iPhone/ iPad Application for Quiz / Trivia Application

We were recently analyzing a sales lead which was targeted for development of an Educational Application that test the users knowledge, in other words we can say a Quiz application or some one call them Trivia Category of application.

Lets take an example to understand the dynamics of this application, to start with lets say this is an Education app for school kids and for which our client said they have :

1. 150 Question set for Math
2. 150 Question set of Spelling
3. 150 Question set of Grammar

Additionally they wanted us to make sure that the app has below functionality:

1. The App should tests the users knowledge with a 60 question quiz which are pulled randomly from a question bank of 150 questions.
2. Store Scores locally on iPhone
3. Ability to save incomplete test
4. Generate tips on wrong answers
5. Have  a subcategory for helpful tips
6. Vibrate on incorrect answers
7. Ability to purchase additional questions

After going through the above job specification and analyzing the case, we proposed the best we to move forward on this would be as below

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1. User starts the application by clicking the icon
2. Splash screen is displayed for 3 seconds, if untouched.
3. The user will be displayed category for which he need wants to take a test, this will be displayed in a vertical list like we see the phone contact list.  Like “Math”, “Spelling”, “Grammar” etc.
4. There will a button at bottom of the list which tittle “Purchase Additional Question Set” on click the user will be taken a next screen which will display the list of Question Set that user have not yet purchased.
5. Coming back to point 03, lets say the application already has “Math” Question set already bundled with the application, the user will touch the “Math Quiz” from list and this will start the quiz
6. If the user had left the Quiz application half way previously the user will be prompted with a popup “Play a New Quiz” or “Resume Previous”, the Resume Pervious functionality will address the requirement to play with incomplete saved test.
7. The application will always have AutoSave test mode enabled, so if a users leaves the application half way the application will know exactly where the test was left.
8. While the game play is in action, the other features like Store score locally, generate tips, vibrate on incorrect answers will be implemented

Our Suggestion on above to our client:

1. We suggested our client to add Facebook / Twitter social network elements to this application which will allow a message to be sent on these social networking sites something like ” I am playing ABC iPhone application and I scored “9999″ Score for Math Test”
2. Regarding implementation of purchase of additional questions there are couple of ways to do that, you can read more details about the same on our other web page on “Various ways to implementing In-App Purchase”
3. In the above case to keep the cost of application on lower side it is better to bundle all the questions in “locked” form inside the application and then when a successful inApp purchase request is processed the Question bank will be unlocked for that user.  By doing this you will not require to setup a server infrastructure and create web-services for the same.
4. But if the client expects to keep adding questions sets and questions very frequently, then it would be advisable to create a small CMS system on server with web-services that will make this application dynamic.
5. Also since the nature of questions is all text, the questions can be bundled inside an XML file and stored locally.  Doing this will also not increase the size of application much, but if the nature of quiz is more on images or photo’s and if you store them locally the size of application can get very large.
6. With launch of iPhone iOS 4 new SDK, we also need to take care for application to support multitasking capabilities.
7. If this application is targeted for young generation then ability to play iPod music in background can be an added feature.
8. If you want to take this application to advance level then the same application can be expanded to be played in multi-player environment with use of Bluetooth or using server if the user base is outside reach of bluetooth range.

As an Expert in iPhone Application developer, we do provide  free consultation to our clients and support them in  create rough napkin drawings about the entire flow of the application depending on your budgets and offer end-to-end solution starting right from idea to making the application live.

So, lets get on a Skype (iphone.lancers) or gTalk (iphone.lancer [AT] gmail.com) and talk through your requirements, Contact us now.