Students Self-Service Website for Mobile Devices - Essay Example

SELF SERVICE WEBSITE Information Gathering. Web self-service can be defined in simpler terms as an electronic support that permits and let the employees and customers of a particular enterprise perform routine tasks and obtain information over the internet, without having to interact with customer care personnel or a representative of the particular enterprise. Also known as e-support, web self-service is commonly used in employee relationship management and customer relationship management. In this case the customers of the web self service will be students and staff who are likely to come from support and teaching staff. The main aim would be to provide students and staff access to their personal information and course related material. Therefore, the main purpose and goals of the mobile self-service to the university will be to provide 24 hour a day service to the students and its staff. This will ensure that students access information any time of the day regardless of their physical address thus promoting efficiency of access to information. Another purpose of the service will be to ensure immediate access to information. Access to information will be easier and faster as it will reduce communication via emails and phone calls which at times tend to delay service delivery and access to information. Faster service delivery is a motivation to customers who in this case are students. In this case customer satisfaction is guaranteed thus promoting frequent visits to the website. The service will also allow students to perform routine tasks and access information over the internet. Routine tasks may involve such things like downloading and submission of assignments, checking their school fees status among other things. This service will ensure this can be achieved anytime and anywhere. Availability of the widely used wireless internet connection will ensure students access information with ease and a cheaper cost. Another purpose of the service will be to reduce operational costs of the university mostly related with communication and information delivery. Operational costs like telephone charges will be reduced drastically. Thus, this will provide cost effective means of improving customer relations between the management, students, and employees. The target audience of this service will include almost all the stakeholders of the university. The most targeted audience of this service is the students who are the major stakeholder because their needs and wants are the core business of the university. Other stakeholders are the teaching staff who entails tutors and lecturers who will also use the service to offer academic services to the students. Another audience will be the administration of the university and mostly the finance and information technology department. The finance department will use it to post the cost of courses that are offered in the university while the information and technology department will be charged with development, innovation, management, and maintenance of the service. The needs and wants of the various stakeholders will vary and this will depend on what they need to obtain from and post on the web. To begin with the students, their needs, and wants will mostly be to retrieve information from the service. This will include such things like viewing their financial statements, viewing their results, submitting their assignments, communicating, and getting feedbacks from their tutors and lecturers. Office of distance education e-learning will also find the application more useful in conducting their businesses with students who are undertaking distance learning services. Teaching staff on the other hand will use the service to reach out to students. Some of the activities they will use the service for are giving out assignments, communicating information to the students and having conversations with them in the form of follow ups. The administration on the other hand will utilize the web service to broadcast any news intended for the students and teaching staff. They will also use it to advertise and market the courses on offer. Consequently, the information office on the other hand will be charged with updating and maintain the application to ensure that the services are satisfactory to its users. Guest to may also find it useful whenever they are interested in wanting to know more about the university and the services the university offers. Alumni or donors of the university may also find the app useful in following the events of the university. Resources required in order to achieve the development of the web self-service application will include a variety of things. One major resource to see the project through is finances. Funds to purchase equipment will be required and this will include such things like devices to help develop and test the app. Funds will also be required to pay the salary of the team and personnel in the development of the app. Therefore, finances will play a major role in seeing the successful development and implementation of the app. Personnel are another resource that will be crucial in the successful development and implementation of the app. Some of the personnel who will be approached and consulted for professional services are web developers, information and technology specialists, and software engineers. Skill and expertise are a crucial resource in the successful development and implementation of the project. Other resources that will also be key in the successful development and implementation of the project is data or information that will be organized and uploaded to provide information required by the visitors visiting the app. This will include personal information of the students, information from the various faculties in the university, departmental information like finance, academics, and human resource. Design Strategy The design for the mobile web application will take the following factors into consideration to ensure that the design realizes the needs of the customer thus increasing customer satisfaction. First impression is vital to any app development. Therefore, the icon for the app should compete for attention to be easily recognized. When launching the app for first time, users should find it easier to use and it ought to have tips and tricks section to help new users navigate through with ease. Subsequent launching should also give an impression and illusion of speed and responsiveness by having recovery operations. Communication should also be another aspect included in the design of the app now that it involves self-service. Provision of instant feedback will be considered for every interaction made with the system in the form of progress bar or spinners to show visitors that there request has been received and it is being worked on. Confirmations and alerts of certain actions will also be included to help visitors navigate with ease through the app. The app will also support gesture based user interaction in the devices that have touch interface. Tasks such as scrollable areas and zooming may provide a handy experience to the users of the application. User input is another factor that will be put into consideration to ensure that visitors find ease using the app. Input fields will be considered in order to provide the keyboard that will be most appropriate for the entry of data (Oreilly, 2007). Some of the available keyboard types include the numbered, text, email, and URL. Auto correct should also be reviewed to ensure that it is not frustrating like it does in other application. This will accommodate the use of many words thus encouraging the use of the service by the visitors. Landscape orientation should also be supported in many devices to accommodate users with various thumb sizes. This will promote frequent visit thus improving service delivery and realizing the intended purpose of the mobile web application. Navigation through the app is also another issue that will be considered in the design of the app. Navigation through the app should be made easier to avoid frustration by the visitors and improve user interaction with the system. Some of the navigation models that will be considered are drill down and tab bar. Tab bar is the most likely to be put into use because it offers simple navigation options to navigate through the app. The design should also incorporate responsiveness of the app to its users. This involves the app acknowledging any interaction made by the user by giving a response in terms of vibrations or the spin bar. The touchscreen interface should also be given more consideration and the design to accommodate various thumb sizes. This will be handy especially when designing the keyboard. Buttons should be strategically arranged in a manner that facilitates simpler navigation and use of the app. For example the space bar button should be kept away from the enter button to avoid premature loading of information. The controls of the app are also other factors that will be put into consideration. The controls should be placed at the bottom of the display screen. Scrolling screen should also be avoided in order to give users that solid and dependable feel that allow users to predict subsequent actions. Scrollable content will be animated in order to avoid unpredictability of the app. The app should also be unique in order to enable frequent visits by the users. Now that the app target mobile devices, it will be advisable to make the app reliable, fun, and friendly to the users. The visitors should find some delight in using the app because it is intended for mobile devices which people visitors use frequently. This will ensure that the visitors are attached to the experience and are hooked to the app. The user interface that will be used in the application intended for the mobile devices will have to satisfy certain requirements. The interface will have to be user friendly in order to allow easier use by the visitors. It should also be consistent in operation to encourage the visitors to use the app. Screen layout will also be worked on thoroughly to ensure such things like colors are easily visible. Sounds will also be incorporated in doing such things like alerting the users in case of problems. Online help line will also be included to help uses interact with the service efficiently. The interface intended to be used for the self-service mobile web app is the graphical user interface. The mostly used will be the windows icons menu pointer (WIMP). This is whereby options will be represented by the use of small pictures called icons that are arranged inside rectangular boxes called windows. This type of graphical user interface is very easy to use and especially to first time users of a service. The major demerit of this user interface is that it takes up a lot of space in the hard disk and it also needs a lot of RAM to run efficiently. Another user interface that will also be utilized in the web application is the touch user interface. This is a graphical user interface that uses a touchscreen and touch pad to display a combined output and input device. This will be handy as it is recommended for use in the mobile devices. Zooming user interfaces will also be utilized. This is where information is represented at various levels of details and scale. Consequently, the user can go ahead to change the scale of the area under view in order to show more details. Another interface that will be utilized is the search interface. This involves the display of the search box and a visual representation of the search results. Keeping the sizes of files small can also be another design strategy to enable faster download of materials in from the internet. Hypothetical example of self-service web design. Prototyping Application prototype that will be created is the ASP.NET Web application which will provide a default web endpoint. The default language of this prototype will be visual in order to support the graphical user interface that will be mostly utilized in this application. Usability testing is basically the act of evaluating a product by testing it on users. It usually involves systematic observations of individuals in controlled conditions to determine how people can use the system efficiently. The technique likely to be put to use in usability technique is eye tracking, co-discovery learning and think aloud protocol. Some of the methods will include the hallway testing. This will involve random selection of individuals it can be in a hallway and then asking them to try using the product. It will enable the designers to identify any gaps in the application that need adjustment. Remote usability testing will involve synchronous usability testing and asynchronous methodologies. Another method that will be used is the expert review which involves bringing in experts with usability testing experience. This may involve the use of heuristic evaluation which is based on usability principles such as visibility system status, consistency and standards, error prevention, user control and systems, help and documentation, flexibility and efficiency use, recognition, aesthetic and minimalist design (Kuo, Lu, Huang & Wu, 2005). Automated expert reviews will also be utilized and done by programs. Another method is the AB testing which focus to identify changes to web pages that maximize or increase an outcome of a particular interest under study. Implementation The mobile self service will be implemented in the various mobile devices in phases. Now that mobile devices comes with different operating system like android and windows the service will first be tried with one system and then implemented on the other in order to find out the existing gaps between the two operating system. The operating system developers will also be approached for consideration of the new application. This will ensure that the app is configured and can be synced with the current operating systems in the market. Bearing in mind that there is already a service for the non-mobile student users, it will be prudent to communicate and give them grace period to adapt to the new system which offer services on the mobile platform. Eventually, a total shift can then be implemented towards the mobile platform but non-mobile services can still be retained to accommodate those who lack devices that can support the application. Maintenance and Growth The rapid introduction of new devices into the market may render the application useless if care is not taken to address these changes. One of the guidelines to keeping the self-service website current will be to ensure that the application is upgradable to any subsequent or current modifications in the technological sphere. Another guideline to keep the self-service current is to ensure that the operating system is universally configurable with other software from mobile devices developers. This will ensure that it is flexible to any changes and can be easily upgraded in case of changes in the market. Security of the application should also be ensured in order to avoid any intrusion and postage of unwanted and offensive material. This may include such things like malware and virus. Information of individuals should also be protected. Firewalls of the application should also be strengthened to avoid hacking of the systems (Kim, Cho, Lee, Lee, Kim & Kim, 2008). The information team responsible for managing the application and those who have access to the security system should be limited in order to account for the activities transacted in the website. The users should also be given passwords and username to help track the activities of the application. This will help monitor and track users with malicious intentions. Another guideline will also be to market the application to the mobile developers in order to be considered during software development. References. Kim, Y. G., Cho, S., Lee, J. S., Lee, M. S., Kim, I. H., & Kim, S. H. (2008). Method for evaluating the security risk of a website against phishing attacks. In Intelligence and Security Informatics (pp. 21-31). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Kuo, T., Lu, I. Y., Huang, C. H., & Wu, G. C. (2005). Measuring users perceived portal service quality: An empirical study. Total quality management and business excellence, 16(3), 309-320. Oreilly, T. (2007). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Communications & strategies, (1), 17. Read More