Mobile Application Design and Development - Assignment Example

Computer Sciences and Information Technology al Affiliation) Q1 Mobile User Experience (A) Explain two main reasons why Fling thinks that developing mobile applications is different from other ICT products Fling classifies mass media into the following; recordings, radio, printing press, television, cinema, the internet, and mobile devices. Mobile technology would be viewed as an extrapolation of previous media, but possess unique features that distinguish it from them. Mobile uniqueness originates from the fact that; it has the capability of doing all that the other media do. Users obtain the highest level of utility when using mobile applications. Mobile has the capability of supporting various ICT products such as; media playback, listening to radio, live television, watching movies, and accessing the internet. Features that make mobile applications unique; they are personal mass media, they are connected to a network, they are portable (mobile devices), and mobile application can create and distribute content (camera). In terms of market preference, the mobile applications’ market has outpaced majority of media that people rely on. It is diverse, and provides a wide range of consumer choice for different users. (B) List four common and useful design methods to develop mobile applications. Appcelerator Titanium Native Android Phone Gap Native iOS (C) Describe two mobile phone features that will present significant difficulties for textually non-literate users/ Mobile phone features that require text editing would present a great barrier to use. These features include; contact management, and asynchronous communication. Contact management involves creating and maintaining contacts, while asynchronous communication is the exchange of messages. References 1. Fling, B. 2009. Mobile design and development. Practical techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps, First Edition, [P 34]. 2. Traeg, P. 2013, November 22. Four ways to build a mobile application. Smashing Magazine, Part 1, 3. 2006. Understanding Non-Literacy as a barrier to mobile phone communication. Report, First Edition, [P 1]. Q2 mobile Web Apps (A) Mention three website design practices that are useful in the development of mobile apps. Context Information and architecture Visual design (B) Describe some pros and cons between mobile web apps and native apps. Mobile web applications possess the following pros: they are easy to create (using JavaScript knowledge), simple to deploy across multiple handsets, they offer a better user experience and a rich design, and content is open to any mobile web browser. Native applications boast of the following qualities; a user can charge for applications, they are relatively simple to develop for a single platform, and they offer a rich design in addition to a best-in-class user experience. Web applications have some cons which are; the optimal experience of using web applications might not be available on all handsets, their support across multiple devices can be challenging, and they fail to support native application features. Native applications have the following disadvantages; they require the user to share revenue with at least one third party, it is relatively expensive to develop and test multiple device platforms, it is difficult to port them to other mobile platforms, and they require certification and distribution from a third party. (C) List at least three different factors for evaluating tools for mobile web development. Consumer expectations, Fragmentation, The Web, Control, and Ubiquity in the Mobile Web. References Fling, B. 2009. Mobile design and development. Practical techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps, First Edition, [P 78-79, 109, and 143-145]. Q3 Android (A) Describe an Android Intent and how to use it in mobile app An Android intent is a mechanism used to pass messages that enable a user to declare his/her intention to complete an action. A fundamental Android design principle is, using intents to propagate actions. Intents are used to; start new activities explicitly (specifying the class to load), or implicitly (requesting an action to be performed on a piece of data), stop activities, and transition between activities within an application. (B) Which open source licensing is used by Android, and describes two main implications of using this particular license? Android uses Apache Software License 2.0, which does not require modifications, and makes the source code available. This source code can be downloaded by anyone, and changeable to according to user needs. These users are not required to make these changes available in source code form to the public. Android is about freedom and choice. The use of Apache Software License promotes openness in the mobile world. (C) What exception will be generated in runtime if permission is missing? These are conditions covered in the case of fatal errors. A configuration change would still cause an application restart without a call to “onconfigurationchanged.” (D) Describe at least six hardware- imposed design considerations that have an impact on Android design philosophy. Android design philosophy has various hardware imposed design considerations. Android includes API libraries that simplify development involving the device hardware. The hardware imposed design ensures that users do not have to create specific implementations of the software for various devices. The hardware APIs include; Communications libraries; for managing Bluetooth, network, and Wi-Fi hardware, extensible support for sensor hardware, a multimedia playback and recording library, access to the device camera for previewing videos and taking pictures, accelerometer and compass APIs to monitor movement and orientation, and a telephony package to provide access to calls and phone status. (E) Show how-to trigger, update and cancel notifications. Triggering a notification involves passing it into the “notify” method on the “NotificationManager” along with the respective integer reference ID. Updating an existing notification involves passing the same integer reference ID that was used to trigger it. It can be passed in two ways; either through the same notification object or a new notification. The ID values have to be the same to ensure that the new notification will replace the status icon and extend status window details. Cancelling notifications is quite simple. Use the integer reference ID to call the “cancel” method on the notification manager. This will remove the notification status bar icon and clears it from the extended status window (Chapter 8). Reference 1. Meier, R. 2009. Professional Android Application Development. Wrox programmer to programmer, First Edition, [Pages 6, 64, 113, and 315]. 2. Licenses. (n.d.). Android Developers. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html Q4 Mashups (A) Describe the term Mobile Mashups Mobile mashup is an application that utilizes more than one source to create a new application. For example, an individual might want to use some data service in his/her mobile application and build an idea on top of it; that constitutes a mobile mashup. (B) Define three types of mobile Mashups services The three types of mobile mashup services are; Business mashups- they enable collaborative action among developers and businesses by focusing data into a single presentation. They combine internal information and services of an enterprise with external resources into a visually rich web application. Consumer mashup- it is aimed at the general public, and is an effective means for consumer personalization of data; it combines multiple sources of different data types into a visual representation. Data mashup- it combines multiple data sources, of the same types, into a single presentation. Reference Viedma, C. 2010. The long tail of mobile applications. Mobile Mashups, 1, [P 12, & 22-23]. Q5 Mobiles in the wild (A) Describe three different methods to test mobile apps. Mobile applications are tested using various methods. Usability testing- testing a mobile project with its actual users presents invaluable feedback. This method gives the application development team an outside view from its target users. Integration testing is a method where modules are combined and tested as a group. It seeks to verify interfaces present between modules against a software design. This method follows unit testing. System testing evaluates an integrated system’s compliance to its specified requirements. The entire mobile application is tested to meet all the specifications set by the application. This method falls within the scope of black box testing, and is independent to the inner design of the code. (B) Describe with your own words two different ways of using context information to create personal mobile user experience Context can be described as; Context (capital c), and context (small c). These two descriptions are used to distinguish the term ‘context.’ Context information can be used to create personal mobile user interface. In my own view, Context is the understanding of a scenario. It is the mental model that users establish to form an understanding, by attaching additional information to it. For example, accessing information about motels from a mobile phone can improve an individual’s understanding of his/her surroundings. It enhances my understanding of a place, situation, and experience in a significant way. On the other hand, context can depict the environment in which people perform tasks that describe the circumstances of understanding. This type of context leads to multiple personal mobile user interface. Basic elements of the physical context include; location and the medium used to access information. Reference Fling, B. (2009). Mobile design and development. Practical techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps, First Edition, [P 45 & 295]. Q6 Mobile Ecosystem (A) Explain two definitions of the mobile ecosystem. Like the internet, the mobile ecosystem is unique in the sense that; it is composed of many different parts that work faultlessly to create an end-to-end experience. These parts are referred to as actors. The mobile ecosystem represents an atmosphere with various components acting as clouds. The ecosystem keeps these components intact, and enables users to access multiple applications and content on their mobile devices without being bound to a single network. (B) Describe at least six of the most important actors Operators- These form the foundation of the mobile ecosystem. They take the form of mobile phone operators, mobile network operators, or cellular companies. They are responsible for creating and maintaining a particular set of wireless services. This is made possible by using a reliable cellular network. Basically, they run the entire mobile ecosystem. Networks- Mobile devices would not function in the absence of a network. These form the fundamental infrastructure of the mobile universe. They are the mainstream method for delivering data. Network generations describe the delivery speeds of data for a specific network. Devices- these are the physical gadgets with a variety of technical capabilities. They are divided into; feature devices, and Smartphone. Devices possess distinguishing characteristics which is in accordance to the brand company specifications. Platforms- Devices require a core programming language to run software and services. Software is written on such a language. This language forms the platform to provide access to the devices. They are divided into; licensed, proprietary, and open source. Operating Systems- these enable applications to ‘communicate’ with each other, and share data or services through toolkits. The most common operating systems include; Symbian- this is an open source operating system designed for mobile devices with user interface frameworks, reference implementations of common tools, and associated libraries. Windows Mobile- a mobile operating system that runs on the Windows Mobile Platform. Android- it runs its own open source operating system. Reference Fling, B. 2009. Mobile design and development. Practical techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps, First Edition, [P 13 & 22]. Read More