The Modern Development Cycle of Citizen Oriented Applications

Ion IVAN, Bogdan VINTILĂ, Cristian CIUREA, Mihai DOINEA
Economic Informatics Department, Academy of Economic Studies
Piata Romana 6, 010374, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract: General citizen access to global computer networks’ resources is a request of the knowledge society. Applications are created for a huge target group, such as the citizens of a country, citizens fulfilling specific requirements. These computer applications use national databases that should be designed, created and populated. The concept of citizen oriented application is defined in the paper. Different types of citizen oriented applications exist as a consequence of the existence of many classification criteria. The main characteristics of the citizen oriented applications are analyzed. Many differences are found by comparing citizen oriented applications with traditional ones and from these differences arises the need of a modified development cycle. The stages of the citizen oriented applications’ development cycle are presented and their particularities are highlighted. The use of national databases is analysed.

Keywords: Software engineering, development cycle, citizen oriented applications, characteristics, national databases.

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CITE THIS PAPER AS:
Ion IVAN, Bogdan VINTILĂ, Cristian CIUREA, Mihai DOINEA, The Modern Development Cycle of Citizen Oriented Applications, Studies in Informatics and Control, ISSN 1220-1766, vol. 18 (3), pp. 263-270, 2009.

1. Citizen Oriented Applications

Following the evolution of the knowledge based society, the quality demands for informatics applications grows. The new informatics applications are no longer instruments of organizations for which they were initially created, these applications must be orientated towards citizen satisfaction. Considering the fact that geographical boundaries do not apply in the new society to information streams, the new applications must address a wider segment of users with diverse characteristics and demands [1].

With the evolution of technology, the number of services which migrate from the traditional form to the online form grows as well. For these specific services an adequate providing form must be found in the online environment, using the proper technologies, guaranteeing the access of large number of users, fast and secure payment services.

All of these factors impose a revaluation of quality demands of informatics applications in the online environment. Developing the application based on the out-dated quality requirements makes it non-competitive in the new society.

In [2] is considered that in Information Society the web technology offers effective means for sharing ideas and knowledge. Citizen oriented applications are developed for fields such as e-governance, e-administration, e-education, e-banking and not only.

In [3] it is described the practical experience of utilizing simple IT tools in a foresight project aimed at building a vision of the Information Society defined like a Knowledge Society. The citizen oriented applications are encountered in such kind of society. The idea of citizen-oriented applications refers to an effective collaborative system in which people and equipment cooperate in order to achieve certain objectives. This is about Human-Human Interaction and Human-Computer Interaction.

Informatics applications corresponding to the new society are citizen oriented. They have the target group – the citizen, as a central element. COIA are designed for citizens, to solve their problems quickly and achieve the highest degree of satisfaction.

Figure 1 shows the additional characteristics of the citizen oriented informatics applications compared to traditional ones. The higher the degree these characteristics are met, the better the citizen oriented applications’ quality is. The reorientation of applications to meet the citizens’ needs is required [4].

For the design of the citizen oriented applications the target group is analyzed. The applications’ quality characteristics depend on the target group’s members. The users’ satisfaction level is a good indicator of the application’s final quality. [5]

Citizen oriented applications are realized to solve their problems. Considering that the target group is large and diverse, the citizen oriented applications are very diverse in order to solve a multitude of problems. These applications are classified according to several criteria:

The interaction criterion assumes the classification of informatics applications according to the degree in which the users interacts with the applications. Following this principle the applications are divided in: not input data; selections; data input.

An application is efficient if the user ends with the data input in a few iterations and in a very short time. [5].

The content criterion realizes the classification of informatics applications regarding the content modifications. Based on this criterion the applications are divided in: fixed content applications; applications whose content is modified by adding; applications with content that changes over time; applications with content changed by addition, update and erasure assume recording of dynamic content.

The security criterion divides informatics applications in safe and unsafe applications.

The cost criterion assumes the classification of applications considering the fee the users must pay in order to use them. According to this the following are identified: zero cost applications; individual session payment applications; subscription applications; paid applications.

The classification criterion insures an application division considering different criteria which directly regard citizens. The clearer the classification the faster the citizen will choose an application from the set of existing ones.

Citizen oriented informatics applications – COIA must meet the citizen needs and for this purpose they must have the following quality characteristics [6]:

maneuverability – the capacity to easily manage the application from the outside by the administrator and at the same tine to have the capacity to administer the user resources and to have access to complete information about previous transactions;
availability – the capacity of the applications to run continuously;
scalability – the capacity to improve performance upon new hardware installation;
functionality – to the quantity of processing made by the informatics application;
stability – the capacity of the application to ensure variation proportionality regarding the input volume, processing volume and result complexity;
controllability – the capacity to have its own adequate messages for each input message given to the user;
determinism – the characteristic through which for the same input data the same result is outputted not depending on the user;
reliability – the characteristic of the informatics application to run correctly and completely for all data sets inputted by the users;
maintainability – the characteristic of informatics applications which enables fast updates at low costs;
reusability represents the degree in which the application uses already developed components;
portability establishes the measure in which the informatics application is independent from the hardware/ software platform of the user.

Ensuring high levels of these quality characteristics of citizen oriented informatics applications leads to competitive applications which lead to high levels of user satisfaction. The development cycle for citizen oriented applications differs significantly from the structure of the development cycle of classic applications, because of different pursued objectives and complexity differences.

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