Designing Exploration: The Making of the ExplorOz Traveller App

Have you ever wondered how a map raster product could morph into an app that aids explorers Australia-wide? Join us as we unpack the fascinating journey of the ExplorOz Traveller App, from its humble beginnings to its current version. The early years were fraught with numerous challenges due to limited device storage space. Yet, we persevered, packing this app with features galore, without compromising the device's performance. Our commitment to user feedback played a critical role, in helping us shape a user management system that made the app accessible and useful for all.

Today's episode also encompasses the app's transition from its roots in the EOTopo 2019 raster map product to its advanced Vector version. User feedback, as always, was instrumental in shaping this growth, influencing the unique features the app boasts today. Our grappling journey with diverse devices and platforms, and the adventure of designing an adaptable and user-friendly system are all on the table. So, buckle up, subscribe and join us on this captivating journey through the intriguing technicalities of mapping and navigation in the ExplorOz Traveller App. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Okay, welcome back to our podcast, and in this episode we're going to touch on the early years of the Explorers Traveler app, from basically when we started it until possibly halfway through its lifespan. One of the things that we mentioned in our previous podcast was you know, the mapping and the data that we were able to have access to was all this rasterized format for the maps. And now, whether you know what that means or not, basically, a raster is basically a picture. It's a static image and you know you can't. If you bring it closer or take it further away for zoom in, you don't get any more detail. It basically just has the same level of detail, just whether it's clear and crisp or whether you know you move it away, it gets out of focus or more focal.

Speaker 1: 1:51

So a raster map product was where we basically started the Explorers Traveler app. We'd come across, we'd been doing the EO Topo map set as a raster release for, you know, the Aussie Explorer users, some other users, memory map and a few other mapping programs that were out there at the time could use our maps, use these raster maps that we put out in a different file format to support those mapping products. So when we started with the Explorers Traveler development. We basically started with what we knew. So we started with the rasterized map product. So we were basically working on being able to deliver our raster map products in an offline capacity so that you could basically take our raster maps with you offline and use them anywhere, coupled with our plus places database and some treks and some other bits and pieces that we thought were essential items to have when you're traveling, and like a lot of things. You know, we were born from our experiences with Aussie Explorer over the years sitting in the car saying I wish it had or I wish we had, I wish we could do, I wish we could do. And so over the first year or two of app development, it was all about putting in those wish we could do things into the app and building it so that we could use it.

Speaker 1: 3:11

We were obviously restricted with certain things that we wanted to do. You know the file sizes for the raster images. We could create what was called more zoom levels by creating more raster images. But by creating more raster images we needed more file storage, you know. So there becomes a point in all of these devices where you're starting to ask for too much storage, or user experience or user perception oh, you need five gigs of storage. Way back then, 10 or 15 years ago, five gigs of storage was more than a lot of these devices had. So whilst we were coming through with our developments, we were obviously mindful of the restrictions and things that were available in the devices that could go offline and use your maps and the products that we created.

Speaker 1: 3:57

So for a lot of years we were sort of trying to cram all these wonderful features that we dreamed of for years and years as we traveled around into a product that you know where. We just were limited to a scope. We couldn't make it do everything that we wanted to do. So you know, there was a number of years of development taking user feedback.

Speaker 1: 4:19

One of the big things that some of our listeners may not be aware of is that we are driven by our user feedback. So, basically, other than our own well geez, it would be nice to have this in the app. Most of the features and functions that are available in the app have all come in from user generated feedback that we take really seriously, and a lot of the time we implement the things that are after us. Do you have any sort of parts to add to the journey of creating the app. You know, getting it where you had the raster, and we went down a certain path. Obviously, we got to a point where we had more access to data and vector storage and I think we'll talk about the vector and the later stuff in another podcast.

Speaker 2: 5:01

I think that the biggest thing that we had to contend with is that suddenly people have got either an Android device or they've got an Apple device.

Speaker 2: 5:10

But they're different or a Windows device, but they're very different. Not all devices were the same, and so for us, as a developer, you know we were going through an evolution with our capabilities as well. So, you know, does do most people use it in portrait? Do they use it in landscape? Do they use more phones or do they use more, more the tablet? Then there's people wanting them on their, their head units, and, you know, nowadays it's carplay, but in those days it wasn't so much, and just trying to make sure that we could have one program that we could be working on and developing and maintaining, that was had the synergy across all those different variables so that it would automatically look the same on all those devices and you could tilt it portrait, you could tilt it landscape, and then, of course, there's all the user management. So we have a lot of people that you know it's a husband and wife traveling. Do they have to pay for the app twice? No, do they need to have two different accounts? No, so there's a lot of all that behind the scenes. And why have? Why have an account?

Speaker 2: 6:13

You know, early on with digital products, some people had an objection to actually putting their email address in and letting a company, have your email address.

Speaker 2: 6:24

But from the point of view of making all this really cool interactive stuff work and be really user friendly to you so that you can mark a place that you want to go in the future that someone's told you about, well, how's it going to remember that three months down the track on your next device or your phone?

Speaker 2: 6:41

So just trying to take some of that feedback of user wishlist and making that possible is where a lot of all that think tanking went on for the early years. So early adopters of the app were very instrumental in giving that feedback to us as they used it. Those early adopters most of them are still on board and I still talk to them today. And you know it's fantastic to know that it's evolved through the hands of the people, because that's something that explorers was always about. When it was just a website, it was, you know, providing services that people actually genuinely wanted, and being able to communicate with them and be available to them is something that's always been really important to us. So even with our service needs today where, hands on, if you contact our business, you're talking directly to me or to David and that's something that is important.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Well, okay, I'm the gatekeeper.

Speaker 2: 7:37

That's the truth of it, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 7:38

Everyone knows.

Speaker 2: 7:39

I always say you're going to contact Michelle and David, but it's usually me again. That's the truth. But yeah, so that's probably my input.

Speaker 1: 7:48

And so one of the things that is also really crucial and pivotal in our business operations is that we don't have a team of developers and we don't have a team of admin and support staff. Yeah, we're it and the buck stops here and there isn't anywhere else really to go. Obviously, during the life cycle explorers, we've had up to five or six staff and we've done various bits and pieces, but you know business pressures and where we wanted to take our business and our products, we wanted to keep it, you know, within ourselves and within the capabilities of ourselves. And the Explorers Travel Wrap was my first app and the Explorers website was my first commercial website, you know. So we're not experts at any of this by a long stretch.

Speaker 1: 8:37

So it did take us a few years of development of the app to bring it along to a point where we started to get more happy with it. We'd go out in the field and we'd touch bases, people out there using it and get their feedback again for additional development and things to be put into the app. But it was really. It's really inspirational and really wonderful to go out or to get feedback from users that say, oh, we love the app, it does everything we want. You know there's got features in here we've never seen in anything else. Where did you come up with some of this stuff? And the answer is you know user experience or our experience of things that we think were important and necessary to have in the product.

Speaker 1: 9:16

And so, you know, for those years of getting to that point realistically, at a point where we were not really aware of what we were doing, we'd go around about the Eotopo 2019 and sort of mid versions, Just after we the last. Eotopo 2019 was the last of our Rasta products. You know, just as that was coming to fruition and getting to the end of its update cycle, we were getting all this great feedback and we'd realized that moving it forward even further, moving and getting better maps and getting better data presentation and more features to the users, was something that was really important. I think we'll discuss some of those in our next and upcoming session where we look at, you know, the technicalities and the bits and pieces of the Explorers travel app that make it unique and where it is today. So make sure you subscribe and catch up with us on the next one. Bye.