Tapestry | Android Alliance

Concept and vision for the project

The application is based around shopping and bookmarking items that attract the shopper. The easiest way of keeping a record of items we like is simply taking a photo. This is fine, but if you want to try and find that item online later with out a product description, it can prove to be quite difficult. Tapestry solves this issue through the use of the use NFC and barcode scanning. Where a shopper can revisit the item through the website at any time.

The Challenge

Creating a shopping app that is as attractive and easy to use as flicking through a magazine, means the interface must be clean and simple, yet the application is brimming with the latest technology such as NFC and Barcode Scanning. Near Field Communication (NFC) is still a relatively young technology and has yet to make its mark in the retail arena. Getting shoppers familiar with the idea of just touching their phone to the clothing tag without having to open an application before hand is quite revolutionary.

The Result

This application is not just elegant design, it brings something totally new to retail shopping. New ideas take time to develop and fine tune, a detailed understanding of the technology is required. For example, NFC tags are not all the same, some are more suitable for certain functions, there are re-writeable versions and storage capacity varies. The right mix needed to be found for the retailers requirements. To assist the retailers with tagging their items a counter part application needed to be built to actually write the data to the NFC tags.

Technology

Android application
Information Architecture
User Interface Design
NFC tag reading & writing
Programming