BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus faces the problem of power outages, and most often, the outage affects only a specific area of the campus. In times of need, such as the examination period, it may be difficult to find which area in the campus has power. Under the guidance of Prof. Vinayak Naik, we developed Ujala, an app that shows the areas with power supply on a map.

Based on the analysis of charging patterns, we concluded that different people charge their phones at different times. Interestingly, there is a significantly high chance that at least a few mobile devices are getting charged in a given area at any point in time. Hence, we could crowdsource this data because charging devices would indicate the presence of power supply.

After developing the first version of the app, we conducted intensive testing of the app with real users and received feedback from around 50 on-campus residents. Though the feedback regarding the functionality and usefulness of the app was positive, we received complaints about the user experience.

In phase 1, the app was developed with a very basic interface. In order to provide a better user experience, I revamped the UI of Ujala in phase 2 with a fresh font, color scheme, and icons.

From the initial feedback received during the testing phase, many users indicated that they did not understand what the app was and how to use it. To help users understand the app and its usage, I designed onboarding screens, explaining the key features of the app.

I added supplementary features in the app settings page like changing the app theme, providing feedback, and inviting others to use the app.

Every mobile app has an icon associated with it, which graphically represents the app. I designed a relevant and recognizable icon for Ujala. Since the app is focused on the people of BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, I inculcated a component of the BITS logo in the form of tricolor pattern in a shredded circle. To represent the connection with electric power, I included a minimalistic bulb graphic.

The app was released on Google Play Store and received a positive response, with 100+ downloads. After my tenure with this project, the team intended to introduce an integration of the app with hardware, which would provide more reliable results. However, due to COVID-19 pandemic, all future plans for Ujala were suspended.

The app is still available to download, but may not work as expected due to deprecated libraries. Check out the project on GitHub.