The Development of the Mobile Application as a Source of Idea Sharing - Assignment Example

HCI Assignment Affiliation PART STORYBOARDING Introduction With the increase in the use of technology, every individual wants to make an effort in being on the front raw when it comes to information, communication, and technology in general. The discovery of smart phones has significantly changed the way people communicate. Monitoring events, weather patterns, locations, activities, and other aspects of every day’s life has been easier with the use of various mobile applications. An instance of this case could be the development of a mobile application that keeps students updated on what is happening in their class. This application could benefit students especially those who happen to be very committed. Such software would help students participate more in class by making things easier for them. Students relax as they wait for their lecturer to come to class and comment on their work but if they would share their work among themselves, comment on each other’s work and share learning material, they would more active. This paper entails the development of a possible mobile application that can unify a team of students around a design, especially in a class. The application can only be used in smart phones or tablets. The mobile application in this project would enhance the exposure to relevant information which would grant students a chance for creating, analyzing and evaluating information hence developing their critical thinking skills. After accessing collective information from classmates, a student will synthesise the information into ideas and present reasonable work (Microsoft.com, 2013). This process alone will encourage crucial thinking and more importantly, their scepticism. Students would also be encouraged to share all they learn in class and beyond their class setting. They would also be able to process their researches properly and then discuss all their concerns with their lecturers. Target Audience The audience targeted by the mobile application are mainly students and their lecturers, but parents could be part of the audience in order to monitor their children closely. Typically, team sharing leads to increased communication amongst the team members, which would be a significant improvement to the students given the use of the proposed mobile application. Due to its aspect of allowing the sharing of data, the mobile application will offer students a platform perfect for study group formation (Microsoft, 2013). Teachers may also join by setting up pages with regard to particular projects and lesson plans. Students may not be the only ones to collaborate but also teachers may be more accessible. Some adult students may not like asking questions in class. Such students may benefit allot from this kind of software. Also at times heavier topics, which are beyond lesson plans, arise. Communication with teachers is vital at this point. The Storyboard The storyboard shows a visual implication and description of the entire process in developing and implementing the proposed mobile application. SET UP. Come up with team foundation server, create the application for the class and add up some class member accounts. CODE. Develop or build a team code. To do so use TFVC (team foundation version control). U can also use Grid repository. WORK. Prepare projects, track work, work together as team and report advancement. Come up with your backlog, discuss progress, work in sprints, and work in partnership making use of group rooms. You can storyboard information and facts and get opinion and feedback on active software. BUILD. Come up with an on premises built server. Also, identify your build procedures. Otherwise you can come up with a nonstop integration by use of visual application online TEST. There is need to test the application. Come up with tests and track the movement of each milestone. Run both automated and manual tests, including stress tests and performance tests. To make it possible for development that is much more sophisticated and testing, deploy the applications to effective environment. Effective machines can operate on any framework of virtualization, which is under the management of SCVMM (system centre virtual machine manager). DEPLOY. Improve the procedures used in managing the release of the application. For each distinct stage, set up the application to a specific environment either the learning environment or a general socializing environment. DESIGN. Model the procedures to understand better and meet the user requirements. Design functionality on top of either the available assets or you can develop a new application. You can use architectural diagrams for visualizing the code and communicating important information about the team’s software. PART 2: CAPTURING DESIGN REQUIREMENTS For the application’s design requirements a solution, delivery team would consult the users on some of the program specifications after which they would agree on the specifications, scope, timeline, and perhaps the cost. The application designer starts with the coding process against the provide specifications and asks some of the users to review the application functionality. The results in this could be what has been expected, worse than expected, or beyond expectations. The design requirements include mainly the user driven requirements, functional requirements, and specification requirements. Typically, the main idea behind the application development is to create an enjoyable learning environment that is more interactive than ever before. The satisfaction of the users is the key drive in this case since without any benefits on the user’s side, the application would be worthless. The design has to be specific to the objectives, which in this case is to allow an interactive way of learning where students can monitor various class activities and engage in online discussion without any time or geographical limitations. Besides, the application has to work to satisfy the functional requirements. To ensure that all the requirements have been met, running a test analysis is applied. Results for Testing the Prototype The proposed application has to be tested in order to establish its effectiveness with regard to serving the intended purpose. The need to test the mobile application exists because of the kind of information that is likely to be shared in the application (Microsoft, 2013). The application may allow the use of both confidential/ private information and general conversations. These two aspects have to be separated technically to distinguish confidential messages from public conversations. Testing would include automated and manual tests in which the application would be installed to mobile devices that could support it or it could be downloaded and installed from online sources. With this regard, a Team Foundation Server (TFS) will provide a build system, version control, software development projects managing metrics, as well as agile planning tools for the proposed application (Microsoft, 2013). TFS would cover the whole cycle of application management. It can work as the back end to several incorporated development environments even though its design is to provide highest advantage when it serves as a back end for the mobile application. Within the team foundation server is a work item. This represents a thing like work to be done, may be a test case, risk to be tracked, a bug or anything. The testing process could be accomplished by use of a program test manager that uses a work item for test cases and bugs for tracking things. The test manager would be hierarchically planned around test plans that contain test suites. The test cases would be executed systematically manually, but they could also be recorded in the manual execution to run later in the automated fashion. Testing on performance of the designed mobile application would be done in video studio ultimate (Cha & Tappert, 2009). However, Microsoft has made it easier by adding the ability to develop test suites and plans on the web, bulk entry as well as editing test cases, and an ability to copy and paste bulky test cases for instance from excel, in to team foundation server through web. This could be applied in the application to ensure that it is perfect for desired task. The control of a team foundation version would allow all students teams to store all artefact types within their repository. It will support two distinct types of workspaces while working with the necessary equipment – local workspaces and the server workspaces. The users could also use Git for connection to the team foundation server. When the use git is done to check codes, referencing the identification of the work item within the check in observation would relate to the check –in with a provided work piece. All the same, team building will also set up git projects. PART 3: DEFINING USER GOALS This part involve the performance of task analysis and the steps needs to develop the application. These aspects depends on the user goals. The tasks and the steps need to be established in line with user goals. User Goals for the Proposed Application To come up with the mobile application, user goals would be considered. Every user would wish to have the application useful and captivating to use. The application developer needs to apply practices that are proven to manage the mobile application cycle. The developer may administer a source code across the team of students (in this case the class), build, develop and test the application functions, track work, plan projects and report any possible advancement. The futuristic aspects of the application would be considered as well. The application is not meant to be short-lived, but rather a project that would last for the longest time possible. This means that some room for growth and future upgrading would be allowed. This would be a key consideration due to the prevailing advancements in technology whereby new mobile devices are introduced with time. Such devices support different versions of application, which means that all the possible versions of the application should be made available as time goes by. PART 4: THE DESIGN DOCUMENT User Needs Learning is largely becoming easier with technological advancements. All users of the proposed mobile application need to have a much simpler way of learning. The presence of lecturers in social application for students makes them appear more approachable. This is important especially to students who may not have many people with whom to confide. In such scenario, such students and lecturers can be in a very beneficial combination, but they can achieve this goal after the implementation of the proposed application. The proposed mobile application would allow students to monitor what has been happening in class whether or not they have been attending their class lectures. The application is more of a social network application in which every student would be able to monitor the class activities, access lecture materials, and carry out various tasks with respect to their teams (Microsoft, 2013). Every team would be in a position of monitoring all its members and compare their activities with those of other student teams within the class. Based on previous studies, the use of social media applications has been increasing with time. There are however few case of social media applications customized for a specific purpose and targeting a specific population like the proposed application in this case. As a student social application, it will lead to the generation of better lesson plans. Lecturers will have a chance to post photos and graphics relevant to lesson plans. When students need specific links to guide them in working on their research projects, the mobile application would act as the best place to access them. Lecturers would on the other hand have a reasonable online space to post academic to a relatively wider student audience. All school sessions can as well be recorded and posted on the same application for all students or anyone with an access to the application services (Microsoft, 2013). Gaining access to the application services could be restricted for security purposes such as ensuring that all the social communication initiated via the application is accessed by the relevant individuals. Accessing another team’s information would also require the agreement to some predefined conditions such as accepting to share own information or the person’s team information. The latter would have to be agreed on by all members of the respective teams. Reporting Reporting is a significant component in project development and it would be equally important in the development of the proposed mobile application, but it has to start with the prototype application before the actual project. The reporting network will have a data warehouse, which will be in the form of a relational folder and a SQL server investigation services information cube. These two sources will be accessible for reporting via SQL server reporting services after this option has been installed. Since these will be cube structures and standard database, any tool that points at these data sites would report directly from them. This will include such tools as Tableau, Cognos, excel, as well as other reporting tools. A collection of reports for the information services that will cover the built information, will be included with every out of box procedure template. New reports will be created by use of report builder for the SSRS. Any report existing would be in a position of being modified. Modifications would be initiated depending on the prevailing technology, existence better services, and increase number of users among other aspects. These modifications would be initiated with respect to the project monitoring and evaluation. Evaluation of the Prot Evaluation of the completed application would involve the collection, analysis, and the use of information to answer any questions concerning the applicability and the state of the application. The evaluation would be based on the testing process, the reporting, and comments by the first users (Boulmetis & Dutwin, 2005). The evaluation would be important in determining the effectiveness and efficiency of the mobile application. A good mobile application should be able to handle all the problems that are meant to be solved such as increasing interactive communication among student in a class or a study group, monitoring group activities, sharing learning ideas, monitoring of the class by the respective lecturers, and having a close interaction between the instructors and students. The evaluation would also check on whether the application can withstand stress especially during heavy data traffic and when the number of users increases with time (Microsoft.com, 2013). Again, to allow upgrading, the application should allow some room for modification without altering the smooth flow of the already existing communication after its implementation. Besides, it should be in a position of handling heavy files such as online books, files, audio files, and video files of the highest data size possible. The evaluation would give room for making an informed decision concerning the full use of the application, development of an alternative, or terminating the project completely. The evaluation would also consider the possible costs in comparison to the projected benefits. If the cost and challenges are far much beyond the possible benefits, the project has to be terminated (Boulmetis & Dutwin, 2005). Otherwise, it would be developed into a fully operating mobile application that could not only be used by the targeted students from a specific class, but also by students from other universities, colleges, or even high schools. The evaluation would depend on the test conducted on its viability. In this case, a decision tree would be used. This is shown in figure 1 below. Figure 1: A Decision Tree in Developing the Interactive Mobile Application (Cha & Tappert, 2009) In the diagram, if the test conducted on the program shows a failure in its applicability, the development process goes back to a point along the process where the problem is detected. Otherwise, the application goes to the deployment stage for completion and full implementation. User would be now in a position to use it in their tablets and smart phones or in any other device that can support the application. Conclusion The development of this mobile application would be absolutely of great benefit to both students and instructors within the targeted class and beyond the respective institution. Making the application popular could not only encourage sharing of educational skills among students across distant institutions, but also could be a source of income to the co-founder of the mobile application (Microsoft.com, 2013). Many students find learning to be a difficult, and in many cases, a boring concept. Most of them hardly study after school hours. The mobile application in this case would be a source of idea sharing within the learning environment. It would be a perfect way of creating an interactive discussion whereby users from a particular class or a study group could engage in learning discussions. Within the process, non-active students could learn a lot from brighter students through the socialized discussions initiated in the form of chats. When students from various diversities join a given group, finding a solution to any education problems would be made simple. A student would also be able to access his or her lecturer’s study materials, assignments, and other learning information in a filtered way that would only allow certain students to allow such materials given the control provided by the lecturer issuing the study materials. This way, every student would benefit from the system. Besides, it would be like many social media where students can post their updates and receive comments from other individuals. It would be a mixture of fun and learning. References Boulmetis, J., & Dutwin, P. (2005). The ABCs of Evaluation . Cha, S.-H., & Tappert, C. C. (2009). A Genetic Algorithm for Constructing Compact Binary Decision Trees. Journal of Pattern Recognition Research 4 (1), 1–13. Microsoft. (2013, October 15). "Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. Retrieved from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/fda2bad5(v=vs.120).aspx Microsoft.com. (2013). Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. Retrieved from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fda2bad5.aspx Read More