SmartRestaurant

A Report on the Development of a NFC-Based Mobile Application

Vanda Rosa, Isabel Brito and Jo

ao Paulo Barros

Instituto Polit

ecnico de Beja, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gest

ao, Beja, Portugal

Keywords:

Requirements, Mobile.

Abstract:

This paper presents as a case study our experience gathered along the development of a mobile application

prototype to be used by restaurant clients. The application, named SmartRestaurant, uses Near Field Commu-

nication (NFC) connectivity and runs on Android. It can be used in restaurants to load its menu, and other

information provided by the restaurant, through scanning a NFC tag with a mobile phone or other NFC en-

abled device. Additionally, the application should allow users to store and share data with others. The paper

presents the lessons learned during the development process used in this case study, including the functionali-

ties already implemented, the future work, and also the process successes and failures.

1 INTRODUCTION

In this paper we present our experience on the de-

velopment of a mobile native application prototype

for restaurants, named SmartRestaurant. This appli-

cation uses Near Field Communication (NFC), which

is a set of short-range wireless technologies, typically

requiring a distance of four centimetres or less to ini-

tiate a connection(Android, 2012). It makes life eas-

ier and more convenient for consumers by simplify-

ing transactions and the exchange of digital content

through the connection of electronic devices with a

touch (NFC, 2013). NFC allows the communication

of small amounts of data between a NFC tag and a

NFC enabled device, or between two NFC-enabled

devices. The driving goal behind this prototype is to

take advantage of NFC, namely to allow restaurant

clients to share data in a useful way. Presently, it is

an Android application for smartphones and tablets.

To illustrate the application, information about a Por-

tuguese restaurant is used. The restaurant has to pro-

vide its information, namely recipes, menus, and sug-

gestions. This information is loaded into the smart-

phone or tablet and can be shared with other users.

This paper is composed as follows: Section 2

presents some background and motivation. Section

3 shows the main technologies, languages, and tools

used in the mobile application development, Section

4 presents the application prototype requirements, de-

sign, programming and testing stages, Section 5 iden-

tiﬁes successes and failures and Section 6 the related

work. Finally, Section 7 presents the conclusions and

future work.

2 BACKGROUND

Since the AppStore store opened in 2008, there was

been a huge growth in mobile application develop-

ment, thus promoting new development practices for

mobile application (e.g. (Wasserman, 2010; Morris

et al., 2010; Alencar and Cowan, 2011)). Mobile ap-

plications development present speciﬁc aspects that

may differentiate it from other applications, such as

mobility and pervasiveness, sensor-based input, prox-

imity to users including handling of personal data,

potential interaction with other applications, and the

large number of mobile devices and operating sys-

tems.

According with recent experience (e.g. (Wasser-

man, 2010)), mobile applications development fre-

quently apply the following points:

• Use agile techniques especially when the applica-

tion is relatively small, with two or three develop-

ers.

• Use the best practices in order to organising track-

ing of development efforts.

• Use speciﬁc development tools and framework,

such as ADT for eclipse (ADT, 2013) or XCode

for iOS (Xcode, 2013b), to simplify the task of

development a small or medium size application.

322

Rosa V., Brito I. and Barros J..

SmartRestaurant - A Report on the Development of a NFC-Based Mobile Application.

DOI: 10.5220/0004567203220327

In Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Software Technologies (ICSOFT-EA-2013), pages 322-327

ISBN: 978-989-8565-68-6

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

• Make the best possible use of limited screen space

and help the mobile users to quickly complete a

simple task.

• Develop tests using testing platform, e. g. emula-

tors, and real platforms, (e. g. (Xcode, 2013a)).

The above list is not exhaustive, but indicates the

most important points for our study.

3 TECHNOLOGIES,

LANGUAGES, AND TOOLS

This section presents the technologies, languages, and

tools used to develop the prototype.

3.1 NFC

NFC is a wireless communication technology that al-

lows data sharing between mobile devices in a close

proximity, usually no more than a few centimeters

away. The NFC standard includes two communica-

tion modes between mobile devices:

1. Active communication mode;

2. Passive communication mode.

In the active mode, the device is able to start a

communication, in two speciﬁc ways: (1) the mo-

bile device can read and even write NFC tags (reader

mode) or (2) two devices can communicate and share

data (peer-to-peer mode).

In the passive mode (or card emulation), the de-

vice is a contactless card and can only be read by other

NFC readers (Mednieks et al., 2012).

In the present case study, we use both NFC com-

munication modes between mobile devices. The NFC

tags, used to store application and restaurant informa-

tion, are in passive mode. The active mode, present in

smartphones and tablets with NFC technology, can be

used to read tags or share data with other active NFC

devices.

3.2 Languages and Tools

To develop the Android application prototype we have

used the most common tools, including the Java pro-

gramming language: namely, the Integrated Devel-

opment Environment (IDE) used to build, test, and

debug the application was Eclipse with the Android

Developer Tools (ADT) plugin to streamline Android

development. In the Eclipse installation, we include

some Android SDK tools, Android platforms tools,

and the emulator AVD Manager (Android Virtual De-

vices) to develop and test the SmartRestaurant proto-

type application (DevTools, 2012). For testing the ap-

plication, we also used NFC tags (NFC forum, 2012)

and a smartphone with NFC technology.

In this sense, we have developed Java code that

writes application and restaurant information in a

NFC tag. This information, which includes the ap-

plication package name and, for example, restaurant

ID or even table ID, can then be read by an active

NFC enabled device to load SmartRestaurant applica-

tion data. In this NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF)

message (Nokia, 2013), we add an Android Appli-

cation Record (AAR), which has the package name

embedded inside an NDEF record, to make sure that

SmartRestaurant application is started when the NFC

tag is scanned. If SmartRestaurant is not present on

the mobile device, Google Play is launched to down-

load the application (ADev, 2012).

To test the application we used the AVD Manager,

the Android system virtual device emulator, but we

also used a mobile phone, an Android-powered device

that supports NFC connectivity.

4 SmartRestaurant PROTOTYPE –

DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

The SmartRestaurant prototype development process

was inspired by the mobile App Development model

in (Morris et al., 2010). This model recommends ag-

ile development initiatives and the use of prototyping

and testing activities early in the development pro-

cess. The model is composed of three phases:

1. Feasibility and economic efﬁcient analysis;

2. Software product realization;

3. Distribution.

This paper shows the application of the second

phase, which was accomplished by three developers

in collaboration with the project manager from Smar-

tobject company. The project manager was responsi-

ble for the ﬁrst and third phases. The selected case

study can be applied in the context of any common

restaurant. Next, following the stages of software

product realisation, we present the requirements, de-

sign, programming and testing stages.

4.1 The SmartRestaurant

Requirements

The requirements are collected and maintained by

early prototypes taking in consideration the project

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323

Figure 1: Deployment.

manager point of view. The requirements review is

the responsibility of the project manager in collab-

oration with restaurants owners and managers. The

application ﬁrst requirement is to read a NFC tag to

identify the restaurant and other provided informa-

tion. When the tag is scanned, if the application is not

installed on the mobile device, the same tag provides

the information to download the SmartRestaurant ap-

plication. If the application is already present on the

device, restaurant data is loaded.

The restaurant data is collected and classiﬁed as

restaurant information, menu, multimedia gallery, in-

gredient, satisfaction, and favourites. In the multi-

media gallery, the restaurant can provide images of

dishes or ingredients. An option is available for cus-

tomers reviews/satisfaction about the restaurant ser-

vice or dishes. Clients can also save their favourite

dishes and share this information with other NFC en-

abled device users.

Inside the restaurant, NFC should be used to iden-

tify the customer table so that the orders (and later the

bill) are delivered to the respective place.

4.2 SmartRestaurant Design

In Android application development, each layout

(screen design) is usually related to an activity, i.e.,

the activity is the source code behind the user inter-

face layout and deﬁnes its behaviour. An activity can

also be seen as an application component that pro-

vides a single screen that the user sees on the device

at one time and with which he can interact in order to

do something. Just like a website consists of multiple

pages, so does an Android application typically has

multiple activities between which the user navigates

(Gargenta, 2011).

The SmartRestaurant application design mostly

uses linear, relative, list view, and grid view based

layouts. List view layout is used in many screens to

display menu options as a list of scrollable items and

grid view layout is used in the image gallery.

Each activity corresponds to a Java ﬁle and the

layout to an XML ﬁle. The correspondence between

them is declared in the AndroidManifest.xml ﬁle. In

other words, the Manifest File is the ”ﬁle that explains

what the application consists of, what all its main

building blocks are, what permissions it requires”

(Gargenta, 2011), as well as other speciﬁcations about

the application structure. Another important ﬁle in the

SmartRestaurant design is the R.java. This is an auto-

generated ﬁle that organises the res directory contents,

such as images, layouts, formatting styles, strings, ar-

rays, and other XML ﬁles added to that resource di-

rectory. As a database system has not yet been added,

this ﬁle assumes especial importance to organise ap-

plication data sample content.

As UML deployment diagrams can illustrate how

the hardware and software components work together,

in Figure 1 we use this type of diagram to illustrate the

SmartRestaurant architecture (Ambler, 2012).

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Figure 1 shows SmartRestaurant main compo-

sition, namely the deployment speciﬁcation (XML

ﬁles), directories for source code, uncompiled re-

sources and auto-generated ﬁles. There is a node that

represents the execution environment, in this case An-

droid (UML, 2013). The SmartRestaurant application

starts when the mobile phone (with NFC enabled and

the SmartRestaurant app) touches a restaurant object

containing a NFC tag.

4.3 SmartRestaurant Prototype

Programming

The SmartRestaurant application interface is simple,

user friendly, and respects the usability requirements.

For example, we had special concern about colours,

typography, writing style, iconography and other im-

ages, main and contextual navigation buttons, and a

hierarchical navigation system to provide a clear and

easy user interaction. This is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Navigation diagram.

The application has a main layout, which can be

seen in Figure 3. The user cannot change this layout.

Figure 3: Main layout for SmartRestaurant.

However, all the remaining layouts should be cus-

tomisable, since the available information depends on

the speciﬁc restaurant data. The restaurant can pro-

vide information similar to its traditional menu or

adapt the information to the mobile application. The

available information should be attractive and suit-

able for a mobile application, so it is important to

provide images and more complete information about

the dishes and ingredients, as exempliﬁed in Figures

4 and 5.

Figure 4: Menu layout example.

Figure 5: Dish layout example.

As stated before, SmartRestaurant has been in-

stalled on a tablet and the application was perfectly

usable. Yet, for a perfect adaptation to the screen size,

it would be necessary to make some changes. In fact,

it is important to design an Android application to be

compatible with different device types. Each screen

size offers different possibilities and challenges for

user interaction. As such, the application must be op-

timised for multiple screen conﬁgurations (Screens,

2012).

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4.4 SmartRestaurant Prototype Testing

This stage was accomplished using a test platform,

the AVD Manager, which is the Android system vir-

tual device emulator, and an Android-powered device,

which supports NFC connectivity, as a real platform,

to test NFC tags and to evaluate the application design

and functionality.

Also, as already stated, we have installed the ap-

plication in a tablet, yet only for testing different

screen sizes, as this was not a NFC enabled device.

The real platform test was accomplished with the col-

laboration of the project manager, who identiﬁed the

users and obtained their feedback.

5 SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

Along the development of the SmartRestaurant proto-

type the following tasks have already been conducted:

• Application prototype requirements, architecture

and design.

• Source code development (main features only).

• Data sample writing.

• NDEF message writing in a NFC tag.

• Application installation in an android smartphone,

which supports NFC connectivity, and application

testing.

These tasks have allowed us to identify several

successes and failures. This is also a demonstration

that a functional prototype is a powerful vehicle to im-

prove initial major goals and software requirements.

Regarding successes, we were already able to

identify the following points as positive and impor-

tant ones:

• For the identiﬁcation of the initial general goals

it is of utmost importance to gather the opinion,

formally or informally, of many different users.

• Mobile applications open many more possibilities

than traditional ones, due to the additional avail-

able sensors and the inherent anytime and any-

where usage possibility . Hence, users and de-

velopers opinions should be collected in brain-

storm sessions where many of those possibilities

can be identiﬁed and eventually ﬁltered out, so as

to abandon some of them.

• For the potential clients it is fundamental to see

early functional prototypes, as they help clients

decide what they want.

• Information storage in NFC tags is very simple to

realise.

• NFC communications modes are simple and easy

to use.

Regarding the failures, the following ones stood

out as deserving more careful consideration:

• The interoperability with existent systems must

be carefully evaluated. In the present case study,

restaurants were less interested than initially ex-

pected also because of the addition of another sys-

tem.

• The overlap with other similar tools can empty

the initial goals: regarding the sharing of data, the

NFC technology must become widely available to

justify its use as a vehicle for sharing.

• A technology can be in a too preliminary state to

be useful to some application contexts: presently,

smartphones/tablets with NFC technology are too

few and expensive.

6 RELATED WORK

We could not ﬁnd any article on the lessons learned

along the development of a NFC application. Yet, it

is easy to ﬁnd this type of application. In fact, it was

possible to identify several NFC-based applications

for restaurants. Apparently, if NFC becomes widely

available, this kind of application can become very

common.

Next, we point to some references about the use

of NFC in restaurants.

The application, named NFC Connected Restau-

rant (CoRest, 2013), was created by CostumerIn, a

Canadian software development company. It also

supports menus and the ordering of meals using the

phone. Enable Table is another app which seems to

have similar functionalities (EnabelTable, 2013).

Some other NFC-based applications for restau-

rants are available in the market, sometimes for a

speciﬁc restaurant or a speciﬁc mobile device and

with distinct functionalities. For example, some em-

phasize menus and orders (Bangkok, 2013), payment

and coupon offers (Enable, 2013), or menu transla-

tion (EREst, 2013). Finally, a recent column (Sabella,

2013) emphasizes the use of NFC in restaurants and

presents several examples.

7 CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents a mobile application prototype.

As this is a ﬁrst prototype, some important features

have not yet been developed. Nevertheless, it has al-

lowed us to identify several successes and failures. As

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future work, we intend to extend our project through

the following activities:

• Addition of a database system to manage restau-

rant information and associated back-end devel-

opment (for restaurant data management).

• Design optimization for multiple screens.

• Application testing in a restaurant environment.

• Support for bill payment.

• Connection between SmartRestaurant mobile ap-

plication and the restaurant website or other

restaurant software.

• Outside the restaurant, support for reservations

and orders using restaurant ﬂyers or cards with an

embedded NFC tag.

• Support for other mobile operating systems.

• Deﬁnition of a test case.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Pedro Martins, who have

brought up to us NFC tags and restaurant software

idea. His suggestions and knowledge about NFC

technology have been very useful for this project.

This work was supported by ”Sistema Regional

de Transfer

encia de Tecnologia SRTT Operac¸

ao:

ALENT-07-0262-FEDER-001870”.

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