4 Application Layout

The application, as previously mentioned, was built using the R Shiny [3] framework. This is an incredibly powerful package that allows even inexperienced programmers to easily wrap the functionality of R into a user-friendly webpage. In addition, the decision was made to create this webapp using the shinydashboard package [5]. This allowed much greater control over the layout of the page - which was especially important given the number of pages contained within the application.

When the user first accesses the page, they are greeted with a Welcome Pop-Up (Figure 4.1), explaining the purpose of the application. This pop-up was coded as a HTML file, and is stored separately within the file structure of the application - this file is automatically called upon when the app is first launched. The pop-up can be easily closed, and the user is then brought to the Loan Calculator, which serves as a landing page for the rest of the app.

Figure 4.1: Welcome Pop-Up

To navigate to the various other pages withing the application, a Sidebar Menu (Figure 4.2a) was built using shinydashboard [5]. This menu is open by default, so the user can easily see all of the functionalities of the app. Each element of the menu is also accompanied by a glyph, to visually indicate to the user the purpose of each page. The sidebar can be easily collapsed using the “Hamburger Button” in the top-left corner of the User Interface (UI) to facilitate a wide-screen viewing experience of the webpage.

Figure 4.2: Miscellaneous User Interface Elements

As this application was created as a demonstration of how R can be utilised by actuaries, it was only sensible that the code behind the app should be easily accessible. Therefore, all of the code written for the purpose of this project is openly available on GitHub.

To highlight this within the application itself, a dropdown menu (Figure 4.2b) was placed in the top-right of the UI, with a link to the aforementioned GitHub Page. Also within this dropdown menu, a disclaimer message (Figure 4.2c) is present - while throughout the project a high standard of accuracy and professionalism was adhered to, this application remains an academic exercise, and therefore cannot be fully relied upon for making financial decisions.