Designing a mobile application

Written by: Jonathan Briggs

March 10, 2006 [4016 views]

Ringtones and down-loadable logos and games form a small part of the range of possible mobile applications. This session will try and look at some of the other opportunities, the constraints and some of the approaches.

Outline

• What is possible?
• Will someone pay or will it save money?
• Steps in the development process
• How will it work practically/technically?
• How will it be rolled out to its potential audience?

What is possible?

• Publish information to a mobile audience BBC Mobile page
• Provide information tools/service Mobile stock alerts
• Games Mobile Multiplay games
• Communication services Flirt over Bluetooth
• Location based information and services Mapamobile
• Monitoring and alerting ServersAlive
• Retail – mCommerce Vodafone mPay
• Intranet/fleet management Fleet tracking using GPS and SMS
• Extending web or TV offering SMS voting

Some more ideas

1. help people meet
2. help people plan their life
3. keep customers informed
4. let people buy things that they need now
5. involve people in a game
6. help manage a sales force/reporting
7. extend intranet/internet tools for mobile use
8. voting

Will someone pay or will it save money?

• people will pay for convenience
• prestige
• entertainment
• relationships
• time critical information
• unique content
• security
• a company can save money by reducing transaction costs, increasing efficiency, reducing transaction times, improving communication

Steps in the development process

1. identify functionality or content
2. identify audience
3. review competitors
4. research technology/platform options
5. research business/payment options and revenue opportunities
6. sketch, visualise, prototype and test the idea on colleagues and friends
7. create functional specification and project plan
8. define success criteria and measurables (income, visits, repeat use, feedback, PR)
9. secure funding or do deals with networks
10. implement software components
11. integrate applications with payment, web, ecommerce and database systems
12. test
13. marketing and promotion (even if internal)
14. manage application and content processes
15. monitor success and adapt marketing, technology and processes
16. monitor changing markets and technology

How will it work practically/technically?

Example: stock alerts over SMS

• Data is fed from Reuters/Extel or similar in XML to a server.
• Server runs an application that reads the XML into a database
• Subscribers use a web application hosted on a web server to set up a list of companies about which they wish to be alerted
• Application on server matches latest news with subscribers interests and prepares XML file of alerts (usually batched in specific time period)
• XML sent to SMS gateway company who feed the messages via an SMSC into the networks
• SMS arrives at mobile device
• Subscriber can cancel their subscription or extend by sending keyword + company to SMS number
• Messages to this number are picked up by SMS gateway company and fed via XML back to http server
• Application on server picks up incoming XML and processes the instruction based on subscribers mobile number

For more on SMS Messaging systems

Example: ecommerce over WAP 2.0

• Transactional website created including payment system, fulfilment system, stock control, customer management, content management
• Customer registers via the website
• Additional templates produced to create xHTML version of the site
• Customer uses phone with a compatible browser requests site page via WAP gateway or directly over http (depending on the phone) perhaps via link on portal
• Customer selects product and adds it to basket via a key press
• Customer checks out
• Customer enters ID or password or both (could be identified by phone number)
• Transaction is completed at web server – updating order database
• Confirmation SMS might be sent

For more on WAP 2.0
For a set of white pages on mobile development go to Nokia

Recent comments:

What do you think?

Add your comments