"My SocioWorld" : an optimized application for mobile social networking

Abstract

Being connected with old social contacts and making new social contacts on social networking sites is becoming more essential these days. Mobile social networking is adding value towards socializing world by being connected any day, anywhere, anytime and on the go. Applications providing good user experience and taking full advantage of increasing capabilities of mobile phones are still challenging. The common challenges faced by user while using different social networking sites on mobile phone are; increased level of concentration, limited mobile display and rising cost of mobile communication. Ultimately all these affect users’ engagement in mobile social networking. In this thesis, the focus is to propose an optimize application for mobile social networking by adopting user centred design methodology. It involves integration of users’ favourite social networking sites that would facilitate them in socializing with different social networking services from one common user-interface. Further the involvement of users with proposed application is supported by the changing trends of mobile phones by becoming full-featured mobile computers. Several iterative user-interface designs are represented graphically and interaction with those designs is displayed. The proposed application focuses on different ways user could remain active on this application and be able to create new content easily with the help of integrated mobile tools available within smart phone mobile device. Additionally, a usability test is performed with the potential users to validate proposed application. Based on feedbacks and suggestions from the users who performed usability test, further enhancements are made to improve the end-user experience. Thus, by considering the needs and requirements of the end-users the proposed application has been developed to provide enhanced user usability and satisfaction for today’s mobile social networking.