FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UNIVERSITI MALAYA

Mobile Application Proposal Assignment 1, Group 4

WRES3405, Mobile Computing

Semester 1, 2014/2015

Group Members:

WEK110057 Tan Chin Loong WEK110033 Muhamad Alif Jamaluddin WEK110032 Mohd Zulkarnain Bin Jaranee NEX140391 Janine Ann Buenaseda WEK110009 Chan Kin Onn

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Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary 3

2 Introduction 4

3 Review on Existing Applications

2.1 MyStudy Life 2.2 Homework Planner 2.3 Myhomework Student Planner 2.4 Plan to enhance the strengths of existing applications 2.5 Plan to overcome weaknesses of existing applications

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4 Proposed Application

2.3 What is our new proposed application? 2.4 New Features 4.3 What make this application better than existing applications?

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5 Marketing

4.1 Overview, objectives and goals 4.2 Target Market 4.3 Marketing Strategy

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6 Conclusion 21

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1 Executive Summary

This document is intent as a proposal to develop a new educational mobile application for

students to organize their homeworks, tasks and assignments. The new proposed application is

made by reviewed all the existing applications in the market. Good features from existing

applications and new features that absent from existing application are added to new

application. A marketing strategy is also stressed in this proposal. This new application is aim to

provide better information content, interoperability and interaction compare to the existing

applications.

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2 Introduction

No matter how much we hate waking up early for school or studying all night for those tests

and exams, we all know that education is very important. Most of us will agree that an

educated person gets better opportunities in life. Other than success and economic prosperity,

there are various other reasons why education is almost necessity in today’s world. Education

helps us understand life, gain respect, build better society, for economic growth, turns a dream

into reality, for a happy life and a lot more. From these benefits, our group has decided to

propose an app related to Education.

In app markets, there are tons of education apps build to help academic institution, teachers,

and learners to make their study life a lot easier such as quiz app, study planner app, dictionary

app, information help and a lot more related to education. This application has various

functionalities compared with each other. To propose a good education app will be difficult if

we focus on all these functionalities. Therefore, we only focus only on one function that is study

planner apps. Study planners app’s main function is to help learners to organize home works

and assignments.

Homework or assignment is a term not liked a lot by many students but thanks to mobile

technology we can now change students mind about homework with apps that they can use on

their mobile gadget such as tablets and smartphones. Even the existing apps already meet their

own purpose, but we think that this is not enough as we discovered few weaknesses from these

existing apps. Hence, this proposal is mainly to propose a better study planner app compare to

the existing.

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3 Review on Existing Application

There are three applications selected on this section, MyStudy Life, Homework Planner, and

Myhomework Student Planner. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these applications are

reviewed and idea to enhance strengths and overcome weakness is proposed.

3.1 MyStudy Life

My Study Life

My Study Life allows you to store your timetable, homework and exams in the cloud making

it available on any device, wherever you are.

3.1.1 Strength

Cloud Storage

This app allows users to store user’s timetable, homework and exams in the cloud and making it

available on any device, any location.

Offline Mode

Data will be synced seamlessly between devices, allowing user to use the app as usual even

when the user is not connected to internet.

Task Tracker

This app allows homework, assignments, reminders and revision to be tracked and rated before

the data is finally send to the cloud storage.

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Notification & Reminder

User will be notified for unfinished tasks, upcoming exams and classes before these events take

place.

Collaborative

This app allows teachers to create and share their timetable securely with students in the same

school.

3.1.2 Weakness

Lack of emphasis on deadline

The apps can create task to be finished but no emphasis on approaching deadline. For example,

student will only be notified with incoming new events or homework, but no further reminder

to keep the student to finish the work on time.

Lack of timeline review

User should be provided the feature to review his/her works upon completion of a task or on

demand. This review should cover the topics that had covered and also incoming tasks in

desired timeline, for example, work done in the past one week and also the coming week.

No analytical tools

This app does not provide grade report on their assignment and homework. This tool will serve

as an overview of the performance for the user on their works.

3.2 Homework Planner

Homework Planner

Homework Planner will help you organize and keep track of your Homework’s in an effective and simple way.

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3.2.1 Strength

Simple and Effective

This app has a simple and easy to understand user interface. The app can be used hassle free

and stress free. User can understand how the app works in just one look.

Organizes in Chronological Order

This app organizes the due date to which will fall to the nearest due date. It lets you know how

many days left until the due date.

Multiple Homework Reminders

User can add homework’s many times as possible.

3.2.2 Weakness

No Timetable

User can't see a full calendar of months and dates to see what day of the week the due date will

fall into.

No auto-set Reminders

User will need to manually enter the reminder he/she wants to.

No Sync for Multiple Devices

User can't sync the homework’s into other devices.

3.3 myHomework Student Planner

myHomework Student Planner

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myHomework is a digital student planner which allows students to organize and track their

assignments and homework. This app can be connected to Teacher.io to get the latest

information regarding subjects from their own teacher.

3.3.1 Strength

Sign up and sign in using Social Media

Users will be able to sign up and sign in using Google+ or Facebook ID.

Sync on multiple devices

Users can sync their homework information on tablet, mobile or computer by just logged on

using their own account ID.

Integration with other app

This app allows integration with Teacher.io, an app that allows teachers to share information to

their students. Hence, students can fetch all the latest assignment and homework information

from their teachers.

Relevancy

Users that are connected to teacher.io able to get real time update from their teachers. This

keep all the information they get regarding their homework will stay relevant. If their teacher

cancelled the assignment or update their homework, the students will always get the latest and

most relevant information.

Information filter

Students will be able to filter the homework by class, priority and type.

Offline Capabilities

Able to add homework when internet absent.

Customization and Simplicity

Simple interface which simply required almost zero-learning for the user to get used with the

app and users are able to choose themes.

Accessibility

Fast access to stored data and can be access during offline. Just few clicks to add homework

and access stored homework.

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3.3.2 Weakness

Limited Connectivity with other Users

This app does not allow the users to interact with their friends within the same class. Another

point is, parents are unable to track their children’s homework progress.

Limited usage of social media integration

The social media integration in this app only intended for sign up and sign in purpose only. This

social media integration usage should be optimized, such as finding friends which are on the

same school or class.

No feedback system

Students who are connected with teachers.io app can’t provide feedback to their teachers. For

example, if students have any question on their homework or assignment, they have to meet

teacher to ask.

No analytical tools

This app does not provide grade report on their assignment and homework.

Information can be irrelevant

Any changes or additional information on their homework or assignments will not be updated

in real time if students are not connected to Teachers.io app or their teachers are not using

teachers.io app. This will cause all the stored homework/assignment information can be

outdated.

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3.4 Plan to enhance the strengths of existing applications

MyStudy Life

This application strength can be further enhanced by calendar synchronization and prioritizing

task.

First, synchronize the application task with Google calendar or desktop calendar. By doing so,

the student can check their schedule on any calendar and not limited to calendar inside the

application. The synchronization should be two ways, meaning that the calendar inside the

application should be updated with the user’s latest activities so that when the user tries to

create new task on a busy schedule, overlapped time will be notify or prompt the user with

reminder.

Finally, can be enhance by add “Prioritising task” feature. One more implementation to be

mentioned is the priority of tasks is vague. When the user is surrounded by a lot of tasks, the

application should help the user to decide which one to do first, this can be done by prioritizing

the task upon creation of it. Any new task should be rated by the user with two measurements,

importance and urgency. The most important task and most urgent task will always be on the

top of the list.

Homework Planner

In this application, its strengths are categorized into three categories namely, Simple and

Effective, Organizes in Chronological Order, and Multiple Homework Reminders.

In the first category, I suggest to maintain its simplicity for users to understand easily how the

app works. It’s not messy and the user can easily integrate the app, adding and deleting home

works without difficulty. So overall it has a friendly user interface. It is also effective in terms of

the user integration of knowing the information regarding on how many days left before user

do their homework or in short term, how many days left before the homework’s deadline. In

here the user can prepare and do his/her homework ahead of time.

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In the second category, organizes in chronological order depending on the date, subject, or title

the user demanded, however this strength is still faulty in terms of user reliability. The user can

easily prioritize which homework to do first but he/she can’t know which this date will fall into

in the time of the month and how close the first deadline from the second deadline in the days

of the week or months. This results to confusion and cramming for the user’s side. Therefore I

suggested timetabling is a good idea.

And lastly, the multiple homework reminders where the user can be reminded anywhere,

anytime no matter how much homework he/she had. However, this strength also has some

fault issues in terms of user reliability also. The user has to manually set the alarm or reminder

of the upcoming deadline when adding a subject, it’s undependable for the user because what

if the user suddenly forgets to set the alarm, then he/she may forget that he/she has a

homework to do. So basically, the solution for this problem is an automated alarm/reminder

setting when adding homework. He/she can just change it depending on how often this alarm

will set off, however he/she can also change it if he/she wanted to enter manually. It will allow

the user to depend to the app to update him/her without having trouble on forgetting and

procrastinating.

Myhomework Student Planner

In this app, there are 8 strengths discovered but few of this strength can be enhanced. Firstly,

this app is using Facebook and Google+ to sign up and sign in. However, this social media

integration usage is limited in this app. It will be nice if the app can optimize the social media

integration power such as user able to share content and add friend from social media who are

using same app. Next, strength is the integration with Teacher.io app. Teacher.io app function is

to push homework or assignment to this app. It would be nice if users can reply or ask any

question to their teacher back. In a nutshell, this existing app is only able to do one-way

communication. Lastly, another enhancement can be make is the content relevancy. What does

content relevancy mean is does the homework information is usable to the students? Any

information delivered by teacher to the app mostly will be the most up to date information.

However, students that are not connected to teacher.io might have problem to keep their

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homework information up to date. To overcome this, we can introduce community based

application, which mean students can add friends from social media and share current

information on the identical homework or assignment.

3.5 Plan to overcome weakness of existing applications

MyStudy Life

The weakness of the existing application, My Study Life can be summarized to lack of emphasis

on deadline, lack of timeline review and no analytical tools. To overcome the weakness of this

application, there are several things can be done. First is to apply notification to the unfinished

task that are approaching deadline. This works as a further reminder for the student the finish

the task before the deadline is overdue. This feature is important as the application does not

only remind the students about the task but also keep track on the progress and notify the

students to finish the task. Second is to apply a timeline review on the completed task or user

demanded task. This feature helps the students to review on the completed and uncompleted

task and thus can act as a fresh revision to the task. Last method to overcome the weakness of

the application is to implement the grade report feature. This feature acts an overview on the

performance of the student for the whole study period which the student can monitor their

progress on the subject and make some adjustment on their study style to improve on the

subject.

Homework Planner

For homework planner, there are three weaknesses that are no login feature, no auto set

reminder and no syncing. First, implement login system using Google+ or Facebook account. It

makes the application easier to access anywhere and any devices. It should be a multi-platform

application which can be access through mobile phone or desktop.

Next, implement a synchronized calendar in the application. By doing so, the student can check

the due date for their homework and assignment.

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Finally, set an auto-reminder. The application should have a feature to remind the user about

the due date of their homework by using notification.

MyHomework Student Planner

There are several weaknesses can be overcome in this application. First, this application does

not allow interaction with other users. To overcome this problem, we should have a space for

student to interact among his/her friends, student can create a group in the application and

invite all of his friend into it. By doing so, they can discuss about the homework or assignment

in the group.

Secondly, this application does not have feedback system. To overcome this problem, we

should have a feature for interaction between student and their teacher. Student can ask

question directly to their teacher in this app.

Next, this app doesn’t contains analytical tool. Analytical tools is an important thing for student

to see their performance in study. To overcome this problem, we should implement an

analytical tool in the app. By doing so, student can see their performance hence to increase

their effort to achieve their study.

Finally, the information stored can be irrelevant. This problem can be solved by implement a

feature that can be used by teacher to update the assignment or homework. Student can

receive notification instantly on their device when teacher updates the task.

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4 Proposed Application

4.1 What is our new proposed Application?

Our new application is based on the selected strengths of the existing applications. Here are the selected strengths we are extracted from existing applications:

Syncing data to cloud and on another devices

Accessibility

This includes simple interface, have filter feature and customization

Notification and reminder

Priority tasking

Sign up and login using social media and email

Our new application also included with several new features which are absent on those apps. These features are explained in section 4.2

4.2 New Features

Analytical Tools

The analytical tools will be included are timetable and grade report. Grade report allows

knowing their performance and how much tasks already completed. Time tabling act as task

tracker allows users to know what day of the week the deadline will fall into. A clear calendar

support for users to view will help them to organize not just their homework but other

priorities as well. It will help them know the other dates and how close these dates were near

each other’s deadlines.

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Import and Export

One of the features of the new application is the ability to

import or export data including timetable and grade report.

The import allows users to attached note, picture,

screenshot and other files in their task. The export feature

enables the application to share the data to other famous

third party application such as Dropbox, Email, Bluetooth. By

using this feature, it gives less effort to the users to share

information or to add information related to their tasks.

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Optimize Social Media Integration

By this far, the existing apps use social media such as Facebook for sign up and sign in purpose.

Social media integration is meant to make the activities of user of the proposed apps to be

more transparent. Users can publish their achievements or work progress such as a milestone

completed or a task/homework that has finished to the social media. By doing so, if the user

know similar user that is doing the same task/revision at the same time, the user can form a

study group with the other user. This social media integration is implemented to make user find

student to that are doing the similar task or doing the revision on same subject at the same

time. They can add students from social media as a classmate in this app.

Interaction

From social media integration feature, users are able to add friends as a classmate. Within

the app, students are allowed to discuss about their homework. They also can edit same

homework such as add more information regarding their assignment. The new application also

has space to allow users to interact with each other within the class related to their study.

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4.3 What make this application better than existing application?

This application is better than existing applications based on three areas which are

interoperability, information and interaction.

First, the existing applications that exist in the market have limited interoperation with third

party application. Mostly, the current apps only limited to use social media apps such as

Facebook or Google+ to sign up and sign in. Existing apps are not able to do import and export

with other apps or folders. For example, users are unable to attach their homework information

to Gmail, unable to do backup to favorite app such as Dropbox, and can’t import extra

information from outside such as picture. Therefore, proposed application is to fill this void.

Next, ad hoc information are crucial nowadays. Most of these existing apps are able to organize

and display information stored by the users systematically. However, the display information

can be outdated. For example, if teachers told students that have few changes in assignment

task, the students might be not noticed on this. Hence, cause the information stored outdated.

To overcome this, proposed app allows the information stored by the users are edited and

updated by class member. The classmates also able to add extra resources such as picture,

notes and website url. Users can add friends from social media as a classmate. We believe, one

class can have same homework or information. Other than that, for privacy purpose, any

created homework or assignment tasks can be added as privacy to avoid classmate to edit it. In

What makes it better?

Interoperability with other applications

Relevant Information

Interaction with classmates

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a nutshell, by allow the classmates to edit tasks, this keep the information stay relevant and to

users homework meanwhile keeping the users privacy.

Finally, our apps allow interaction with friends. In this proposed app, friends are considered as

an important aspect. The existing app such as myHomework Student Planner and Mystudy life

only allows teachers to deliver course information. This type of communication consider as one

way communication. Users are unable to interact with teacher within this app. Meanwhile, our

proposed app allows two way communications between classmates. When there is new same

homework, the users can discuss, add resources and update information regarding the

homework. Hence, this app encourages users closers to their classmate and all the interaction

information will be usable since it just related to class matter only.

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5 Marketing Plan

5.1 Overview, objectives and goals

This marketing plan is tailored to meet the purpose of this application. Few strong marketing

strategies are stressed this plan to achieved several objectives. In a nutshell, this marketing plan

is aimed to achieve these following objectives:

1. To generate revenue higher than production cost.

2. To reach target audience all over the world.

3. To differentiate our apps over the niche apps.

Other than these objectives, this marketing plan is also aimed to achieve these goals:

1. RATING: reach and maintain a higher rating in the Education app category.

2. DOWNLOAD: generate a certain number of app download on daily/weekly/monthly

basis.

3. COST PER DOWNLOAD: stay below a low cost to generate more download.

4. COMPETITOR: generate a target number of download in key geographies.

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5.2 Target Market

School

Students grade are important for school reputation. They have the power to regulate the rules

in their schools and the key to foster good culture among students. Therefore, if we can attract

the schools to include the app as utility in their academic programmed, we can easily make the

students to use our apps.

Students and Learners

Obviously, this app is intended for students to keep track their homework progress. Hence, the

marketing communications medium must be mediums use frequently by the students such as

social media.

5.3 Marketing Strategy

Create a teaser

Building a teaser will help us invite people to share their email address to stay updated on

when our app launches. This helps build a database of people interested in our app. For

example, we can make a teaser video, that offer demos of how the app would work without

going into a full explanation or revealing the release date. From there we can get people to

subscribe.

Social Media

Social media is a powerful communication tool for both the app developer and our app user.

Being able to clearly communicate with our users is vital for keeping our reviews within the app

stores positive. If a customer can only complain via our app review process, this will set us to

failure.

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Mobile Display Advertisement

Advertisement is crucial for our apps to be successful, in this section we can use mobile display

adds like Google mobile ads and other to increase the download and revenue.

Feedback

We know that more positive the ratings are for our app, the better chance it has of being

downloaded. That's why we have a section in our app that ask customer to fill in their feedback.

From there we can then reach out to unhappy users, resolve their issues and ask them to leave

a rating on the app store if they were satisfied. Converting unhappy users to happy ones will

improve our ratings.

Paid press release

We will use specific agencies such as AppShout which can help contact a massive number of

blogs and publications to do review on our app. Furthermore, we are planning to use services

such as asPRWeb or MarketWired which can handle press release distribution. In addition, we

will contact medium-sized blogs for reviews. Usually these guys are eager to see new apps, and

because they aren’t that big, the monetary cost will maintain on the par.

Relation with Education or Government Institution

This is an education app which we can introduce to public institution such as Education

Ministry. One of the benefits having a close relation to public institution is to get

acknowledgment from them. Once our app is acknowledged, we can get audience trust.

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6 Conclusion

This document has proposed a new mobile application which will bring better experience to the

users with new features. New features are social media integration, interaction, analytical tool

and import & export data feature. Therefore, having these new features will increase

productivity, increase efficiency and help students get good grade. Even though there are lots

existing mature applications on the market, hopefully, this one will fit with everyone needs.