it and respond to it. This thesis was concerned both with how best to design the interaction of a locationbased mobile polling application for iOS; and with how iPhone and Android users differ in terms of attitude, usage patterns and so on, in the context of such an app. I designed and developed an iPhone version of the FlashPoll tool (an Android version having already been made). Using these two versions of the FlashPoll app, I conducted a user study, wherein 40 participants (22 Android users and 18 iPhone users) spent a week with the app, reporting their experiences through daily diary entries. The results of the thesis consisted of the completed FlashPoll iOS app itself, of the various findings from the user study, and – drawing upon the other two – of a set of eight guidelines for future designs related to mobile polling.