CT124-3-2-Mobile App Engineering Individual Assignment Page 1 of 7

OBJECTIVE
This assignment has been designed for students to provide necessary experience in
understanding the use of mobile technology to improve real world processes through
new mobile services.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Perform different types of generative research studies related to mobile
applications (A5, PLO9)
2. Construct novel mobile applications and assess their usage in real life (C6, PLO2)

ASSESSMENT
An individual project weighted at 50%

COURSEWORK DESCRIPTION

PART 1 – GENERATIVE RESEARCH STUDY

You will conduct a field study in your domain of interest. The goal is to obtain key
insights that are grounded in real-world behaviours for identifying possible
applications and services to create in your mobile system development. You will
collect a variety of data using multiple research methods during your field study.

Research Questions: You should begin with the research questions for your research.
What do you need to know beyond your existing secondary research to understand how
people approach your topic area today? Cover the appropriate breadth and depth to
gain the understanding needed to design your app.

Participant Selection: Participant recruitment is extremely important in generative

research. You must choose the kind of people who will give you most insight into
your research questions and could be potential users of your ultimate system. This
likely means that your participants might not be fellow students and you might have to
approach different set of participants. Enumerate criteria that will help you identify a
range of behaviours and attitudes with respect to your domain.

Research Methods: Use interviews and at least one additional research method with
each of your participants to answer your research questions. Try to combine qualitative
and quantitative methods to fully understand your domain.

 Qualitative Methods
○ Interviews: Asking people about specific recent times they did
something in your domain area and understanding details of those
interactions. This method is required for your assignment.
○ Observation: Watching people perform tasks in your domain of interest.
○ Home/site tours: Having people guide you through their places of
interaction in your topic area.

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 Quantitative Methods
○ Diary logging: Having people keep a log of times/places/situations
where they do something you are interested in.
○ Survey: Conduct a survey with an appropriate audience to understand
current behaviours in your domain of interest.

Research study: Perform a study with at least 3 to 5 people using the methods you
have selected. Take pictures of your participants and their environment as it pertains to
your domain (with permission). Audio record (with permission) your session so that
you can pull out quotes later.

Direct quotes & observations: After interviewing your participants, take notes on
post-it notes, noting the exact quotes of what your participants say or direct
observations of what they are doing. You do not need to write down everything, just
the statements that pertain to the research questions. Do not (yet) try to analyse what
they are saying or doing, just write exactly what is said or done. Also create note cards
for any diary entries that the participants gave you or direct observations from
home/site tours.

Participant profiles: Create a 1-page interview summary per participant with

pictures. If the participant prefers to be anonymous, change the name and use a blurred
photo for the profile picture.

A note on informed consent: You should inform your users about the study prior to
starting the interview or diary study. Make it clear that all names will be anonymized,
that this study is for a class project, and that there are no anticipated risks for
participating. If you are audio/video recording, make sure they know that. Also make
it clear that they can stop or skip a question at any time if they are uncomfortable.

Affinity Analysis: Perform an affinity analysis on the data that you collected in your
study.  It should have three levels of hierarchy: the first and lowest level is the exact
quotes or observations from your participants. The second level should be a first-
person sentence summarizing the (generally 3-5) notes below. The top level should be
a more declarative statement about user behaviour.  Create design ideas directly
grounded in your data.  You should be able to easily come up with 10+ application
ideas that can be directly inspired by the data you collected and themes that you found.

PART 2 – MOBILE SYSTEM AND SUPPORTED DOCUMENTATION

You are required to create a mobile application based on the design ideas extracted
from your generative research. The implementation scenario must not deviate from the
research area adopted in your generative research.

The mobile application must satisfy the following requirements:

i) The mobile application should be capable of solving the problems identified in
the design ideas.
ii) Suitable user interface with the following items:
 Navigation ease

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 Appropriate use of text formatting and images

 Fitness of purpose and appropriateness of material
 Consistency between all screens
iii) Business logic (certain transactions/ data manipulations) should reflect the
scenario supported by mock-up screens where it’s not possible to entirely
implement required operations
iv) Applied Frameworks / SDK APIs for both development and testing

REQUIREMENTS
The marks allocation of the assignment is divided into five parts; 30 marks are
allocated to the project proposal (generative research and supported proposal
documentation) , 14 marks for the report (problem solving and design) to accompany
the application, 35 marks for the developed mobile application, 14 marks for the
mobile app testing and 7 marks for the App Demo.

Components Marks
allocated
Project Proposal

Generative Research and Affinity Analysis Documentation

 Generative Research
o Research Questions
o Research Methods
o Participants Details
 Affinity Analysis
o Three Levels of Data Hierarchy
o First Level Quotes
o First Person Summarized Notes
o Declarative Statements on User Behaviors
30
o Design Ideas

Proposal Documentation
 Abstract
 Introduction and Related Work
 Motivation (based on generative study)
 Description of Project (key use cases, design strategies,
technical requirements)
 Tasks and Milestones (Gantt chart)
 References
 Project Proposal Presentation (YouTube link in the report)

Problem solving and design (content in the documentation)

 System description - problem identification and proposed
solutions
 Wireframe and System Architecture Design
14

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Mobile Client System

 Appropriateness of the user interface
 Program functionalities and mock-ups
 Appropriateness of the mobile data access implementation
35
 Intuitive usage of both textual and image based binary data
 Mobile Adaptive Design

Automated System Testing

 Utilization of App Testing Frameworks
14
 Automated Test Report

Mobile App Demo and Supported Documentation

 App execution - Presentation
 Knowledge of the app created
7
 Recorded App demo (Video)
 User Manual

Development Tools
 Native Android App Development approach must be used to develop the artefact.
However, the mobile app can be implemented using either Java or Kotlin
programming languages.
 You are recommended to use Android Studio IDE.

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PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
A generative research study proposal and demonstration of your mobile app to the
lecturer

Fails to attend the presentation

**Zero marks will be allocated to app demo, Android solution and problem
solving and design.
**A maximum of 30 marks will be allocated for the coursework assessment
(based on the submitted work of project proposal).

Generative Research and Project Proposal

Marks will be allocated on the basis of your ability to perform a coherent, clear and in-
depth understanding of your domain. Your project proposal must accompany with a
recorded presentation (YouTube upload link or private repository). You will be
awarded with:

Grade Criteria
Fail Not able to articulate and explain basic needs of generative research.
Marginal Able to demonstrate some understanding of generative research
Fail Mostly not able to adopt any research methods and no video
presentation provided.
Pass Your domain understanding and presentation must be clear, but may
suffer from a lack of organization and novelty.
Able to demonstrate all the processes adopted for the generative
research in the recorded presentation.
Credit As above
Well organized and prepared
Able to clearly relate adopted design ideas to solve the problem
context. Your proposal covers majority of the domain areas in the
proposed system.
Distinction As above
Your proposal must have an extra spark in terms of its novelty that
makes it stand out from the similar systems.
This grade is reserved for those proposals and presentations that are of
an excellent standard.

App Demo and User Manual

Marks will be allocated on the basis of your ability to deliver a coherent, clear and in-
depth understanding of your application. Your demonstration must accompany with a
recorded video (app demo). You will be awarded with:

Grade Criteria
Fail Not able to articulate and explain basic functionality of the application.
Poor syntax knowledge regarding Android development, no video
demo recorded.
Marginal Able to run the app and explain some functionalities
Fail Mostly not able to answer any questions about the app and no video
demo recorded.

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Pass Your solution delivery and presentation must be clear, but may suffer
from a lack of organization.
Able to explain all the functionalities and answer some questions
Credit As above
Well organized and prepared
Able to clearly answer questions from your lecturer about your
application. Your examples cover the majority of the functionality of
the system, and are well chosen to do so.
Distinction As above
Presentation must have an extra spark that makes it stand out from the
other presentations.
This mark is reserved for presentations that are of an excellent
standard.

Android application (solution)

This component will be assessed through your electronic submission (app) reviews and
experiments. You will be awarded with:

Grade Criteria
Fail Your application cannot compile with native Android development
tools.
Marginal Incomplete application and major functions not working. Only UI
Fail without any backend coding.
Pass The application works properly having met basic requirements with
some limitations or minor errors.
Credit As above without any errors.
Average system - validations, standard design and appropriate storage
techniques implemented
Distinction As above
Application must have an extra spark that makes it stand out from
other systems. This mark is reserved for application that has
outstanding combination of functionalities and mock-ups, good UI
/UX, third party frameworks / SDKs and good development practices.

Automated System Testing Report

This report must provide the complete contents based on the requirements to be
awarded with:

Grade Criteria
Fail Incomplete report just comprising of manually performed test cases
Marginal Incomplete report and missing major parts of the test cases
Fail
Pass Test report is easy to read and adequately meet test framework
utilization with some deficiencies of missing workflows in applied test
cases
Credit Satisfactorily meets most of the requirements with minor omissions on
some testing areas
Distinction A very good document has been produced showing no deficiencies in
workflow requirements needed in test cases. The document is like a

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professional standard

Report (Problem Solving and Design)

This report must provide the complete contents based on the requirements to be
awarded with:

Grade Criteria
Fail Incomplete report cannot be easily read by your lecturer and missing
major parts
Marginal Incomplete report and missing some parts of the problem solving and
Fail design areas
Pass Report must be easily read and adequately meet problem solving and
design requirements with some deficiencies such as limited
architectural coverage
Credit Satisfactorily meet all requirements better than above.
Distinction A very good document has been produced showing no deficiencies in
problem solving and design requirements. The document is like a
professional standard.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENT

Deliverables
 A soft copy of the generative research and affinity analysis documents
 A soft copy of the project proposal document
 A softcopy of the Android application and an application demo video.
 A softcopy of the report (documentation).
Documentation format
- Font Size: 12
- Font: Times New Roman
- Line Spacing: Single
- Paper: White A4 Size Only

 Presentation
You will be notified of the time and date of your presentation during the lecture
and the presentation schedule will be made available on Moodle.

Submission information
Due Date : refer to learning Management System
Time : 11:00PM
Location : Learning Management System (WebSpace)

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
 You are expected to maintain the utmost level of academic integrity during the
duration of the course.
 Plagiarism is a serious offence and will be dealt with according to APU and
Staffordshire University regulations on plagiarism.

Level 2 Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation 2020