2019 IEEE 10th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2019), 2 - 3 August 2019, Shah Alam,

Malaysia

Improved Disabled Mobile Aid Application for

Android
Health and Fitness Helper for Disabled People

Dhafer Sabah Yaseen1, Shamala A/P Batumalai2, Falah Y. H. Ahmed*3 and Sim Liew Fong4
2, 3, 4
Faculty of Information Sciences & Engineering, Management & Science University (MSU)
Shah Alam, Selangor.
1
Department of Computer science, University of AL-Hamdaniya.
falah_ahmed@msu.edu.my*, dhafer.sabah.uohamdaniya.edu.iq, lfsim@msu.edu.my

Abstract- Disabled people are those individuals who have a
physical or mental impairment that might have a substantial
or long-term adverse effect on the ability to carry out normal
day-to-day activities. Nowadays, everyone has a smartphone
which plays a major role in their life by providing many
functions and applications that eventually help us throughout
the day and make our life easier and more organized. The
disabled Helper is an android application developed to enable
the disabled people to get paralympic sports information and
educating them about the different types of organizations
meant for disabled people with all other specific information
regarding the location and disabled aid sign, in addition, this
application helps the people in need to search clinics and
hospitals by their name and distance using internet, GPS
service and Google Maps and to then be added to preferable
list for future used. Besides, this application provide a list of
reasonable exercises to be carry out by disabled people to stay
healthy and more over it has a medical reminder to remind
them about their medical appointments and medicines. This
application has a new features that makes it very unique as it
involves different aspects of the disabled physical, mental and
social activity, which have shown a significant improvement
to the quality of the disabled life.
Keywords— Global Positioning System, Mobile
application, disabled, quality of life, LBS, Google Maps.
I. INTRODUCTION
Smartphones plays a major role in everyone’s life as it
provides many functions which will eventually help disabled
people to carry out life activities easily. Nowadays disabled
people are relying on their smartphone and use different kind of
applications to assist them in their daily life. But however, there
are not much application which is being developed to help and
guide disabled people especially in health and fitness aspect.
Due to this, disabled people faces many problems[20]. For
instance, disabled people faces difficulties to find clinics and
hospitals due to their limitation, faces difficulties to find suitable
organization and paralympic sports because they do not know
detailed information about it. Besides, disabled people faces
complications in remembering medical appointments and
medicine intakes, they feeling fear to carry out exercises due to
their disabilities and fear of hurting themselves. And lastly, they
faces difficulties in remembering which hospital they have visited
and feel comfortable with.
Therefore, Disabled Helper Application for Android is
develop to enable disabled people to get paralympic sports, get to
know different types of organization which they can participate.
Locate nearby and search clinics and hospitals, provide list of
reasonable exercises to be carried out, medical reminder and a list
of preferable clinics and hospitals details which have been added
to preferable list.
Through Disabled Helper Application for Android, disabled
people can get to know many useful health and fitness
information which is vital for them to carry our daily activities.
A. Contribution
This paper introduces Disabled Helper, an Android
application developed to help and guide disabled people in health
and fitness aspect.
The main concepts of the application are listed below:
٠ An application that allows disabled people to locate
nearby clinics and hospitals or search clinics and
hospitals by their name and distance.
٠ An application that allows disabled people to view a list
of suitable organizations and its associated details
٠ An application that allows users to view a list of suitable
associations and organizations and its associated details
٠ An application that provides medical reminder functions
٠ An application that provides a list of reasonable and
non-extreme exercises that disabled people can cany,
out

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 2019 IEEE 10th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2019), 2 - 3 August 2019, Shah Alam, Malaysia
٠ An application that provide preferable list that can store
selected clinics and hospitals that disabled people have
saved.
B. Project Scope
The scope for the Daily Cure application are:
٠ System Scope
The system need to ensure few things in the application
to make sure it run efficiently. For instance, locate the current
location of the user by using GPS signal and Google Maps
and it helps to navigate to the targeted place from their
current location. It also shows extra information on selected
clinics and hospitals such as address, latitude, longitude,
phone number, website and review. Furthermore, the
application is able to search for clinics and hospitals by input
name and set the distance range. The phone number can used
to call directly and the website can viewed when user click
on them. The selected clinics or hospitals will be added to
preferable list once clicked on add to preferable list button.
Moreover, the application will list down available
paralympic sports available and show additional information
on the chosen sport such as address contact number,
operating hours, website and photos. The website and phone
number can be directly call and view when user click on it.
Besides, the application will also list down available
associations for disabled people and show additional
information on the chosen organization such as address
contact number, operating hours, website and photos. The
website and phone number can be directly call and view
when user click on it. The application have medical reminder
function which will remind disabled people on their medical
appointments and medicine from time to time. The default
title and time can be set so that disabled people do not need
to save again the same reminder again. And lastly, the
application will list down reasonable and non-extreme
exercises in which disabled people can carry, out without
hurting themselves and stay healthy and provide preferable
list that can store the selected clinic and hospital that disabled
people have visited and feel comfortable with.
c. Organization of the Paper
The paper is organized as follows. Section II discusses the
related work and technologies involved that are used during the
research and development of application while section III focuses
on the consumption and the section IV is the conclusion.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
This sections lists all the trails and the researches of the
related work and includes the advantages and the disadvantages
of each technique and application created to help disabled people
worldwide.
A. Current Situation Review
In the existing system, user can add and find information
about the available accessible places around them such as
restaurant, cafe, malls and toilet and a forum like platform so that
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all kind of disabled people can get connected and share their
thought. But all this application is not applicable in Malaysia. All
these applications are designated to be used in foreign countries
such as Spain, Saudi Arabia and so on. For example, WheelMap
is an application designated for mobility impairment people to be
used in Germany [1]. This application cannot be used other than
Germany country, because the language used and places shown
are all in Germany only. Up to date, there is no any android
application to locate clinics and hospitals or to provide
information about organizations and paralympic sports details in
Malaysia. In addition no application of medical reminder and
physical exercises so that disabled people can carry out to stay
healthy and active.
 GPS and Google Maps
The Global Positioning System (GPS), is a satellite-based
navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed
into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense. With the help of
GPS and Google Maps, the location of place can be easily
identified and the distance to the destination can also be shown
clearly. It is easier, these days to utilize map information by
connecting GPS receiver to mobile. In addition, GPS chips are
now included in many devices to analyse satellite signals and
determine the user’s location with high accuracy.
GPS satellites circle the earth twice a day in a very precise
orbit and transmit signal information to earth. GPS receivers take
this information to calculate the user's exact location [2].
Essentially, the GPS receiver compares the time a signal was
transmitted by a satellite with the time it was received. The time
difference tells the GPS receiver how far away the satellite is.
Now, the receiver can determine the user's position and display it
on the unit's electronic map. The workflow on how GPS works is
shown below in figure 1.
Fig. 1 The interaction between GPS satellites, GBS signals
and mobile phone [2]
 Location Based Services (LBS)
Is a mobile service that has the capability to provide real time
information based on the user’s location [3, 4]. For instance, it
can track the nearby place of interest (POI), such as restaurants,
clinics, banks, petrol stations and so on. Location- based services
must be a permission-based. That means the end user must opt-in
 2019 IEEE 10th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2019), 2 - 3 August 2019, Shah Alam, Malaysia
to the service in order to use it. That is why in most of the
application which uses LBS require them to accept a request to
allow the service to know the device’s location [5].
A common LBS architecture consists of three components
which are the Mobile Operator, the LBS Provider and the Mobile
User. Usually, the Mobile Operator works as intermediary,
between the actual provider of the service and the user. This
includes the transmission of user’s location to the LBS Provider
and the transmission of the service itself via mobile
communication networks [6,23]. The LBS Provider combines
user’s location with relevant geo information in the process of
creating and delivering the requested service. The interaction
among these components of LBS service are shown in Figure 2.
Hard coding refers to writing a fixed solution rather than a
generalized one in high level GUI based tools which is XML file.
The main reason of using hard coding style is it is always easier
to hard code a solution than other routine that handles a variety
of possibilities. However, the degree to which a program is hard
coded determines how difficult it is to change with each new type
of data that is introduced or each new function that is added [11,
12]. It means hard coding style offers little flexibility for future
modifications. This is because if researcher want to make changes
or add on more information in future, then researcher need to do
it in XML file instead of Java file. Thus, if the particular changes
involves several classes, then the researcher need to do the
changes one-by-one in every, XML file.

 Android Application Package

An APK file is the file format used for installing application

on the Android operating system. To make an APK file, the
Android application is compiled and check for errors. If errors are
not found, then the particular application is exported into one file.
APK file contains all the application’s source code, assists,
certificates, and manifest file [13, 14]. APK file can have any
name needed, provided that the file name ends in apk format.

No. Authors Year Title Features Limitation

1 Kupfer, 1996 The WheelMap. Not
Flg.2 The interaction among components of LBS services Marcia. lost Find restaurant, applicable
wheel cafe, malls and in
map of toilet and a Malaysia.
 Google Play, Developer Console Ambro forum like
gio platform to get
Lorenz connected.
Google offers the Google Play Developer Console which is etti
defined as a marketplace in which programmers can offer their 2 Racha, 2017 Method Locate place Cannot use
Android applications to Android users [7]. In order to publish the Srini, and and and identify to
application, the developer need to register and buy an account David apparat distance to the communica
Marvin us for destination. te and share
from Google Play Developer Console. And then, the developer Gersabec selectiv information
need to include product details such as title of the product, e .
description, screenshots of the products and so on. After mobile
developer install their application then customer can use Google applica
tion
Play Store to either buy or install the application for free [8,22]. lockout
If the developer wants to uploads a new version of his/her .
application to Google Play Store, then this service notifies 3 Chen Ruizi 2012 Locatio Can track the Not
existing users that an update is available and allows them to n- nearby place of assessabl
Based interest (POI), e for
install the update (Figure 3). Seivice such as everyone.
s and restaurants,
 Shared Preference Naviga clinics, banks,
tion in petrol stations
Smart and so on.
It is an API from Android SDK to store and retrieve Phones
application preferences. Shared Preferences are simply sets of 4 Backes, 2013 Appgu Defined as a Not easy to
Michae, et ard– marketplace in use and
data values that stored persistently which mean that the data you
al. enforci which install.
stored are still exist even if you stop the application or turn off ng user programmers
the device. In short, the data will remain saved till the application require can offer their
is installed in the devices. It act as an internal database in Android ments Android
on applications to
application [9, 10]. Shared Preferences allow US to save and
android Android users.
retrieve data in the form of key and value pair. In this application, apps
researcher have used shared preference to store the clinic and 5 Quek, June, 2014 Validit Store the clinic Does not
hospital details which have been added to preferable list. et al. y and and hospital give
intra- details which information
rater have been on the
 Hard Coding Style

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 2019 IEEE 10th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2019), 2 - 3 August 2019, Shah Alam, Malaysia
reliabili added to pathway or Application for Android is presented to the users, it is important
ty of an preferable list. direction. to conduct testing after the development process is completed.
Androi
d phone
applica  Unit Testing
tion to
measur
e Unit testing is a process of testing the unit or the module of
cervica the system. Unit is defined as the smallest part of the system. The
l range main goal of unit testing is to determine whether it behaves and
6 UML Class 2018 Hard It is easier to Offers little
Diagram Coding hard code a flexibility
performs as what is expected. Each unit is tested separately so the
style solution than for future origin of the errors detected is known. Unit tests are performed
other routine. modificatio before moving on to the next phase of testing which is integration
ns. testing. The modules tested were search and setting range
7 Al- 2016 Localiz Used for Hard to
whereby the value entered to search clinic or hospital by name
Hadhrami ation installing update.
and Suheer for application on can only be in string form and the value entered to search clinic
Ali Awadh. Arab the Android or hospital by setting range must be in integer form. The search
IC operating and setting range option has to display result based on the query,
indoor system
from the user. Furthermore, the telephone number in the detail
navigat
ion module also have to directly trigger the phones dialing options
system and website browsing options once the phone number and
for website is clicked respectively, as well as in the clinic or hospital
blind
locator module and viewing list of paralympic sports and
organization modules. Finally, the map view module has to show
the chosen clinics or hospitals location in the map as well as
III. Construction of Daily Cure Application for navigating to the places and able to add them into the preferable
Android list.

This section discusses the planning, testing as well as the
development of the application, see Figure 3 for the summary of
the overall steps of the application development.
 Methodology
Methodology development plays an important role in any
software development. Unified Software Development Process
(USDP) is the most suitable methodology for the Disabled Helper
Application for Android as shown in Fig 3. There are four phases
in the development process in USDP which are Inception,
Elaboration, Construction and Transition [15, 16, 17].
Plan and understanding the current limitation
Testing
Unit Testing
 Integration Testing
Integration testing is the extension of the unit testing
whereby it is used to test individual software components to
verify interaction between other software components and detect
interface defects. Many units will be combined into components
which then will eventually make up the larger parts of the
program. The combined pieces are tested and expanded to test
modules with other groups. In this case, modules of Disabled
Helper are clinic locator module, paralympic sports module,
organization module, reminder module, exercises module and
preferable module have been tested separately at unit testing
phase. So, all those modules will be combine as a big component
and test their interactions between each modules, the
communication level between the interfaces and so on.
 System Testing

Integration Testing System testing is a process of testing the entire system

before it is being released to the market. This testing is usually
System Testing
done by the testers and users. The system will be checked on its
User Acceptance Testing business functionality and to what extend the system fulfil user’s
expectations. This system testing gives more priority to users
because this Disabled Helper application is created for user’s
Fig 3: Work flow of the application development and purpose and thus their opinion is the main contribution towards
testing this project. Usually, black box testing method will be used to test
application in system testing which means that tester or user do
 Testing not need to know the internal processing or internal functionality
of the application. Hence, test plan and user acceptance test have
Testing is an activity being conducted to confirm the been used to test Disabled Helper application in order to
capability of the application to meets the user’s requirement and determine the testing input and its result.
produces desired result. Hence, before Disabled Helper

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 2019 IEEE 10th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2019), 2 - 3 August 2019, Shah Alam, Malaysia

 User Acceptance Testing Welcome To Disabled

Helper!!!

User acceptance testing is defined as a process of

distributing the application to the real world and end users to test
it and experience it by themselves. Beta testing comes after test
plan and it can be considered as a form of external user
acceptance testing. The Android Application Package (APK) file
will be given out to the users in which they will install the
application and use them. And the, feedback from the users will
be collected and analyzed in order to improve the application.
(a) (d) (c)
The purpose of user acceptance testing is to verify that the Nearby Clinics
Hospital
developed application meets the needs of the users. A set of User
Acceptance Testing questionnaire has been distributed to the
users to evaluate either the Disabled Helper application meets all
the criteria of the users. Based on users feedback for each of the
questions on the survey will be used to improve the Daily Cure
Application for Android in future development.

IV. RESULTS AND DISSCUSION

The main interface had 6 buttons which are “Clinic and (b) (e)
Hospital Locator”, “View Paralympic Sport”, “View
Organization Details”, “Medical Reminder”, “Exercise Videos”
and “Preferable List’.

In third interface, there are two options which are “Nearby”

and “Search”. If user chooses the nearby option, then application
will locate user’s current location and display the nearby list of
clinics and hospitals within the 30km range and display the list of
result as shown in interface 4. If user chooses search clinics and
hospitals, then users can search for a clinics and hospitals by
(f) (f) (g)
inputting name and range of distance as shown in interface 5.
Then the user can select any clinics or hospitals from the list that
shown and they can view additional information like address,
geographical position, telephone number, website if available and
review as shown in interface 6. From this interface, user can click
on navigate here button to directed to the google map to get the
direction as shown in interface 9 and 10. Then, user can add the
selected clinics or hospitals into preferable list by clicking add to
preferable list button. If user click on the second and third button
from the main interface, then a list of available paralympic sports
and organization will be displayed as shown in interface 9. When (h) (h) (i)
user click on the selected sport or organization, then its details
such as address, telephone number, webpage and so on will be
displayed. If user click on the webpage, then user will be
redirected to the webpage as shown in fifth interface. And if user
click on the telephone number, then the dialer will be shown as
in sixth interface [19,21]. When user click on the forth button in
the main interface, then medical reminder page will be shown as
in seventh interface. When user click on the fifth button in the
main interface, then a list of reasonable exercises will be
displayed. When user click on it, then the video will be played.
Lastly, when users click on the last button in the main interface, (j) (j) (k)
then user can view the details of the clinics and hospitals which
have been added to preferable list. Fig. 4 shows interfaces for the user to use the application.
(a) the homepage; (b) main page shows the application name;
(c) clinic and hospital location; (d) hospital name search; (e)
results of hospital search; (f) location of destination; (g) list of

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 2019 IEEE 10th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2019), 2 - 3 August 2019, Shah Alam, Malaysia
activity; (h) information on activity; (i) get connection; (j) list
and direction of the exercise; (k) list of resaved locations.
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Disabled Helper android application is being developed
using Java as the programming language and Eclipse as the
compiler and Android smartphone as the device to run and test
the application. Since the application uses GPS and google maps,
the possibilities are endless to improve and give a new experience
for the user to feel the interactive application in real time. Other
than that, the function to display list of available paralympic
sports and organization will be very, helpful to the disabled
people as they want to achieve big in sports platform as well.
They do not know from where they can get all the information
about it. Hence, by using Disabled Helper application, their
problem will be solved. Other than that, through Disabled Helper,
the disabled people will not face the difficulties in remembering
their medical appointments and medicine intake.
Many studies and researches have been carried out to
evaluate the user’s satisfaction as well expectation and at the
same time to meet the objectives of this project. For the future
development and expansion of the project, there are several
recommendations suggested by users. This project can be
enhanced by having the separate option for displaying clinics and
hospitals instead of displaying both together. This is because
users faces difficulties in finding when both clinics and hospitals
are being display together.
The address or location of clinic or hospital, paralympic
sports and organization can be made to be able to be shared to
other people via ‘WhatsApp’ or any other messaging applications
so that we can share the location to other people.
Through this way, the Disabled Helper application can be
more interactive and become an active application. The
navigation direction can be enhanced by adding other language
option and not only English for users who are not competent in
English. Furthermore, calling the organization and viewing the
website option can be made better by having some pop up
message asking the users whether to proceed with the call or view
option or just ignore it. This option can avoid confusion in users.
Furthermore, the option to add medical reminder has been
located at the task preference instead of on the page itself. Due to
this, many users are unaware about this option. Hence, by having
add medical reminder option at the page itself will be helpful and
straight forward. Moreover, the address or location of clinic or
hospital which have been located at preferable list can be made
to be able to navigate once clicked. This option will be very,
beneficial to users. Besides, the exercises for disabled helper can
be categorized and manage them according to its category,
instead of displaying all in one page.
In conclusion, the Disabled Helper Android application has
enable users to navigate to the nearest clinics and hospitals and
searches for them based on name and distance with ease.
Furthermore, users can get details about type of paralympic sports
212
and organization and eventually can directly call and view the
respective websites in a faster way. Besides, the medical
reminder helps users in order to reminder their medical
appointments and medicine. Last but not the least, the exercise
for the disabled people link provides way for them in order to
carry, out reasonable workouts and stay healthy as normal person.
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