Abstract:

A very common challenge students (especially freshmen) and visitors face when they first visit a university campus is to locate and reach places of interest, like buildings of academic departments, lecture halls, lab rooms or offices for various administrative services. Approaches currently used include printed maps and online webpages showing a (usually) small subset of the points of interest on still images or online maps. However, printed maps cannot be frequently updated so as to include new points of interest or recent updates. Furthermore, both printed maps and existing electronic material on websites rarely provide functionalities for actual, real-time navigation.

Motivated by these observations, which are based not only on experiences of friends and colleagues but also on our own personal experience, we designed and developed Un-e-Nav, an online progressive web application for supporting exploration and navigation within the campus of our University of Patras.

By using Un-e-Nav visitors of the campus or members of the community can easily locate on a map various - even the latest - points of interest within the campus (department buildings, lecture halls and classrooms, administration offices). For each point of interest, in addition to a URL, users can also get directions for physically reaching the particular point of interest, either via Un-e-Nav or by using the default navigation application on their mobile devices. Currently, Un-e-Nav includes all existing points of interest within the campus. However, authorized administrative personnel can easily update the details for existing points of interest or embed new points of interest to Un-e-Nav.

Un-e-Nav is currently offered in English and Greek. It is a lightweight, easy-to-use, responsive application. Moreover, as a progressive web application, Un-e-Nav can be used as a web site and mobile app on any device. Users can add the application to their home screen. Then, when launched from the home screen, Un-e-Nav becomes top-level, full-screen, and works offline.

Un-e-Nav can be easily adapted to any particular university campus and, thus, become a valuable e-assistant for freshmen and campus visitors and a very useful app for current students, faculty members and administrative personnel of a university.

Keywords:

Progressive web app, navigation, university campus.