Random thoughts about mobile (enterprise) application development.
Simple solutions, huge benefits
widianuser | 30 August, 2007 22:20
All too often developers try to solve problems with the latest and coolest technologies. You probably can recognise the “next feature pack will include THE missed feature” disease and its close relative “this feature is now available in only one terminal model, but wait until it is embedded into base platform”. Stop for a second and think if the current problem could be solved with existing enablers instead of waiting for some new killer-enabler to appear.
The trigger for these thoughts was a small piece of news I saw in a newspaper. The story told how a Finnish hospital had used SMS-based alert system to inform patients about available consulting hours in case previous patient had cancelled the time. Another example was the solution that sends an SMS message to patient asking if any of the available times would be OK before the actual reservation is made.
The estimate of the savings these applications generate is really something to think about: for a smallish hospital these solutions are estimated to save nine person’s work every year. Those nine people can now do their work taking care of patients, not sitting at the office answering to phone calls. Simple applications like this might not be technically the most exciting, but what’s most important - they improve the processes using widespread mobile technologies. And when hospital use is concerned, solutions like this save lives when nurses can concentrate on their jobs.
The trigger for these thoughts was a small piece of news I saw in a newspaper. The story told how a Finnish hospital had used SMS-based alert system to inform patients about available consulting hours in case previous patient had cancelled the time. Another example was the solution that sends an SMS message to patient asking if any of the available times would be OK before the actual reservation is made.
The estimate of the savings these applications generate is really something to think about: for a smallish hospital these solutions are estimated to save nine person’s work every year. Those nine people can now do their work taking care of patients, not sitting at the office answering to phone calls. Simple applications like this might not be technically the most exciting, but what’s most important - they improve the processes using widespread mobile technologies. And when hospital use is concerned, solutions like this save lives when nurses can concentrate on their jobs.
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Re: Simple solutions, huge benefits
hartti | 31/08/2007, 02:22
Harri, I think you hit the nail on the head.I have seen this firsthand in my study project (yes, I try to study while working.. not easy)... My ultimate (team sport played with frisbee/flying disc) statistics project has never really taken off as I have been waiting for the perfect tools and at the same time I have designed (mostly in my head of course) this beautiful UI for it.
Have I yet programmed a line of it. Sadly, No.
Would I had some statistics ready if I had decided to do a simple version first. Yes.
Hartti
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Random thoughts about mobile (enterprise) application development.
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Re: Simple solutions, huge benefits
slimpixi | 02/09/2007, 12:39
one of the things i am really good at is understanding the practical application for humans to use a technology. technology for technology sake is not interesting if no one uses the features. often i find when teaching my 360Fashion members that they did not know about an application or a service or a feature, and would they have tried it by themselves without my training they would not have been successful.
examples in mobile video making are: the n93 has the most advance video making editor. why do i say that? because you can use the return carrage to make a second line when imputing text. on the n95 they took it out and so you cannot make nice titles for your videos. probably no one would catch this but i would. plus they now limit the number of characters you can use for the texts.
if there were people at nokia who were testing these applications not from a technology standpoint but from a usability standpoint, services would be more successful.