Research Report on Website Design - Assignment Example

Research Report to Design Website Name: Date: 28/10/2010 Course: Table of contents. Purpose of the Report--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Executive summary----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Introduction-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 Information provider Building---------------------------------------------------------------------------6 Conclusion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8 References-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10 Purpose of the report. This report seeks to provide enough useful information for the design and implementation of a mobile application which will display the Stock Exchange Index results on the internet. In this regard, the report looks at tools that will be helpful in the construction of such a site and the basis of design with emphasis laid on the information available on the Stock Exchange Index. On this grounds, the report looks background information for such Information Providers, what has been previously done in relation to this field of information provision, the available choices and tools for the creation of effective Information Provider system and the future of information provision on mobile devices such the mobile phone and PDA devices. Executive summary. The rising interest in mobile commerce, driven by the rising numbers of people accessing the internet through their mobile phones every day, has driven companies and internet businesses into designing mobile phone applications to provide information through the internet to their clients through the mobile phones. In this regard, this report deals with information necessary for the design and implementation of an information provision system for the Stack Exchange that will be used to display stock indices for the daily movers in the stock exchange. This information provision system for the country based Stock Exchange will take into account the fact that there are many people, in the Arabian Peninsula and the world at large with interest in the stock exchange (SSE website), who access the internet through their mobile phones. Despite the presence of internet information provision systems for the country based Stock exchange, there is need to expand accessibility of the stock exchange by design and implementation of a mobile phone information provisions system. Design alone is not enough to implement a user attractive information provision system. Current internet users are attracted to attractive pages and not just internet pages thus there is need for consideration of this while implementing the design. Given that mobile devices are of different types with varying parameters, consideration of all factors necessary for each parameter is paramount. Introduction. In the last decade, the number of mobile phone users has clocked the two point four billion mark with those accessing the internet through their mobile phones rising to approximately seven hundred million people with an increase rate of more than a thousand people every day. This is an indication that many people are owning up mobile phones or mobile devices and that there is a rising number of people with internet enable phones, an indication that people have become information conscious and would like to access the information at any location at any time. According to WebpageFx, this has fueled consumer-driven companies to struggle to meet the desires and demands of their clients by construction of mobile web accessing platforms. These websites are not country generally designed websites as the case for computer websites. This is because mobile websites are special in the sense that design is one aspect and full implementation is another. Mobile phone sites requires special attention while undergoing design to enable them to effect fully since there are many designed platforms out there which do not load properly on mobile phones or mobile devices. On grounds of effectiveness of any built mobile phone application or website such as the country based Stock Exchange, a lot of expertise is involved putting the implementation to materialism. Since the design of the information provision for mobile devices is different from design of other platforms like the normal computer internet, understanding of the coding technique is vital in delivering results of highest efficiency. Coding techniques include WML known in full as Wireless Mark up Language, and XHTML Mobile Point. WML is older and serves as the basis of mobile website language but it has limited support for most features which include the intensity of the chromes. This means that platforms or websites built by WML will have limitations in what they can clearly show in regard to color depth, resolution, and zoom feature which phones like the Blackberry and the iphones support (User vision, 2010. p1). This means that for the purposes of beauty, diversity in dichromatic displays, there is consideration of the construction of an information provision site using both technologies to cater for as many clients as possible. Mobile phone technology is usually based on Wireless Application Protocol and served directly through gateways from the usual hosts. The platforms on which they are displayed differ form those that computers use to display their site. These include 3G and downward technologies and not all phones support the fast 3G technology but few. According to User vision, 2010, only iphones and phones like blackberry support this fast feature of mobile data transmission. This technology is very essential in situations where customers need immediate feedbacks to allow them make immediate decisions basing on the information received. This implies that in most information providers need to put into consideration this feature. Besides information provision related to decision making, hosts or serves need to come up with a way of obtaining revenues from serving their clients and this calls for the development of advertising platforms or spaces to enable the hosts benefit too from the service (WebpageFx, n.d). Since the majority of phone users either purchased their handsets before the coming of the iphones and latest display technologies or have recently bought phones or mobile devices which do not support polychromatic displays and due the fact that there is a tendency in human being to resist change, very few people will be willing to replace their handsets in relation to new information acquisition. This plays a major part when choosing a technology for the construction of a mobile application site. Information Provider Building. The general Stock exchange is an extensive site which consists of current and up to date information. As a result, building a mobile information provider for this site will require critical examination. Construction of a database for the storage of company names and corresponding indices as they appear in the stock exchange with the corresponding navigational features is important. For a construction of a mobile platform supported by 3G and latest high data transmission supported phones, it is imperative that the information provider for country based Stock Exchange be built using the XHTML Mobile Point technology and above, of course allowing for the previous WML. There are different parameters of factors to be taken into account before the implementation of the site, put to discussion below. The size of the content to be displayed dictates the size of the screen of the mobile device in the application. In this case, the size of indices to be displayed from the Stock Exchange will highly determine the amount of the screen to be used at any one given time. This size is usually specified in some accepted units in order to achieve the desired effect. For instance, specifying screen sizes in pixels might prove troublesome since most phones understand the display of screen pixels differently. The trick here would be to specify the size of the display in terms of percentage such that the size of the screen is automatically adjusted to fit in the desired percentage. This therefore means that resolution of the phones will be made in terms of screen percentage and not pixels. The screen is designed to show indices in the middle with navigational keys at the bottom right, centre and left sides. At the bottom right, the navigational key “Next index” is created while at the left is “Previous Index”. At the center, a navigation key “Buy” is created. These keys will be synchronized with the correct function to fetch indices as they appear in the Stock Exchange. Fonts should be restricted to readability and all-round supported fonts with both parameters of type and size left unspecified although color may be specified to make it look like the real country based Stock Exchange. This will make the mobile devices to detect text and display in the default font supported in those phones. Also cookies, frames, and tables should be made use of cautiously with an allowance to be made use of in the XHTML technology Diag1: Sample of a phone with a screen to display results of the I.P. Another special feature to be taken into consideration is subscription into the Stock Exchange Information Provider. Although the information provider is to be constructed using web-like technology, regular updates are necessary as one can not ever stay on the internet throughout the day. Thus there is need for subscription for trading platform and regular notifications. A method of subscription includes trade subscriptions and notification subscriptions of specific indices. Subscription is made for one- two dollars per day for registration of trading platforms while those for regular notifications are one dollar per five notifications with their Stock Exchange identities. Nokia iphone. After the construction, there is need to raise revenue for maintenance of the system and customer support. This means that during trading, either with share equities or bond markets, advertisements are inevitable. Advertisements shall be tied to specific indices and actions on the page. For instance, entering the trading platform will have a different advertising space from the one set aside for trading sessions. Pictures and or text will be allowed and made use of in the advertisement spaces. In order for effective design and implementation of the Stock Exchange, there is need to attract clients (SSE clients and new ones) to the information provider. This will involve the use of internet marketing tools to attract new clients. Another approach, which includes the use of hidden links on other applications (Shannon, 2005 pp1), will help to draw new and SSE clients. But it is not automatic that clients will visit the site and stay and thus this provides with the challenge of designing something very attractive to the eye. The information service provider is also constitute high user interactivity to ensure that clients have an idea on what goes on at the site. Sample of the results to be displayed in form of images or graphs. Privacy issues on mobile phone applications are also in legality to the standards on the transaction grounds. Privacy constitutes the SSE index or identification number and the transactions made by each client. The information provider shall restrict access to these details to only those authorized to access the information and these include the clients of the corresponding identification numbers. This restriction shall also apply to historical statements of trading within the SSE, whereby a client is shown his history of purchases or supplies. Lastly, in order to design readable pages on small screens such as those of mobile devices, web pages will need to be broken down to what can fit on the screen at a given time. This means that pages will be divided for easy scrolling. This implies that different sectors of the SSE shall constitute different pages. Conclusion. It is evident that building I.Ps is a very tricky exercise. Employing of both WAP technologies, that is WML and XHTML Mobile Point is inevitable in reaching a wider base of clients. The Stock Exchange will provide this IP at a subscription fee and also charge per notifications. Due to mobile phone inconsistencies, specification of the size of content should be made in percentage form rather than the use of pixel specifications. Legal terms are in tandem with the ground trading rules either from the legislation or from the SSE References: User vision, 2010, Usable web pages for mobile devices. Available on 28th October 2010 from http://www.uservision.co.uk/resources/articles/2005/usable-web-pages-mobile-devices/ Shannon, Ross, 2005, Mobile. Available on 28th October 2010 from http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/accessibility/mobile.html WebpageFx, How to Design and Build a Mobile Website. Available on 28th October 2010 from http://www.webpagefx.com/design-build-mobile-web-site.html Read More