Ow Usability Can Help Improve Mobile Commerce - Report Example

? TOPIC: HOW USABILITY CAN HELP IMPROVE MOBILE COMMERCE Mobile commerce is the delivery of commercial services directly onto the hands of the consumer through mobile phones. According to mobile applications and knowledge advancement in e-commerce by Bauer H, this segment of commerce use Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of Technology (UTAUT), introduced by Venkatesh. This is the use of information system and a consequent usage habit. Its importance is mostly where one can’t get the same services and still needs them. It has however become essential in some field like mobile banking in Kenya, which make most not see the importance of bank accounts. Many people are using mobile phones for commercial purposes such as internet shopping. The fact that a great portion of the world population uses mobile phones has made mobile commerce a very useful technology which is worth developing. The launch of smart phones has also made this technology popular by moving it from systems that use SMS to those that use actual applications. This paper will discuss analyze the issue on the basis of different mobile commerce channels, which are business domains where mobile commerce has been implemented. Mobile ticketing: With mobile commerce in wide use, one of the benefits is mobile ticketing. One can attain a device such as a mobile phone. The process, in countries where it is applicable, has been made possible for those customers with mobile phones that can access the web they get their tickets online. It is still possible for mobile users who use gadgets that cannot access the web. SMS and MMS are used. A company may, for example, be using SIM (subscriber identity mobile) tool kit or USSD to give a purchase menu. A subscriber identity mobile kit is a platform that utilizes use of RF (radio frequencies. According to computer science and its application, CSA 2012, by Sang-Soo Yeo and others, a security chip is used. It receives instructions from the user and if the frequency is to be transmitted back to the SIM card, it is transmitted to the phone. If there is information to be processed, it is transmitted to the security chip, worked on and result forwarded automatically to the SIM that was used to request the service. For this case our expected result could is a ticket. The ticket comes as a secured message, either SMS or MMS image. The customer will enter their specifications here from choices given and send their request to the company’s server. If the customer has enough credit in an account linked to the mobile number, the server will be able to deduct an exact amount to the value of the ticket purchased, and then automatically send a confirmation text message to the customer. The confirmation SMS entails details of the product bought, for this case the ticket specifications, the date and time of purchase, and a unique code that identifies the ticket and can be manually entered. This is for a phone that is only SMS enabled and cannot execute MMS or WAP outputs. If mms or can output barcode images, a ticket recognition image is sent alongside the confirmation text message. With these considerations of type of phone used, usability, being the ease of use, is enhanced. Reading MMS or SMS is a very easy task. It is also easy during initial purchasing since the USSD code guide the users by giving options. In the future, there should be assistive technology for people with various disability problems. With better accessibility by all, the idea will have an expanded market. Lessons on the website on how to use this service should be easy to access. According to world statistics, done by Jupiter Research, mobile ticketing has been used in purchase of bus tickets, railway transport tickets, and movie and entertainment tickets. In March 2011, 250 million people were purchasing this tickets using mobile. It was estimated that by the year 2015 750 million people will be able to purchase tickets on mobile. MOBILE MONEY TRANSFER: Mobile banking is a growing field worldwide. It is a surprise that it is doing best in developing countries, mainly Tanzania, which is said to be copied from the east African mobile banking masterminds Kenya, via the mobile operator Safaricom. It has been seen in use in other countries such as Uruguay and Japan but has been done in lower scale due to advances in banking technology such as use of visa cards, master cards and other inventions. The system uses STK. every transaction is a request, sent by radio frequencies from the SIM card to the RF SIM module. A given frequency is given for every request and any amount given in figures. The radio frequency transmitted to the RF SIM module is processed by the security chip, for this case the RF SIM module. Secure feedback is given out as output and received by the mobile subscriber. Same happens with all the requests and thus finally a requested transaction is completed successfully through requests and feedbacks. On the question of usability, the technology is clear and simple. The steps are easy to follow in any given transaction. To improve the domain, on my view, the mobile service providers should bring up a marketing program that reaches the individuals, with a step to step user guide. This can easily be done using SMS, which will make it an internal advertisement cost. This will increase usability by those who have not learned it yet. It is important in sending and receiving money, paying bills, purchase of airtime and saving money. Information services: Mobile phone users can pay for information that is delivered to them through text messages. This information is inclusive of service such as weather forecast and reports, product market prices, traffic reports, horoscope, news, stock quotes, financial records and others. The mobile user subscribes to service of their choice, for instance football updates. The customer may be given a choice of league in world football. The choice then narrows down to teams in the league. There could also be detailed options for instance; update at time intervals or after a score. Smart phones use the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to deliver such services. According to the focus on computer science research, edited by Susan Shannon, WAP layered architecture provides an application layer with a wireless session protocol (WSP), interface to session service. A connection-oriented to plan operates above the wireless system for communication. a request from the mobile operator is sent to the protocol layer in the form of primitives defined by the WAP standards. Implementation occurs to the primitive data and result is sent back to the SIM user as an S reply. The customer may find it easy to use, but mostly customers complain about this. Sometimes the request may consume your credit to update you yet you had no intensions whatsoever of knowing at hat specific moment. Customer may find it challenging to keep subscribing when need arises and unsubscribing where they don’t need the service. Most customers describe this as too laborious and tedious work. Daily subscriptions are seen as a better service, for instance, weather update every morning. The process is easy to use but not very popular amongst customers. With customer tutorials and media marketing, learning and understanding can be achieved and the business domain will attract more customers. Mobile marketing and advertising In this context, mobile marketing is the delivery of information about a product to a customer through mobile and also giving them room to order and make payments through mobile. It has been noted by marketing departments that, mobile marketing has triggered more sales than any other marketing. It gets straight to the target customer and if convincing enough reminds them or informs them about the product. It is common used with mobile WAP and websites. The customer will see an advertisement alongside the page they are visiting on mobile. They may decide to order immediately and even maybe purchase. An example of a product that will sell very well in such a case is an antivirus advertised next to a music website. There are websites that are made specifically for online marketing. With the development of the invention and implementation of the universal mobile and telecommunication systems, 3rd generation internet speed is possible with phones. The websites are made suitable for mobile use. An example is www.olx.com. A customer will open the site and search for the good they are interested in. the search engine searches through all the products, which have been advertised for sale. The products prices are always written alongside an image of the product. Little specifications about the product are also included. The search engine gives close matches to the product under search. The buyer chooses the best of the product considering every detail and then contacts the seller through a contact detail given. To sell a product, one logs in as a user, uploads an image of the product into the site and writes little specifications about the product. This is more commonly done on mobile and thus very much part of mobile commerce. The seller is should also give their contact. The sites are therefore a platform where sellers and buyers meet. This mobile commerce channel is not very easy to use for computer illiterate people and mostly the earlier generations. It is however very easy and enjoyable for most internet users. Making payments is not easy through such, since the seller and the buyers may be strangers in business and have no early business relationship it is advisable that buyer pays for the product after taking the product. This is one of the fastest spreading technologies in the whole world. Sites such as OLX have a well developed training program through media. These lessons are in form of television programs and clips. In Kenya, a top celebrity and comedian, Eric Omondi is the advertisement figure on citizen television. MOBILE LOCATION-BASED SERVICES This is a modern technology which has become useful in the security and business world. With this service, users of mobile phones can know their locations. This service uses different technologies to deliver location-based services on wireless devices. The use of Geographic Information Systems is one of the technologies (GIS) used. These systems capture, store, evaluate and report geographical data. They are useful for large-scale location tracking systems. The other technology is the Geographical Positioning System. This technology utilizes a constellation of 27 earth-orbiting satellites. The third technology is the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). In this type of technology, small microchips are attached to objects whose location is to be tracked. Such objects include cattle, goods, or vehicles. The location of the objects is identified by use of readers, which use radio waves. Wireless Local Area Network is the other technology. Here devices that are connected through radio frequency are used. The use of location-based services is very useful businesswise. Customers can easily locate businesses and therefore it is a boost to business owners. It is also easy to keep track of goods. Future technology may see to the use of devices in shops, which track other devices, which are capable of receiving text messages, and transmit advertisement messages to them. For the use of this service on mobile phones for commercial purposes to be popular, several improvements have to be made. The first requirement is privacy. The users of mobile phones need to retain their privacy. They should not be tracked without their consent, as this would lead to discomfort. Proper rules and regulations on the use of this service need to be put in place in order to secure the users’ privacy. The other improvements are the functional requirements. Customers should be able to receive map data based on their location. The navigation function should also be improved for customers to acquire directions to their destinations with ease. Other services, which are tailored in accordance with the customer’s location, should also be included. This service is also coped with the limitation of low bandwidths and unforeseen disconnections on the part of mobile networks. Others are narrow input capability and limited memory size. These form another base for the improvement of this service. Mobile purchase: Catalogue merchants commonly do mobile purchase. These sellers sell wide variety of personal and household goods. They deal mostly on jewelry. Their selling mode is different from that of other retailers since they do not display their products. They show their products on images and the customer can choose and order so it can be delivered. This is due to the small size of most jewelry, which makes them prone to theft. The merchants have the images and of their products on catalogues, most commonly on paper. With mobile commerce, this has become an easy task. These merchants can now put their products on mobile websites where their customers can access them. The images are specially produced to fit to the smaller mobile phone screens, relative to computer monitors. The merchants upload the products alongside prices and their addresses. Little more details are also included like the material making the jewelry. The customer can use their mobile phones instead of travelling looking for the merchants. The website administrator, either being the catalogue merchant or the catalogue merchant’s employee, receives an alert immediately the order is made. Presence of the product is confirmed and the product value is deducted through credit cards or paid through money transfer. An alert is sent and delivery plans made. The alert could be sent through email or SMS. They can also make their orders online and the product may be delivered by mailing services, or the customer may choose to go fetch it at the merchants shop It is as easy to use as the traditional way. The merchants used paper where the customer could refer and order a product of choice. The image is even brought closer to the buyer bringing in the element of mobile marketing. It only has a little difficult with computer illiterate customers. MOBILE BANKING TECHNOLOGY Mobile banking is a service where customers can do some of the bank transactions on their mobile phones without the need to visit a bank. The technologies used in this service range from basic to advanced technology. Basic technology includes Interactive Voice Response (IVR), short message service(SMS). Under interactive voice response customers dials a number and they are prompted to press certain numbers in regard to the bank service they require. This method is only useful for inquiry based transactions and thus not available for advanced services. Under short message service, a customer sends a text message to a certain number. The bank responds with a text message containing the information required by the customer. The bank can also send text messages to its customers to provide certain information such as offers and balance alert. It is therefore effective as it allows a two-way communication. The limitation is in the size of text messages that can be sent as they can only accommodate 160 characters. This service can be improved by enabling a custom interface. Advanced technologies include wireless application protocol (WAP) and stand-alone application. The WAP method uses the concept of URL, browsers, servers and gateways. Its usability can be improved by creating mobile friendly sites. This will also reduce the cost of data plans. Standalone mobile application method is a where a downloadable client is available for use by customers to do bank transactions. This method enables users to conduct more advanced bank transitions. To avoid the hustle of downloading and installation on the part of the customers universal software could be developed to come already installed in new mobile phones. Conclusion: The ease of use, learnability and comfort in a product makes it develop better in its market domain. This has been achieved by computer and internet wide use, which is generally the basic idea of the mobile commerce. People who can use the internet can be able to load commerce pages through mobile phones and transact or market a product. The ideas have not reached everyone and enlightenment will be important. REFERENCES 1. Abdullah, Haim HilmanStrategic Role of Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) Payment System: Establishing New Competitive Advantage. 2. Jairo, A. (2010). An evaluation framework for viable business models for m-commerce in the information technology sector. 3. Global Mobile Statistics (2013). Retrieved from: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats. 4. Wei, (June 2013), Development of a Mobile Commerce Security Analysis Method. 5. Maity, Moutusy, (2013), Critical Factors of Consumer Decision-Making on M-Commerce: A Qualitative Study in the United States. 6. Bauer, H, (2013), mobile applications and knowledge advancement in e-commerce. 7. Sang-Soo, (2012), computer science and its application, CSA. Read More