Front-end web developers usually worry about the look and feel of their design interfaces since it is a major consideration by end-users in their decision to use their product. As discussed in class, Vilar, (2010) proposed eight golden rules of interface design. The first on his list is that the designer should strive for consistency.
On www.musish.com, consistency is strictly adhered to because of the use of consistent color, layout, capitalization, fonts, and icon placement throughout the site.
A second website, www.yahoo.com, fulfills the second golden rule of the interface by enabling frequent users to use shortcuts. Instead of having to click the button ‘new’ and selecting ‘message’ in the resulting options list, a user can simply press the letter ‘n’ and he or she can start composing a message without delay. The use of special keys helps users to increase the pace of interaction.
Another website conducts the exchange of money from cash to liberty reserve and other standards of deferred payment. They have stood by the fourth rule by designing a very convenient and interactive website to walk users through a somewhat complicated task and to make users feel increased confidence in the financial transactions carried out on their website.
The sequences of actions required for the exchange of cash for liberty reserve for example was organized into steps and there was informative feedback after the group of actions to show that the user has completed the exchange.
Vilar’s eighth golden rule described the kind of rule upon which www.google.com based its design. Keeping it simple reduces the short-term memory load required by a user to view the important links and images on the website because the links, images, and buttons are visible.
Introduction
The field of healthcare provision has been redefined using various inventions that are targeted towards the improvement of the rate of service delivery. There is however literature to suggest that the healthcare industry has not been able to effectively keep abreast with the current and rapid changes in the field of both information systems as well as information technology that have marked other industries across the globe (Chan, 2000).
There is however an increase in the rate at which technological advancements in the field of information technology and Information systems are being implemented in the healthcare domain. It is, therefore, crucial to denote that the current mobile applications that are in the healthcare systems can best be described as being both in the emergent stage which is enabling the entire system processes (Ammenwerth et al, 2003).
Aim and objectives
Aim
The paper aims to come up with prototype software to be used in the process of aiding breast cancer patients in the calculation of NPI scores that is necessary for the tracking of their prognosis. The software is to be designed so that it can save the data in a database that is accessible to the patient’s doctors. On the other hand, the data will be sent to the doctor via e-mail where he will retrieve and record the patient’s data from the email or pager.
Objectives
The objectives of this paper are geared towards the development of an NPI-dependent software application that can effectively run on iPhones. The objectives that should be achieved are expressed by three definite goals. These are:
- Design the application that will calculate the NPI and show the prognoses score.
- Draw a graph of the possible survival in 5 years.
- 3. Save the patient’s information into a database to allow the clinician to monitor the patient.
Motivation
The prediction of the survival rate of patients with cancer without the need for any form of medication is referred to as prognostication and has for a long time been a very complicated task to achieve (Haibe-Kains et al,2008). This is further complicated by the fact that breast tumors are usually heterogeneous in terms of their molecular structures and therefore are prone to the exhibition of varied clinical outcomes. The prognostication process has however been simplified in recent years by the application of complex and usually accurate Information Technology (IT) techniques.
Related Work
We present a general view on the subject of mobile computing in the health care industry. Our focus is therefore placed on the existing models. Arshad, Mascolo, and Mellor (2003) describe in great detail the methods and techniques of exploiting the various mobile computing technologies in the larger healthcare sector. They point out clearly that mobile networks are usually divided into two categories. The ad-hoc and nomadic networks. The ad-hoc network is characterized by the inclusion of two mobile devices in enabled states. These devices can communicate with incompatible network architecture.
The disadvantage of this model is that it is best for peer-to-peer communication and availability. This, therefore, means that there is never a guarantee for the services as well as the resources. This is not the network architecture on which the NPI software application is to run as the NPI software application can be considered to be a mission-critical application. The second mobile network which is referred to as a nomadic network is the one to be used for the NPI. This is because it the best suited to support resources that rely on fixed architecture.
The nomadic model can also be effectively be used to support client-and-server-based applications.
The mobile health care platforms must be able to collect all the vital data that is necessary not to be used in the derivation of the appropriate diagnostic arguments. The system to be developed is to be efficient as the one that was deployed in Finland.
The characteristics of the mobile platform are to be able to provide the required diagnosis to only the authorized individuals within the shortest of time. The system must be able to allow the health care practitioners to feed the necessary data to retrieve the information they need on the patient’s prognosis from any given location. They should also be able to get the information while undertaking their day to day ward rounds
Software Description
Getting started with the system
The Application should have been deployed on the device where it needs to be run. When a user installs the application on the device, the LOGO icon for the application will appear on the device, and while being clicked it will start the application.
Saving the User’s Personal Information
As the user starts the application he/she needs to save his/her personal information first before going further. So there is a button available on the main page namely “Setting” and when the user clicks on that button it will open the setting window which will have the required field to be filled by the user. After filling in the information he/she will press the “Save” button to save the data into the database.
Viewing the History
If a user uses the application on the daily basis the application will save his/her daily record in the database and if a user wants to see the previous data, he/she will have to tap on the “History” tab on the bottom tab bar.
When the user taps on the History tab, it will bring the user to the history page, which contains the date-wise data and the respective grade with a respective smiley. Happy smiley is meant for good and excellent results and sad smiley is meant for Poor and Moderate results.
User Interface Analysis and Evaluation of ATM Machines
For the sake of this part of the question, I have chosen ATM Machine and I will apply the usability analysis method(s) that I have learned from various modules.
An Automated Teller Machine (ATM) just as the name suggests is a computerized terminal that enables a customer to make a deposit, withdraw cash, transfer funds or obtain other bank services, with going to queue at the banking hall and asking for services of bank cashiers. Current developments also allow one to use the card to pay for bills at shopping malls without having to pay or use cash.
Having or using the ATM is very safe and convenient since one does not have to carry bulky of currency or risk losing their money to thugs, ATM cards also make it easy for travelers by not bothering to change their currency when they travel.
UI Design and Evaluation is comprehensive and clear. It’s an amazing achievement. Technological developments allow us to be more mobile and many people use IT while they are on the move. This has made life easier and more manageable. People switch between different settings, like using a desktop while at the office and a laptop while traveling or at home. Considerable advancements have been made in recent years in UI departments.
The operation of an ATM switch is conceptually simple. The reference model for an ATM features four layers: the physical layer, whose main duty is to transport information, the ATM layer which switches and multiplexes, and finally the ATM adaptation layer whose responsibility is to adapt service information to the ATM stream and lastly higher layers offering extended services to users.
The table below shows the advantages of ATM Machine to different groups of people
Advantages of ATM Machine
List of References
Ammenwerth, E., Graber, S., and Herrmann, S. (2003). Evaluation of health information systems—problems and challenges, Int. J. Med. Inf. 71 125–135.
Arshad, Mascolo, and Mellor (2003). Exploiting Mobile Computing in Health-care. Web.
Chan, A.T.S. (2000). WWW+ smart card: towards mobile healthcare management system, Int.J. Med. Inform. 57(2000) 127–137.
Haibe-Kains et al. (2008). A comparative study of survival models for breast cancer prognostication based on microarray data: does a single gene beat them all? Web.
Vilar, P. (2010). Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (5th edition). Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. Volume 61, Issue 5, pages 1073–1074.