HULI INFORMATION SYSTEM
A mobile application for forest guards to track and monitor the movement of tigers
and its prey population in Karnataka, India.
INTRODUCTION
The Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, has taken a lead role in the conservation of forests using digital technology. With the help of local technologists, the KFD has developed a mobile application Huli to help monitor and track the movement of tigers and its prey population. The application is used by Forest Guards, foot soldiers in the fight against poaching who use the application for monitoring and tracking.
Despite the recent success of the mobile application through the automation of work, there are still many shortcomings with the app and KFD is still looking to improve the application to embrace the latest advances in digital technologies. The KFD has employed our team to come up with a revised version of the application through incorporating more recent technologies, identifying new value-creating features, and addressing specific opportunities and challenges that you can glean from the case description provided above.
The scope of this assignment was to identify issues with the current application, and propose a solution to tackle ONE of these problems. The solution was to be a basic prototype of the Hulu application.
ISSUES WITH CURRENT APPLICATION
Our solution was to tackle one of the following issues:
1. Human error and misuse of application by users
2. Limited access to the internet and slow speeds
3. Limitations to efficiency and productivity within the current app
As a team, we decided to tackle the issue of efficiency and productivity. The current application had poor interface design and lacked important features, ultimately hindering the forest guards from effectively using the application.
Current state of the Huli mobile application:
SOLUTION IDENTIFICATION
In order to begin designing a solution, we had to assess our resources and scope out solutions based on differing costs. As we were not informed of the resources that KFD had to allocate to the application's improvement, we brainstormed three solutions at three different cost points. This allowed the client to choose one, or take certain aspects of each solution and design a new one.
RECOMMENDED SOLUTION
Ultimately, our recommendation was to go with the medium cost solution which would involve business process improvement. This strategy was chosen as it involves a moderate amount of change which is directly applicable to the situation provided. BPA and was too minimal, whilst BPR appeared too extensive in relation to the scope of the assignment.
We identified both functional and non-functional improvements to the application in order to improve efficiency and productivity. Functionally, we suggested the creation of an in-built messenger function in order to reduce reliance on a third-party application to do so, which also brought about privacy concerns.
Non-functional requirements that were identified involved analysing the system regularly to check for bugs or errors. Additionally, crash reports would be automatically uploaded when connected to the internet. The user interface would also be improved upon to create a clear correlation between visual design and functionality. For example, the introduction of different countries' flags in the drop-drop menu on the home page aims to assist forest guards and other users in alternating between languages to ensure coherent comprehension.
PROTOTYPING - INITIAL STAGES
In order to begin prototyping, we created a use-case diagram and activity diagram to map out the purpose and use of the app.
We also created user stories and epics to identify the needs of the users and the way they used the application. Some examples include:
User Story: “As a Range Forest Officer (RFO), I want to be able to track the process of my Forest Guards and ensure they are doing the right thing so we can understand the health of tigers and prey population across the reserves as well as protect them from potential threats”
Epic: The app will display independent timetables for each Forest Guard
Epic: The app will display independent timetables for each Forest Guard
User Story: “As a Range Forest Officer (RFO), I would like to easily be in touch with other officers in my forest range, so that we can relay useful information or updates to one another.”
Epic: The new application will have a messaging functionality to facilitate communication within and across reserves.
User Story: “As a Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF), I would like to quickly relay information to the people I lead, so messages don’t have to travel through every level of management before reaching the Forest Guards.”
Epic: The application will have an ‘announcements’ feature to allow managerial staff to send instructions or notifications to the foot soldiers.
PROTOTYPE SKETCH
Once we had identified the improvements and changes we wanted to make to the application, we began sketching out wireframes. As a group, we bounced ideas and made constructive suggestions by empathising with the user. User stories were particularly important in creating the prototype sketches, and multiple iterations of wireframes were done before achieving our final sketch.
FINAL PROTOTYPE SOLUTION - WIREFRAMES
The redesign of the Huli mobile application was based on lessons from university regarding good UX and UI design. Ultimately, we wanted to create an application that was intuitive to use, as a result of functional and non-functional changes. The inclusion of an internal messaging application was the main major change that was made and made the application more centralised in order to achieve the purpose of the app.
This project was enjoyable as it gave a glimpse into how my work could be used for real clients in the real world. Despite being a hypothetical situation, I derived great satisfaction from knowing that this had the potential to help others do their jobs in an easier way. This is something I look forward to doing in my future career.
