MEST Journal

DOI 10.12709/mest.[Link]

SMARTPHONE APPLICATION FOR

MANAGING MISSED AND FOUND
BELONGINGS

Zainab Abdul-Jalil Salman

University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
Omar A. Athab
University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
[Link]

©MESTE
JEL Category: M15, O32

Abstract
Nowadays, due to our everyday stress and current stressful lifestyle, the loss of items appears a frequent
issue and may be very inconvenient. In this regard, until the IoT becomes part of everyday life, we can
use the software as an efficient tool to assist a person's searching, verifying, and finding lost belongings.
This paper presents an Android-based application that we proposed and implemented to help users find
lost items. Utilizing this software will enable the subscriber to record his request to the relevant authority.
In addition, a special section offers to insert a contact telephone number or email to communicate
between the person who found the item and the person who lost it. During testing, among other services,
the platform showed its capabilities to register and log users, releasing a lot of information of lost items
and automatically forwarding lost-and-found notifications. The paper can be useful for those who deal
with the application of information technology.
Keywords: Finding, Missing, Belongings, Mobile application, Android.

1 INTRODUCTION conventional steps once assets (particularly

expensive ones) is lost, for example filling an
We sometimes forget what happened, some of us official form in the court or going to a missed and
may be robbed and it is difficult to get back our found office, possibly not enough to guarantee the
property. Lost items (for example, important recovery of the misplaced item (Harburg, Kim,
documents, certificates, mobile phones, tablets, Gerber, & Zhang, 2015).
laptops, wallets, keys, luggage, jewelry) can
cause stress and inconvenience, and as a person Finding and retrieving lost and lost items are time-
has more contact with the lost item, the degree of consuming, laborious, and a waste of money
pain will also increase. Choosing to follow (Ahmad, Ziaullah, Rauniyar, Su, & Zhang, 2015).
A study in 2013 showed that approximately
$176.9×109 was lost every year on finding missed
Address of the corresponding author:
Zainab Abdul-Jalil Salman things. Additionally, the survey showed that
 zainab.abd1703@[Link] individuals spend around 0.5 hours weekly

66 │ MESTE Published: January 2022

Salman, Z.A-J, Use of smartphone apps to find lost belongings
MEST Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1 pp. 66-71
seeking wasted property (Mac, 2017). In 2018, a with lost and found items on a single platform
report done by Finance Firm in the UK stated that which speeds up their search and find lost items.
fraud losses in the UK exceeded £ 1.2bn. As said
by the company, missed and robbed card cases 2 ARCHITECTURE AND
accounted for 14% of total card fraud losses in IMPLEMENTATION
2018 (Saed, 2019).
Fig. 1 shows the steps followed in the research.
Different efforts have been proposed to assist the The work obeys the three-layering architecture
victim in finding his belongings. In 2019, Aria Razi (Denko, Pečnik, & Fister Jr, 2021) of mobile
and colleagues suggested a smartphone applications as described below:
application “Kembaliin” specially dedicated to − Presentation Layer - The dart language and its
helping town people solve the problem of framework flutter in carrying out the front-end
misplaced and found belongings in public regions presentation layer. The responsibility of this
online (Razi & Putra, 2020). The application component is bringing and interpreting data to
paradigm plays the role of intermediary link and users. This is what the handler views while
promotes the necessity of interchanging using the application.
information between the lost (sufferer) and the
− Business logic Layer - This layer represents
helper who locates wasted items. Jiang, Mao, and
the adhesive between the information in the
Kang in their work (Jiang, Mao, & Kang, 2019)
front end and the database in the back end. In
suggests a mobile application for online misplaced
this research, JSON is used for connecting the
and found network primarily based on digital map
treated presentation data with the back-end
API records. The digital map API service analyzes
infrastructure.
the item information to add the appropriate push
− Data Layer - The Firebase database is used
and praise module to grow humans' enthusiasm
to run this layer. It supports real-time data
for returning the picked belongings. Alnaghaimshi
synchronization and stores all information in a
N. I. and colleagues presented the MAFQUDAT
well-defined format.
service, which is specially designed to support
users in Arabic and could be seen as a competent
facility for persons who have missed or found
Gather Information
something. This proposed application uses GPS
technology consistent with IOS devices (iPad,
iPod Touch, and iPhone). MAFQUDAT allows
users to report lost or found items, providing a Do Dart And Firebase
space that can reach a wider society
(Alnaghaimshi, Alfayez, Alenizy, & Almutairi,
2020). Meenakshi S. Arya and colleagues Design the UI
introduced the F.I.N.D application that can find
misplaced things very efficiently and comfortably.
Also, it may offer leads to agencies, such as NGOs Link UI with Firebase
or police, who spend a lot of effort finding the
missing people. With this body search function, Fig.1 Workflow diagram of the research
users can find lost objects found in various places
(Arya, Muley, Desai, & More, 2018).
This application is designed to help anyone to find
As mentioned above, scholars used various his/her misplaced item in an outdoor area.
techniques to compensate for the problem. Thus, Furthermore, it enables registering a complaint
in this work, the light is focused on allowing all about the loss of a thing or human: Once the user
users to add complaints (not restricted) and registers into account, he will be able to enter the
introducing a simple graphical user interface with home page and see all the posts. The subscriber
easy-to-view information. Hence, the research will also be able to record a complaint after filling
aims to expediently list a complaint on the registry in the essential data regarding that specific object
without really contacting a police center (thus or person. Figure 2 illustrates the activity diagram
keeping subscriber’s time) and to reunite owners of the general implementation of the application.

Published: January 2022 MESTE │67

 Salman, Z.A-J, Use of smartphone apps to find lost belongings
MEST Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1 pp. 66-71

login

no
valid

yes

home

Lost items page Found items page

Show posts list Create post Show post details Show posts list Create post Show post details

yes yes
created DB DB created

no Send error no
message

exit exit

Fig 2: Activity diagram of the application

3 RESULTS The main page contains two options, one leads to

the found items page and the other to the lost
− Log In Page - The UI for the sign-in page of
items page. It also has a navigation bar for
the application is shown in Figure 3, the user
navigating the app pages and contains user-
enters information (username & password). If
entered information and a logout button.
he does not have an account in the
application, he will go to the register page. − Lost Items Page - The UI for the Home Page
of the application is shown in Figure 6, it
− Sign Up Page - The UI for sign up Page of the
contains several sections of the missing items.
application is shown in Figure 4
The user can choose a section according to
o Any user enters the application for the first his element.
time, he needs the sign-up step to use the
− Found Items Page - The UI for Found Items
app.
Page of the application is shown in Figure 7.
o Once the user signs up, he is forwarded
It has the same UI as the Lost items page, and it
to the log-in section to use the app.
contains several sections of the missing items.
− Home Page - The UI for the Home Page of the The user can choose a section according to his
application is shown in Figure 5. element.

68 │ MESTE Published: January 2022

Salman, Z.A-J, Use of smartphone apps to find lost belongings
MEST Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1 pp. 66-71
− Post creation page - The UI for the Post
Creation Page of the application is shown in
Figure 8.
Through this page, the user is capable to fill in his
post information such as his name, city, and
description of the item, whether it is missing or
founding.
− Posts page - The UI for the Posts page of the
application is shown in Figure 9, each section
of the page displays its posts. This page will
contain all the posts uploaded by users, which
are of one type, for example, the display posts
page of a key type.
− Post-Information Page - The UI for the Post
Information Page of the application is shown Fig.6 Lost Items Page Fig.7 Found items Page
in Figure 10. Once you click on any post, this
page will be displayed containing all the post
information that was filled out by the user.

Fig8: Post creation Page Fig9: Posts Page

Fig.3 Sign-In Page Fig.4 Sign-Up Page

Fig.5 Home Page Fig10: Post Information Page

Published: January 2022 MESTE │69

 Salman, Z.A-J, Use of smartphone apps to find lost belongings
MEST Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1 pp. 66-71

Table 1 Functional testing

Project name: Smartphones application for Announcing Missed and Found Items
Test platform: Android
No. Scenes Precondition Test procedure Expected results Test Results
Initial page APP must be Present sign-in
1 Click to start APP Present sign-in page
display installed page
username and
2 System login Click to Login Display Home page Display Home page
password entered
Lost/Found lost/Found items Click on one of the
Display a book's Display a book's posts
3 items page button have been sections such as
posts page. page.
display clicked key
One of the
Posts page Display post Display post creation
4 sections have Click to add a post
display creation page page
been chosen
Post creation (Add button) have Add full information Display a post on Display a post on the
5
page display been clicked & click to submit the posts page posts page
Post One of the
Display all post Display all post
6 information sections have Click on any post
information information
page display been chosen

4 FUNCTIONAL TESTING affect emotional health. software solutions can

supply answers for persons who are influenced by
Functional testing is to prove the various tasks of
such losses. In response, this article implements
the missed-and-found platform. Element by
an application to easily announce missed and
element test is used to inspect whether the
found things to the broader society. The search
application fulfills the design objectives. This
task may take a long time, and this implantation
process starts from the sign-in page, step by step,
can assist fast searches by allowing other persons
to ensure whether the information is consistent
to know what they are looking for; you never know
and can be picked up and returned smoothly.
who found the item and waits for it to be returned
Table 1 demonstrates a scenario example for the
to you. The Finder application will largely reflect
platform usage and testing.
the active integration of the members of the
society, based mainly on the participation of the
5 CONCLUSIONS user's network.
Wasting an item, particularly an important one,
and having an emotional connection with us may

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Received for publication: 13.11.2021

Revision received: 18.11.2021
Accepted for publication: 06.01.2022

How to cite this article?

Style – APA Sixth Edition:

Salman, Z. A.-J., & Athab, O. A. (2022, 01 15). Smartphone application for managing missed and found
belongings. (Z. Cekerevac, Ed.) MEST Journal, 10(1), 66-71. doi:10.12709/mest.[Link]
Style – Chicago Sixteenth Edition:
Salman, Zainab Abdul-Jalil, and Omar A. Athab. 2022. "Smartphone application for managing missed
and found belongings." Edited by Zoran Cekerevac. MEST Journal (MESTE) 10 (1): 66-71.
doi:10.12709/mest.[Link].
Style – GOST Name Sort:
Salman Zainab Abdul-Jalil and Athab Omar A. Smartphone application for managing missed and
found belongings [Journal] // MEST Journal / ed. Cekerevac Zoran. - Belgrade – Toronto : MESTE, 01
15, 2022. - 1 : Vol. 10. - pp. 66-71.
Style – Harvard Anglia:
Salman, Z. A.-J. & Athab, O. A., 2022. Smartphone application for managing missed and found
belongings. MEST Journal, 15 01, 10(1), pp. 66-71.
Style – ISO 690 Numerical Reference:
Smartphone application for managing missed and found belongings. Salman, Zainab Abdul-Jalil and
Athab, Omar A. [ed.] Zoran Cekerevac. 1, Belgrade – Toronto : MESTE, 01 15, 2022, MEST Journal,
Vol. 10, pp. 66-71.

Published: January 2022 MESTE │71