Enhancing Mobile App User Understanding and Marketing with Heterogeneous Crowdsourced Data: A Review

© 2013 IEEE. The mobile app market has been surging in recent years. It has some key differentiating characteristics which make it different from traditional markets. To enhance mobile app development and marketing, it is important to study the key research challenges such as app user profiling, usage pattern understanding, popularity prediction, requirement and feedback mining, and so on. This paper reviews CrowdApp, a research field that leverages heterogeneous crowdsourced data for mobile app user understanding and marketing. We first characterize the opportunities of the CrowdApp, and then present the key research challenges and state-of-the-art techniques to deal with these challenges. We further discuss the open issues and future trends of the CrowdApp. Finally, an evolvable app ecosystem architecture based on heterogeneous crowdsourced data is presented

Delivering knowledge and solutions at your fingertips:strategy for mobile app development in agriculture

The mobile revolution transformed our lives in the ways we socialize and conduct business.  Today, mobile technology is an essential element of every aspect of digital success. More people are accessing the Internet through mobile devices than through wired connections.  Mobile device users are always connected, actively leveraging information, knowledge and social activities.  The rapid growth of mobile usage in the world created many opportunities that leverage the ubiquity of mobile networks.  Clearly mobile revolution will continue, and organizations not only create mobile strategy, they devote more resources to deliver innovative mobile services and next must-have applications (apps) for the agricultural sector.  There are many design challenges and considerations in developing mobile apps that can be widely accepted by users in agricultural communities.  This paper discusses mobile apps in the agricultural domain, considerations and challenges for successful mobile app development and focuses on a cross-platform mobile development approach adopted by University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).  This cross-platform framework is an intuitive approach to developing apps quickly, easily and cost effectively.  A mobile portal and sample mobile apps developed at UF/IFAS are presented.  Effective and quality mobile app deployment in agriculture needs a clear mobile strategy, creative ideas and collective efforts from developers, domain experts and organizations

How Should We Support Designing Privacy-Friendly Apps for Children? Using a Research through Design Process to Understand Developers' Needs and Challenges

Mobile apps used by children often make use of harmful techniques, such as data tracking and targeted advertising. Previous research has suggested that developers face several systemic challenges in designing apps that prioritise children's best interests. To understand how developers can be better supported, we used a Research through Design (RtD) method to explore what the future of privacy-friendly app development could look like. We performed an elicitation study with 20 children's app developers to understand their needs and requirements. We found a number of specific technical requirements from the participants about how they would like to be supported, such as having actionable transnational design guidelines and easy-to-use development libraries. However, participants were reluctant to adopt these design ideas in their development practices due to perceived financial risks associated with increased privacy in apps. To overcome this critical gap, participants formulated socio-technical requirements that extend to other stakeholders in the mobile industry, including parents and marketplaces. Our findings provide important immediate and long-term design opportunities for the HCI community, and indicate that support for changing app developers' practices must be designed in the context of their relationship with other stakeholders.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figure

How can we design privacy-friendly apps for children? Using a research through design process to understand developers' needs and challenges

Mobile apps used by children often make use of harmful techniques, such as data tracking and targeted advertising. Previous research has suggested that developers face several systemic challenges in designing apps that prioritise children's best interests. To understand how developers can be better supported, we used a Research through Design (RtD) method to explore what the future of privacy-friendly app development could look like. We performed an elicitation study with 20 children's app developers to understand their needs and requirements. We found a number of specific technical requirements from the participants about how they would like to be supported, such as having actionable transnational design guidelines and easy-to-use development libraries. However, participants were reluctant to adopt these design ideas in their development practices due to perceived financial risks associated with increased privacy in apps. To overcome this critical gap, participants formulated socio-technical requirements that extend to other stakeholders in the mobile industry, including parents and marketplaces. Our findings provide important immediate and long-term design opportunities for the HCI community, and indicate that support for changing app developers' practices must be designed in the context of their relationship with other stakeholders

65+ Membership Scheme

This report shares the journey of three partners' experiment with digital technology to address societal challenges linked to ageing and social isolation. In recent years artsdepot has seen enormous changes to its business model driven by the advance of digital communication tools, rapidly increasing use of social media, and changing consumer behaviours. The project team felt that digital innovation was typically aimed at the young but wondered if there was greater potential to increase attendance and sales while also addressing social isolation through creating digital innovations with older people. A range of partners worked on the project: artsdepot (arts partner and project lead) is a multi-art form venue based in North Finchley welcoming 130,000 audience members annually. DigiLab (research partner) is an R&D laboratory based at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Ingelby (tech partner) is a digital agency specialising in app building and mobile app development, as well as mobile website design , e-commerce development , customised CRM systems and creative digital media. This project aimed to explore digital technologies that could help create increased levels of arts attendance among older people by identifying barriers and designing digital solutions. artsdepot felt that by enabling increased arts attendance and therefore facilitating opportunities to socialise, they might help establish new friendships while providing enriching creative experiences. Additionally, the team felt there was an additional benefit in terms of demonstrating an economic model for engaging older audiences. Having learnt in the application phase that two thirds of older people have more disposable income than any other age group, artsdepot felt that if it could address other barriers to attendance, it could also improve ticket sales and build a case for increased focus on older audiences

Perceptions of a mobile health intervention for Community Case Management in Malawi: Opportunities and challenges for Health Surveillance Assistants in a community setting

AbstractBackground Improved availability of mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) offer an opportunity to improve delivery of Community Case Management (CCM). Despite enthusiasm for introducing mHealth into healthcare across LMICs, end-user attitudes towards mHealth solutions for CCM are limited. We aimed to explore Health Surveillance Assistants’ (HSAs) perceptions of the Supporting LIFE electronic CCM Application (SL eCCM App) and their experiences incorporating it as part of their clinical practice. Methods This exploratory qualitative study was part of a mixed methods feasibility study investigating whether children under-5 presenting to village clinics could be followed-up to collect patient outcome data. The convenience sample of 12 HSAs enrolled into the feasibility study participated in semi-structured interviews, which were conducted at village clinics after HSAs had field-tested the SL eCCM App over a 10-day period. Interviews explored HSAs perceptions of the SL eCCM App and their experiences in using the App in addition to paper CCM to assess and treat acutely unwell children. Open coding was used to label emerging concepts, which were iteratively defined and developed into six key themes. Results HSAs’ perceived enhanced clinical decision-making, quality of CCM delivery, and work efficiency as opportunities associated with using the SL eCCM App. HSAs believed the inability to retrieve patient records,, cumbersome duplicate assessments/data entry study procedures, and inconsistencies between the SL eCCM App and paper-based CCM guidelines as challenges to implementation. Adding features to the App, such as, permitting communication between colleagues/supervisors, drug stock-out reporting, and community assessments, were identified as potentially supporting HSAs’ many roles in the community. Conclusion This study identified opportunities and challenges associated with using the SL eCCM App in Malawi. This information can be used to inform future development and evaluation of the SL eCCM App, and similar mHealth solutions for CCM in Malawi and other developing countries.

Tourism and the smartphone app: capabilities, emerging practice and scope in the travel domain.

Based on its advanced computing capabilities and ubiquity, the smartphone has rapidly been adopted as a tourism travel tool.With a growing number of users and a wide varietyof applications emerging, the smartphone is fundamentally altering our current use and understanding of the transport network and tourism travel. Based on a review of smartphone apps, this article evaluates the current functionalities used in the domestic tourism travel domain and highlights where the next major developments lie. Then, at a more conceptual level, the article analyses how the smartphone mediates tourism travel and the role it might play in more collaborative and dynamic travel decisions to facilitate sustainable travel. Some emerging research challenges are discussed

The Revolution of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Agricultural Development (m-Agri Services) in Africa: The Challenges for Sustainability

The provision of information through mobile phone-enabled agricultural information services (m-Agri services) has the potential to revolutionise agriculture and significantly improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in Africa. Globally, the benefits of m-Agri services include facilitating farmers’ access to financial services and sourcing agricultural information about input use, practices, and market prices. There are very few published literature sources that focus on the potential benefits of m-Agri services in Africa and none of which explore their sustainability. This study, therefore, explores the evolution, provision, and sustainability of these m-Agri services in Africa. An overview of the current landscape of m-Agri services in Africa is provided and this illustrates how varied these services are in design, content, and quality. Key findings from the exploratory literature review reveal that services are highly likely to fail to achieve their intended purpose or be abandoned when implementers ignore the literacy, skills, culture, and demands of the target users. This study recommends that, to enhance the sustainability of m-Agri services, the implementers need to design the services with the users involved, carefully analyse, and understand the target environment, and design for scale and a long-term purpose. While privacy and security of users need to be ensured, the reuse or improvement of existing initiatives should be explored, and projects need to be data-driven and maintained as open source. Thus, the study concludes that policymakers can support the long-term benefit of m-Agri services by ensuring favourable policies for both users and implementers

Mobile apps usage and dynamic capabilities: A structural equation model of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Significant knowledge exists regarding the application of dynamic capability (DC) frameworks in large firms, but their impact on smaller organisations is yet to be fully researched. This study surveyed 1162 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lagos in an effort to understand how SMEs in developing country contexts use mobile apps to enhance their businesses through DCs. Through the use of the covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique, the study explored the fitness of a conceptual formative model for SMEs. The model assembled 7 latent variables namely: mobile app usage, adaptive capability, absorptive capability, innovative capability, opportunity sensing ability, opportunity shaping ability and opportunity seizing ability. Subsequently, 15 hypotheses aimed at testing the relationships between the latent variables were developed and tested. The findings revealed that mobile app usage increases the adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities of SMEs. Absorptive capabilities help SMEs to maximise opportunities, while innovative capabilities negatively influence SMEs’ tendency to maximise opportunities. The results failed to establish a direct relationship between mobile app usage and SMEs’ ability to maximise opportunities. The research outcomes indicate that SMEs in Lagos respond to opportunities innovatively but they seldom exhibit innovation in order to create opportunities. The heterogeneous nature of SMEs complicates any clear-cut narrative as to how SMEs in Lagos should employ mobile apps to create and maximise opportunities. However, mobile apps could induce innovation and, as such, impact significantly when developed and applied to the contextual requirements of SMEs. The research revealed the untapped potential of SMEs’ mobile app usage in Lagos