The Alcohol App in Identifying the Needs of Consumers - Case Study Example

Running head: Alcohol App to remain Alcohol App to remain Name: Course Tutor Date: Table of Contents Overview 3 Target Market 4 The Solution 4 Competitor Analysis 5 Features of new Alcohol App 6 Mandatory Features 7 Bonus Features 7 Competitive Edge 7 Resources Required 8 Project Milestones and timeline 9 The report 10 Design (draft screens of the main interface) 11 Design verification 12 References 14 Overview Drunken driving is dangerous since the drivers involved are likely to cause accidents. There are different causes of drunken driving that vary from one person to the other. One of the causes is peer pressure, lack of adequate preparation and the other cause of drunken driving results from people’s inability to know how drunk they are after consumption of a given level of alcohol. Often people who are very drunk insist that they are sober. In addition, alcohol slows down the reflex action of different individuals. As a result, they think that their skills of driving are not affected and therefore they result to drunken driving. However, measures have been developed to minimize the dangers and fatalities related to drinking and driving. These are applicable to drink beyond the legal drinking limit unknowingly. This may lead to trouble with the law or increase the risk of accidents. This requires an application that can be used by individuals to measure the amount of alcohol taken. The application needs to be used in gadgets which is available and accessible by all. Since Smartphones are accessible by everyone and allows them to do basically everything from banking, buying merchandise at a store, making a phone call, searching the internet, or even playing games. This is the best gadget for this application since each person will measure the level alcohol taken. This will enable individuals’ measure their level drink with their mobile phones. This application in smartphones will empower people that otherwise would not be able to gain access to alcohol level measure services during their drinking time thus remain below legal driving limit. Thus, smartphones allow people to be more flexible, possibly in two places at once. Rather, than, be tied to a computer and desk, while with the smartphone their work can come with them. Target Market The Alcohol App should find the targeted market with the greatest need to be satisfied and begin with it before expanding to other potential markets. Lastly, the idea should focus on satisfying certain specific need within the market. This should be the main objective of a new Alcohol App. Overlooking the ability of the service meet customers’ needs or wants often leads to business failure As long as people continue to drink, there will always be a need for alcohol content measure application. This Alcohol App will focus on different markets but adults at age of drinking. First, will focus on the mass-market because application is affordable as well as in demand in demand in all people taking alcohol. Second, the application will also focus on working professionals whose purchasing practices are constrained by time and need for convenience. The Solution Owing to fact that customers are easily persuaded by services which have certain competitive advantage, it would be important for the solution offered by the proposed application to solve the entire problem facing the individual taking alcohol before driving. An application that offer partial solution to the market faces more risks of losing customers than one that which offers entire solution to the problem. For instance, if customers are going to be forced to buy part of the solution from one business and get the other part from someone else then this would course them more trouble (Trott, 2007). Therefore application will be able to solve the issue of drunkenness by calculating the level alcohol taken, alert specific people through sms or tweets as well able to carry out have GPS as direction guide. Competitor Analysis Understanding market is therefore essential for identifying the needs of the prospective consumers (Addison, 2003). Similarly, it provides ground on the essential problem or shortage that the business intends to solve. Once the needs are identified, the business would find it relevant to trade with the motivation to satisfy the local needs profitably. Businesses rely on customers to obtain money which can then be turned into some product or service. Consequently, the problem that the business is to solve would motivate customers to give their money into a particular business with the understanding that it is to satisfy some specific needs. Addison, (2003) cites that the concept of need-satisfaction applies to all businesses, products and services. There are many competitors in market for the application which include -The Breathalyzer Simulator & BAC Calculator iPhone App – which is iPhone App and it calculates the level of alcohol and analyses breathe of a person. It can be used by individuals and the law enforcing agency. -Another competitor will be Drinkaware which will , calculate units alcohol in body and set amount of alcohol to take after calculating calories at any given time. DrinkControl this helps to track and calculate alcohol intake quantities as standard units as well as set level that should be taken. Drinking Mirror Android and iPhone Apps Features of new Alcohol App The process of information acquiring is usually classified into four main phases, these phases according to Hermel, (2001) include: assessment of information needs, acquisition of information, information analysis, and finally diffusion of information. In the acquisition of information or the tracking stage of the process of environmental scanning, there are two main activities involved: information capture in an effort to answer a particular issue in question, and information monitoring to highlight the changes in particular critical valuables that are well defined. Simply put the phase involves to look for and to look at. This application will have this ability. It is true that technology has forever changed the way people approach their life. Thus, the proposed application will have some features which will make it unique in the market. These features make the applications acceptable in the market and able to be marketed easily. The features of an application can lead to failure or success in the market. In an instance where the application of alcohol contents does not enables the user to attain its initial goal or achieve a solution that is acceptable, the user must be able to link up with other applications to obtain the needed information to achieve the goal hence diversifying the user knowledge. When an application is incapable of solving the problem, it must be capable of assessing its performance to evaluate the causes. Enable the interaction between user of the phone and with its environment or another information source. Within this application, the weights of the network are adjusted in increments so performance is improved over time. Unfortunately, applications for alcohol content measure couldn’t meet the demands and a worse, the applications doesn’t have unique features like tweeting. For the first time, the applications failed people – both those hungry for knowing how much they taken and those eager to get their contents of alcohol before taking it. That is a short lived failure for current application as knew application is on the way. Following the aforementioned challenges and the limitations associated with the common alcohol applications, the proposed application will be designed and developed to address these shortcomings. Alcohol application will be developed as autonomous software, with the ability to theoretically draw inference with an aim of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of tracking procedure with the amount of alcohol. Mandatory Features -Uses both Metric and Imperial measurement systems - Calculation of Blood Alcohol Content real time - Recognition of age, weight, height and gender of the user. - Multiple user Bonus Features -GPS based feature with Google Maps to help track home when drunk and sent send a sms automatically to chosen number when the calculated level alcohol exceeds the limit. It can also Auto-Tweet to chosen numbers when level of drink is high. Competitive Edge Ease of Use: the application will be used in all smart phones. Low Cost: the application will be ’s components are low cost affordable by start-up businesses and expanding enterprises. Ease Integration: the application will be integrated into any smart phone at any time; it is the basis of every business. The first and foremost benefit is the presence of mobile based applications has increased convenience for the end users and has enabled efficiency in daily tasks. Mobile applications are a source of mobility. It has become a matter of some clicks that the users can gain access to any data using their mobile devices. This has become especially significant in geo-location application services, where the users can access to the installed GPS system in their mobile devices and reach their destination in time without having to go through the hassle of consulting manual map or a friend. Availability: The main purpose of this application is to make the alcohol content measuring within the reach of the drinker and increase safety. Being able to be downloaded and installed in mobiles will make more able to large number of people in the market. Resources Required Various skills and abilities are required for successful new business venture besides the desire to set up a business enterprise (Harris, 2006). Such skills include the ability to manage the financial accounts, cope with the paperwork, and managing different people involved in the business. It is therefore upon the person making new business venture to identify various skills that might be relevant for operating the business successfully. Knowing one’s ability or competence would allow one to decide on the additional training or development that he/she needs to acquire (Murphy, 2006). Moreover, new skills and abilities such as audit are critical in understanding and evaluating the financial status of the business so as to advert business failures that could easily be avoided. Project Milestones and timeline A timeline helps in a process that this exercise did not allow us to do even though it would be highly logical to do it: Divide up issues and deal with them in some order. Even if, for example, the attrition issue is non-urgent, it still needs to have a little bit of work done up front immediately. The following is the timeline 1. Establishment of security protocols for user level access by May 1 2. Setting of Encryption Methods and private networks by April 1 3. Accomplishment of design for recovery plans by September 1 4. Completion of Security Protocols in Transferring Data by December The report The objective was to design an application that can be used by Smartphone to measure and calculate below legal driving limit by individuals. The code for application is Design (draft screens of the main interface) Design verification Design verification carries out a number of tests such as interface, functionality of application. It will be good if the designer asks another individual or group to conduct testing of the application. Doing so, it would allow a wider scope of testing scenarios in order to assure that it is function for purpose intended. Asking a third party to conduct the testing will make this process less impartial. As the tester, the application requirements should be checked based upon the parameters defined by set of objectives/expectations. Interfaces: A well designed application should be simple and user friendly by providing an adequate link point for the user to the services. The interface was designed considering the current human mobile phone interface principles. The application itself is developed using guidelines to ensure seamless integration with other applications. The system would allow a user to capture alcohol content in bottle or taken. Functionality: The essence of ascertaining software reliability is in the interest of vendors who need confirmation that their customers will utilize them without failures. Software reliability models are therefore used to ascertain this functionality. They provide information about the reliability of software either by predicting the same from design parameters or from test data. Predicting software reliability from design parameters is a kin to ascertaining the level of defect in the software, thus they are referred to as “defect density” models. These models used code characteristics such as through nesting of loops, lines of code, input/outputs, or external references in estimating the degree of defect in software. Models that test software from test data are akin to testing reliability in growth, thus they are referred to as “software reliability growth” models. The models use statistical correlations to find the relationship between known statistical functions and defect detection data. Good correlations are then used to predict software behavior in the future. This application will customarily resides on the server and is only accessible through internet. It can be downloaded by the user into their mobile devices but they would not always require internet connection to work. The partial download on the mobile device helps in to link the local processor every time the application is being used. References Read More