Telecommunication service utilisation (TSU) focuses on how customers make use of telecommunication services and can provide valuable information for decision making for improved customer service delivery. When a telecommunication service provider consults with customers, large amounts of static documentation on TSU data are compiled. Compiling this documentation for in-field investigation is manually intensive and the documentation does not effectively support decision making. Existing systems for visualising TSU data do not efficiently support in-field investigation of TSU and lack dynamic interaction. This highlights the need to investigate a solution to better support in-field investigation of TSU. This research followed a Design Science Research methodology to develop and evaluate a solution to solve the problem identified. The use of tablet devices for in-field investigation of TSU was identified as a suitable solution. Mobile information visualisation (MIV) techniques were investigated to determine appropriate display and interaction techniques for the visualisation of TSU data on a tablet device. An existing visualisation framework for TSU was identified and extended to incorporate touch-based interactions. Three service usage views were identified for visualising TSU, namely a Trend, Network and Detail Usage View. A Dashboard View was also identified to provide a quick reference view of the different views. A prototype called MobiTel was developed on a tablet device. MobiTel incorporated the identified information visualisation techniques. MobiTel was evaluated using an expert review and a user study to determine its usability and usefulness. The results indicated that MobiTel was perceived as being useful for in-field investigation and that the participants perceived the prototype to be easy to use and learn. The user study also indicated that the participants were satisfied with MobiTel. This research has determined that MIV techniques can be used for in-field investigation of TSU. Design recommendations were devised for designing an interactive mobile prototype for visualising service usage information. Future work will involve using map-based visualisation for visualising TSU data on different customer sites.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:10497 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Twigg, Gianni Gurshwin |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Science |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | xi, 159 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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