When visiting college friends, most people just get a spot to sleep on the couch. But first-year computer science major Henry Wang’s friend got an entire app. Wang wanted to show his friend visiting from the Bay Area the iconic University of California, Riverside (UCR) donkeys, but knew that there was no easy way to track where they were at any given time.
Reminiscing on what spurred him to create the app, Wang shared, “One of my friends was planning to visit [UCR] from the [The San Francisco] Bay Area. He was gonna stay at our dorm, and we were trying to line up some activities… I wanted to take them to see the donkeys because I know that’s an interesting part of campus. But there wasn’t any easy way to go see them.”
And so, he created DonkeySpotter. DonkeySpotter is an app where you can drop a pin on a map to report a donkey sighting in real time. This allows other users to track where the donkeys on campus have last been, and people can even upload photos to document their sightings. The app’s map view helps users locate past and recent sightings, and its integration with Apple Maps can navigate users exactly to reported locations.
When making the app, Wang researched another unofficial UCR app, GoHighlander to understand the approval processes. Initially DonkeySpotter was rejected from the App Store due to explicit mentions of UCR. But after following the advice from another student developer and removing mentions of UCR, the app was successfully published.
Right now, Wang moderates the app manually through notifications to approve or remove sightings in addition to notifications from the “Report” settings for inappropriate or false sightings. But as the app is still being fine tuned and further developed, Wang hopes to make moderation less manual for efficiency, including the potential for user-generated content filtering improvements
Another big ticket item that Wang is currently working on developing is user incentives and gamification: “As of right now, people are just uploading sightings out of goodwill. There’s no credit involved. So one thing that I want to implement was some sort of basic account creation.They could at least put their names and potentially have a leaderboard.”
For additional improvements, Wang also wants to add a notification system to alert users of nearby sightings. He reports that hopefully this will make the app feel more interactive, similar to how Pokémon Go notifies users if there is a new Pokémon in the area for them to catch.
Another update that’s in the works is development of an Android version so that more students can access the app.
Overall, Wang is focused on a simple and functional interface for easier use. One of the most exciting parts of UCR’s culture is viewing the donkeys on any given day. This app allows students to participate in the fun without hindering the magic and the spontaneity of it. And of course, if you’re using the app, make sure to respect the wildlife and maintain a proper distance from these wild animals. But if you’re ever wondering where the donkeys are on campus, just take a peek at DonkeySpotter.
