A Streamlined Mobile User-Interface for Improved Access to LMS Services

摘要

Universities in developing countries face greater challenges in implementing Learning Management Systems (LMSs) due to resource-poor settings, characterized by low levels of ICT infrastructure; electricity outages; few computers; and limited and expensive Internet bandwidth, among other constraints. It is anticipated that if mobile phones are carefully integrated into the ecologies of LMSs, the impact of some of the above challenges in implementing LMSs would be reduced. This paper presents a user-centered design process of mobile LMS interfaces for accessing selected LMS services on mobile phones, and a user experience evaluation for a mobile LMS application implementation. From the design and implementation processes of the mLMS (mobile LMS), and the user experience evaluation of a working mLMS prototype, we conclude that: the ideas presented in the mLMS are technically feasible; the application is useful to the students and the students are encouraged to use their mobile phones to access LMS services more often, thereby reducing the over-reliance and pressure on the constrained institutional ICT resources.