USABLE, PRIVACY
& SECURITY
PROBLEM
The "DALCARD" is one of the most important things on campus for the Dalhousie University student. This card is not only an identity card but one can also load this card with money and can buy things and pay fees. Hence, the security of the card is very important. We observed that once can use the Dalcard for daily transactions but it does not have the security facilities like PIN, Card blocking, Adding Cash etc. which can be really handy and important features.
Solution
We started with the analysis part. During this part, we made efforts to find out the difficulties which the students of Dalhousie University are facing concerning the services provided by the DalCard. We arranged meetings with all the team members to gather views of the members. After doing lots of brainstorming, we came up with the solutions and started trying to find out the ways for the implementation. Once, all of the required information regarding implementation collected, we moved to the prototyping stage.
The first phase of the development of our application was prototyping. In this phase, we tried to search for many similar applications through online resources. After gathering enough ideas about the perfect UI and features, we checked the feasibility of implementation and Neilsen’s usability heuristics. The primary reason to go through this phase was to determine the possible errors and problems which might arise during the actual implementation. After identifying all of the possible errors, we started with paper prototyping.
To get the exact idea of better usability, we designed a user study where we asked the participants some questions about the use of Dalcard and its security before showcasing our prototype. We then presented them with our paper prototype and instructed them to speak out the behaviour loud so we could document the participants' observations. After completion of the prototype analysis by the participants, we ask some questions relevant to our prototype and if they have any suggestions. We came up with the outcome of 31 participants after prototype testing and questioning, where 80.6% of participants would like to use the mobile app for Dalcard. At 35.5%, 29% and 22.6% respectively, the participants liked our main features such as Security Management, Finance Management, and Account Management in the app.
During this whole process, I came to learn about how to resolve flaws in the existing application while considering the audience, their usability convenience, and the most important part providing better security. Creating enhanced user experience with more secure facilities and giving the user freedom to handle the privacy and security features makes our app user-friendly and out of harm's way.
PROCESS
