Transafe Mobile Application - Example

Test and Evaluation paper Transafe mobile platform Australian Government Abstract In 1947 Bell Labs engineers at AT&T developed the hexagonal cells for mobile phone base stations. The advancement in the world of technology is demanding us to use mobile phones for different activities like money transfer, as music players, as maps and many more activities. The development of Transafe application to be used in security issues like recording crimes in Australia, tracking of friends to ensure their safety and collecting information from people on their thought on probability on occurrence of crimes in certain areas of the cities is another development in the mobile technology. This function is expected to work on internet enabled phones among them those that run the android application system from google and the iphone which have become part of our life (Salim, 2010). 1. Scope The scope of this document is to optimize the design and parameters of a proposed Transafe mobile application for the optimal utilization of the application. The document will bring forward problems and challenges in the platform development and propose solutions. The document is written in the principle of test and evaluation to evaluate the mobile platform through which the application is developed. 2. Introduction Transafe is a mobile application that is supposed to come and solve the problem of misinformation on status of security on the different cities of Australia. Its name is derived from two English words which are transport and safety. This is due because it is supposed to ensure safety of people travelling across Australia by providing them with information on security issues on cities they will visit through their mobile phones. The application development is supposed to be financed by the Australian government. The application will also help government officials in making decisions on policy formulation by get suggestion from the public through the application. 3. Transafe specification Transafe is a mobile application that can run different mobiles phones so far they are internet enabled and java enabled. It can record crimes that are happening within a certain area in a city and also record peoples’ opinion on the probability of occurrence of a crime. It has an interface to record crimes, to collect opinions and also to enable the tracking capability. 4. Transafe master plan The budget master plan of Transafe is worth 3 million Australian dollars which are to be spent in developing, testing and deploying the application for use. The main bearer of the burden of the cost is the Australian government which is assumed to be the main beneficiaries of the application. 5. Transafe system life cycle Testing evaluating the application during development helps the developers of the application to come up with an application that meet the desired standards of the lifecycle of the application. Lifecycle parameters for the Transafe application are the following: Need The need of this application is the need for human beings to feel safe in the different stations and also be to get information on crimes taking place in the town on real time. The system was proposed on the principle of delivery of correct information (Salim, 2010). Requirements: The requirement of the system are based on the way the system will carry out its activities to achieve its goals. Users of Transafe mobile platform I. The citizens of the Australia who verify on the position of the crime II. The government charged with verifying the information III. Technical staff who will develop and maintain the platform IV. The government staffs who will feed data into the platform about the crimes that are happening V. The panel of developers who have proposed the system. User Needs: This defines what the user expects the system to deliver to him or her. This needs can either be functional or non functional. The user need should be written in natural language so that the user can understand them instead of use of technical jargons which leave the user confused on the ability of the system. The user needs can be illustrated in different scenarios so that the user can be able to visualize them in their minds. Some of the needs of the users are the ability of the system to give them real time information on the status of crime in the cities both on real occurrence of crime and perception of the citizens on probability of occurrence of crimes in the cities. A use case diagram can be used to show how the different users interact with the system to achieve a certain function like checking on crimes that have happened (Defense and systems, 2005). Critical issues Critical issues concern themselves on whether the system is meeting operational issues, technical issues and the policy issues when achieving the user needs. Some of the technical issues are if the application meets the standard to run on an android operating system in mobile phones. An operational issue can be does the application use a language under stable by the Australian public ((Defense and systems, 2005)). Some of the critical issues concerning Transafe are- Relevance Relevance can come in place mostly to see if the application is useful into the work it is being put into. The Transafe application is relevant for the Australian government for there is need to eliminate misinformation among the citizens on issues of crimes in the cities. It has also has relevance to the citizens for they can be able to monitor their friends movement when they are in a place prone to crime. Interoperability- This is the ability of the system to run on different environment without need of change to its code or interface. In Transafe it is designed to run on android environment, the iphone and all the other mobile environments. This increases its suitability (Fahd, 2010). Availability This is the ability of Transafe to be able to offer services to the public all the time. This is made possible by the application being to run on any internet enabled phone almost all everyone today in Australia owns a internet enabled phone making the application being available all the time in time of need. Reliability The fundamental of every system is to deliver correct information to the people using it . Also Transafe is supposed to deliver correct information to the citizens. The need of this application is brought about by the shunning away of some the terminals in the Australian cities by people due to incorrect information about high rate of crimes. Reusability This is the ability to re use some of the codes of the system and also some of the components in future if need arises. Through good design of the system some of the classes of the system can be re used in future by other application or be re used in adding more functionalities on the system. This will lead to reduction in the code size and also reduce the time taken to develop the system. Cost This includes the amount of money used in developing the system and also maintaining the system. The cost of the system in relation to the number of people it is projected to serve in the future is worth. Re usability of some of the codes will lead to reduction on the cost of the system but expandability of the system in future will lead to more cost being incurred. Expandability This is the ability of the system to add on its functionalities in the future. Transafe is designed for future collection of data on crimes and also information for government officials to help them in making policies for the different cities. Transafe will also allow in future where people will be able to track three of their friend if they feel unsafe by them activating their tracking. This eliminates the need of holding meetings in town halls and city halls for the government to ask opinions of the people in different issues’ affecting them. Development issues These are challenge that the developers will face in implementing the application so that it can become operational. This is mostly used in the design, implementation, testing and installation phases of the system. It also verifies if the system will attain the proposed requirements. Testing and evaluation of the application will display the capability of the system in meeting its requirements. These two processes will show also the weaknesses of the system in meeting its requirements. System analyst and designers have already come up with a document leading to the proposal of the system and its feasibility. The main problem is the source of funds to pay the people with technical know how so that they can code the system. The people who have proposed the system have the knowledge on the working and how the system will look like but they luck the financial capability which might lead to the system not seeing the light of the day in coming days no matter how good it is (Hachenburg et al., 1977). Operational issues These are the issues that appear when the structure is set to use. Mostly they are brought forward by the user the system. Operation issues occur mostly due to lack of a good testing of an application before being deployed for use. Due to lack of funds to pay testers this might lead to delivery of an application that will not meet the required standards or will no be able to handle the huge traffic of users at the same time. To avoid these developers should ensure the test the system for scalability, reliability and correctness in delivery of results to the users (Farley, 2007). Environment Every organisation is trying hard to become eco friendly by reducing the harm it causes to the environment through its activities. Recently surveys to be carried government officials mostly supply papers to the public to answer questionaries. This leads to a negative impact on the environment but carrying the survey on the thought of people on crimes using this application will eradicate the need for wastage of all this papers. Although also initially mobile phones are manufactured using materials that are mined from the ground leaving pits this effects is not adverse than the cutting down of trees to make papers which leads to global warming (The Secret Life, 2011). Measure of Effectiveness This are the features of the Transafe that will make the public feel the need to use it and be associated with these application. These features are supposed to help market the application to the users making it not to remain idle after deployment. The measure of effectiveness of Transafe will be the opening of a new world full safety and reliable information on crime. This information will help people plan their journey and also enable them make correct decisions on places to invest in consideration of availability of security in a certain area. Acceptance This is a process that looks at a users demand on the system and then it evaluates the user according to this. Users of transafe are the local citizens of Australia and the government. The government will use the system to supply information on the crimes that happens in the different cities on real time while us the people will use the application to get information on the crimes and also give their opinions on the crimes. The public has another requirement on the application which is for the application to allow them to track three of their friends if need arises. The implementation of the application so should get into deliberation the call for of the public and the government. Although this application is mostly to be used by the citizens of Australia it might be useful to citizens from other countries because they would need to know the secure places they can visit when they visit Australia (Fluhr and Nussbaum, 1973). Conclusion The analysis of test and evaluations procedures carried on Transafe application shows that the application is well designed and planned to meet its future needs. This application displays the power of technology to enhance a good life for the inhabitants of the universe but the ability of technology to ensure a safer world. This will come as a result of real time alert on crimes wherever you are in the country. References Cooper, et al. (1973), Radio Telephone System, US Patent number 3,906,166. Defense and systems (2005), Institute Principles of Test and Evaluation. University of South Australia. Fahd A. (2010). Capacity Limit Problem in 3G Networks, Purdue School of Engineering. Farley, Tom (2007). "The Cell-Phone Revolution" American heritage of invention & technology (New York: American Heritage) 22 (3): 8–19 Fluhr, Z. and E. Nussbaum (1973) Switching Plan for a Cellular Mobile Telephone System, IEEE Transactions on Communications 21 (11): 1281. Gopal, Thawatt (11–15 March 2007). "EVDO Rev. A Control Channel Bandwidth Analysis for Paging". IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference. IEEE. pp. 3262–7 Hachenburg, V., B. Holm and J. Smith (1977) Data signaling functions for a cellular mobile telephone system, IEEE Trans Vehicular Technology, 26 (1): 82. Salim, F. et al (2010) Transafe: A Crowdsourced Mobile Platform for Crime and Safety Perception Management < http://mams.rmit.edu.au/bxauomexsthqz.pdf > The Secret Life (2011) “In what ways do cell phones affect the environment?” < http://www.secret-life.org/cellphones/cell_environment.php> Read More