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- Dave Arter
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Senior developer Dave Arter talks through some exciting prototyping work he’s been doing recently exploring the use of geotag data and camera integrations to enable users to start reports on FixMyStreet with an image and fast track through the reporting workflow.
You can find more posts from the team talking openly about what they’re working on, something they’re interested in or even perhaps a mistake or challenge they’ve learned from here.
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Image first reporting is something we’ve had on our ‘wouldn’t it be great if’ roadmap for FixMyStreet, and by association FixMyStreet Pro, for a while now.
When we say ‘image first reporting’ we mean giving users the option to start their journey by uploading an image, instead of this being a step that comes later on in the process.
Thanks to recent improvements in iOS and Android, this ‘nice to have’ idea is getting closer to becoming a reality, and I’ve been tasked with prototyping how it could work.
Extracting EXIF data to start reports
When you take a photo on a smartphone, the image file stores a lot of data in a standard known as Exchangeable image file format (EXIF). If you’re using a device that enables geo-tagging, then this data includes the location where the image was taken.
I’ve been prototyping a workflow for FixMyStreet whereby instead of the user finding the location of the problem they want to report (either by inputting the address or postcode, or by using the ‘Use my current location’ option) we can retrieve this information automatically from the EXIF data within an image of the problem at hand.
Why is this a good thing, and will it work?
There are lots of potential benefits to using geotag data for reporting problems on FixMyStreet.
It would speed up the reporting process, for a start. It could also improve the location accuracy of reports, and remove the need for users who can’t or don’t want to report the problem at its location to remember exactly where it was at a later point in time.
Of course, this feature will only work for users who have and are able to operate devices that enable them to take photos, and they will need to have enabled geo-tagging. Users will still be able to report problems on FixMyStreet the ‘usual’ way, without using a photo if they can’t take one or don’t have one.
I’m also still investigating limitations and consequences around accessibility, browser settings, connectivity and file types, and how these elements impact the accuracy and availability of the data. One oddity on iPhones, for example, is photos taken using the camera then and there don’t include geotags – but photos chosen from the user’s camera roll do.
Future improvements could include adding the FixMyStreet app as a sharing destination, meaning you could share a photo from your camera roll straight into the FixMyStreet app to start a report, much like you would an email or a message.
There’s more work to be done before we can look to roll this out, but we’re certainly getting closer – and that’s very exciting!
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