Requirements

The brief of this assignment is to create a product with “inclusive design” in mind. This means it is essential we consider the end user throughout all stages of development.  We aim to design an effective and efficient application which allows users to carry out their desired tasks in an uncomplicated manner.  In designing our application we hope to have desirable aspects: engaging, helpful, motivating, challenging, and supporting creativity. The overall goal is to make the IADT mobile application useful, accessible and easy to use for the extremely diverse IADT population.

To achieve a user friendly design the team have chosen to utilise the inclusive design lifecycle model. It focuses on user involvement and active designing. The image below demonstrates how the inclusive design lifecycle model operates.

 

With the ever-increasing popularity of smartphones it has come to many researchers’ attention that area of mobile usability is an area of growing significance. Chin, Diehl & Norman (1998) believe that the usability of technical devices has it’s foundations in psychological phenomena. Bernard, Hammond, Morton & Long (1981) found that for a system to be usable it must consider human perception and users’ cognitive skills in communication, understanding and memory. This research show there is many factors to consider when developing a product to highly usable standard.

Constantinos & Dan (2011) conducted a large study in which one hundred mobile usability tests were analysed and evaluated. Their key findings stated that “usability dimensions are more important in mobile applications than desktops because of the inherent characteristics of mobile devices including small screen size, low display resolution and limited input methods”. The research showed that four key considerations should be made when evaluating the usability of technologies operated on mobile devices: the technical skills of the user, the goals the user wishes to achieve, the environment in which the user will operate the device and the size and capabilities of the device. Constantinous et.al (2011) concluded by stating their belief that no usability framework yet exists in the context of a mobile computing environment. These findings demonstrate that there is gap in current research as to what best approach for developers to take when designing for mobile devices.

Mobile applications and websites are designed specifically for mobile use. The interfaces of mobile websites are very different to the interfaces of desktop websites. The design of mobile websites is typically achieved my cutting down on the available content to mobile users and limiting the tasks to be carried out by the user.  Nielson & Budiu, (2012) state that the human brain is not optimised for the abstract thinking and data memorisation that is necessary when operating selected technical devices and advocate the implementation of mobile websites to cut down on user workload and guarantee the user enjoys using the system.