Prototype Design: Weathermark App for Flood Alert System

This assignment presents the design and conceptualization of the Weathermark application, a flood alert system designed to send and receive alerts when water levels rise to dangerous levels. The application aims to run on multiple platforms including Windows phone, Android, iOS, Mac, Web, and Windows, mirroring the interface of popular social networking applications. The project focuses on low-fidelity prototyping, outlining scenarios for user signup and login, application launching and stopping, and sending/receiving alerts. The design rationales include implementing a category dashboard, enabling ease of navigation, and ensuring the application functions unobtrusively in the background. The prototype incorporates visual cues and a simple, intuitive interface to improve the user experience, particularly for users with varying skill levels. The application's goal is to protect lives and property by providing timely flood warnings.

Low Fidelity Prototype
1st Author Name
Affiliation
City, Country
e-mail address
2nd Author Name
Affiliation
City, Country
e-mail address
3rd Author Name
Affiliation
City, Country
e-mail address
Introduction
The flood water indicator system
comprises an application that is referred as
Weathermark which is meant for sending
and receiving the alert when water levels
rise to alarming levels. The user interface of
the application will allow users to receive
and send flood warning given by the flood
alarm indicator at any given time. The
application will be developed to run on
various platforms namely Windows phone,
Android, IOS, Mac, Web, and Window. The
ability to have the application run on various
platform marks it easy to be easily accessed
and reach many people at a particular
location hence making it possible to send the
alert more effectively.
The prototype design will model the
user interface after most popular social
networking applications namely Google+ or
Facebook. For quick navigation buttons,
confirmation buttons across the bottom and
grids of icons for menu options within the
application, the application will use a menu
bar across the top (Barrenechea, et al.,
2015). The changes climatic conditions has
unfavorably impacted on the climate pattern
causing extended winter and heavy downfall
as well as summer. Consequently, this has
caused the destruction of properties and loss
of lives globally. This has formed the basis
that has directed modeling of the prototype
that is part of the flood alarm system which
is meant to give a warning or an alert in the
system in case of an imminent flood
approaching for the necessary actions to be
taken and property, as well as lives, can be
protected. The prototype had to take after
designs from Google and Facebook could
aid leveraging some of the money that was
spent and some of the time while designing
the application.
Scenario Description
Scenario 1: Signing Up and Logging In
The design of the flood alarm
indicator system is regional base and since it
is mostly intended to run on smartphone
member of that particular location are
required to sign up (Vardhan, and Jin, 2016).
This not only resident join in the program
but be able to track individuals in case of a
flood in terms whether they received an alert
or when was the last time logging in when
flooding occurs.

Scenario 2: launching and stopping the
application
Scenario 2 mainly focuses on the
user ability to operate the application from
the point of launching and stopping the app
effectively without out any challenges. To
enable this self-drive navigation model will
be utilized and subsequently executed on
every platform that the app has been
developed to run and additionally utilize the
components of familiarity among the users.
Scenario 3: Sending and Receiving the
Alert
For the application to successfully
achieve the purpose, it was intended for it
has to effectively send an alert by the
administrator and the same relayed to all
other members who have joined the
application. This scenario presents the
administrator the capacity to send the alert
when buzzer rings and the ability of the
users to view the same alert on time so as
the necessary measures can be taken into
account.
Design Conceptualization
Scenario 1: Signing Up and Logging In
The design implementation at this
scenario has been done in most the most
simplified way to allow all user are able to
use it despite their different levels of skills.
The water frames have varying colors where
specific details are to be entered to avoid
complication and wrong entry. Also, it
involves few details to enter to make it
simpler for users to join (Mueller, et al.,
2015). Combined with collapsible scrolling
accommodating to the screen the scrollable
factor on small size gadgets and scrolling
items to additionally supplement the need to
spare space on small size gadgets and permit
a better experience for users.
Figure 1a

Figure 1b
Scenario 2: Launching and stopping the
application
The app has to main section
administrator and the user section. After
logging, the administrator has only one
privilege over the user and he or she can
send the alert since the alarm indicator is
installed on his or her premise. Therefore,
all users and administrator has to sign-up
first. For the users to run the application
they will have to tap on the app's icon on the
screen. This will launch a screen showing
various weather bars and the user can select
one weather icon at a time by tapping on a
particular icon. By launching the rainy bar,
the bar will expand in a menu that has a
menu that has consist two categories.
Figures 2 a

Figure 2 b
1. Rainfall – clicking on this bar it will
show the recording of water levels
2. Floods – this will aid the user to
receive or send an alert to people
within a given location.
Scenario 3: Sending and Receiving Flood
alert
When the administrator launches the
application, the only unique icon it has is the
sending button but the rest of the features
are the same. When there is a flood, the
administrator will send the alert only when
the buzzer of the flood alarm indicator
system beeps. The users within the radius
whether the system is installed will receive a
notification similar to a Facebook messenger
message. The users will open the app in
order to view the alert.
3a

3b

3c
Viewing History
The app gives the user a chance to view
the previous flood alert messages sent in
terms of time, date and month. The history
part consists of three and there are scrollable
and the user can tap at particular alert and
view in their details.
1. All – the alerts are lists with
according to the dates in ascending
manner
2. Dates- here one can view the alerts
in terms of dates and time sent
3. Sender- here the users can scroll the
information of the sender of the
particular administrator who sent the
alert.
Design Rationale
Through the implementation of a
category dashboard, it enabled the design to
group all the application task rationally so
that the user can navigate through the app
with easiness and interface can look
aesthetically pleasing (Björnfot, and
Kaptelinin, 2017). The implementation of
design choices with the app has been
enabled to additionally supplement its
capacity to used by the various user with
different levels of skills. The prototype
choices that have been executed within this
application have been done to additional
supplement its capacity to accommodate to
different user types.
The App Running in the Background
The main idea of developing this
application is to have an app that is
unobtrusive and serve to save peoples lives
and properties within a given locality when
the floods occur using their phones they can
receive an alert. The design of the alert icon
allows the bar to run on the background at
the same time it enables the user access
application other different functionalities by
expanding the alert icon (Camburn, et al.,
2017). The alert icon is a good indicator that
the application is still running.
Operation of the app
Since the application is intended to run
on several platforms, the operation is the
same and one can easily navigate through
the app with a lot of easiness since a few
concepts have been introduced compared to
apps like Facebook and Google +
o Tapping + pressing on the alert icon
invoke an action send or read an
alert.
o Tapping on the alert bar expands or
collapse the app.
o The home screen is integrated with
the alert icon
During the design, it was crucial to the
users gaining fluency with the interface and
acquiring experience in its operations as
well liking to use several (Hamanishi, et al.,
2018). In addition, one more notable thing
about the design is having a different calm,
cool and clean colors schemes employed
within the application, which supplements
the consistency and averts overwhelming of
users with conflicting components contained
Conclusion
In conclusion, the design was able to
follow many valuable lessons learned
regarding the interface design of the
applications. This prototype consisted visual
clues or cues which will direct the user in
order to interact with the application in a

particular manner. Users are shown how to
open the menus and dismiss the dialogue box
by this prototype. The application will
incorporate small arrows on the top bar slider
to indicate that is can be slid or pressed.
Moreover, the user can simply tell how to
interact with the app by sliding down on the
progress bar.
By the advancement of various leveled
task examination and wireframes in respect to
the WaterMark application. The project has
possessed the capacity to adequately tend
main user related interactions and their
encompassing issues. Through these being
tended to by use of different approaches of the
design contemplations that will at last upgrade
the app use. In addition, the user experience
additionally contributing to its achievement
with this being a critical part of an
applications headway.
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