User Experience Design of a Mobile Self-Assessment Application for Study Program Choice

In this master thesis, we want to find out how a web-based decision support system (DSS) for prospective students can be adapted for the use on mobile devices.

The main goal is to identify mobile interaction design patterns and techniques that are suitable for transferring the concept of a decision support system, which supports students in choosing a field of study, on to mobile devices. With the help of a prototype application different interaction concepts will be evaluated.

Mobile devices have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life and are used increasingly for decision support in a wide range of situations. While there are several decision support systems in the field of higher education with different focuses like career counselling [1] or online self-assessment [4], there was only one explicitly mobile-based system for study program choice amongst them [2]. To adapt to the needs of a young and modern user group, it is not sufficient to provide a DSS only for desktop use. However, the content cannot easily be transferred into the mobile context by traditional responsive web-design, as these systems provide a lot of textual information, which cannot be displayed on a small screen [3].

To develop concepts suitable for a mobile-based DSS, it is first necessary to analyze relevant mobile interaction techniques, and transfer them into the context of DSS for study program choice. The next steps will be developing interaction concepts and prototyping those in a mobile or web-based application. This app and the proposed concepts will finally be evaluated in a qualitative user study.

References

[1] Balogun, V. F., Thompson, A. F., & State, O. (2009). Career Master: A Decision Support System (DSS) for Guidance and Counseling in Nigeria. The Pacific Journal of Science and Technology, 10(2), 337-354.

[2] Kostoglou, V., & Kafkas, K. (2017). Design and development of an interactive mobile-based decision support system for selecting higher education studies. Balkan Region Conference on Engineering and Business Education, 3(1), 240-248.

[3] Punchoojit, L., & Hongwarittorrn, N. (2017). Usability Studies on Mobile User Interface Design Patterns: A Systematic Literature Review. Advances in Human-Computer Interaction, 2017, 1-22.

[4] Rudinger, G., & Hörsch, K. (2009). Self-Assessment an Hochschulen: von der Studienfachwahl zur Profilbildung. V & R Unipress.