Tools methodology

Hello,

I've volunteered to begin thinking about the Wiki's tools section and  
how best to develop a criteria to assess the suitability of each tool.  
For reference, here is what is currently posted on the Wiki in regards  
to the goals of the overall activity.

"It is critical to develop a real landscape analysis, investigating  
the exact domain of applicability of the different tools, how they  
relate one to another, what is their target audience, what are their  
requirements for usage, etc. As part of these investigations, the  
growing importance of social networks such as twitter or facebook in  
developing countries and their potential roles in social development  
will be studied. This document will define a methodology to review  
mobile tools available for the different technologies, develop a  
landscape analysis based on the definition of taxonomy or matrix of  
factors to consider to select a tool. The document will also identify  
gaps, in software, features or standardization, that prevent more  
people from deploying content and services." [http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/wiki/Mw4d_tools 
]

Stephane has suggested I post this to the group for comments. We also  
plan to discuss this further on Monday during the meeting. The list of  
assessment criteria below is preliminary...just to get the  
conversation started.

Category - SMS, MMS, mobile web, voice, service etc.

Cost to the organisation - One-off cost, subscription, cost of  
associated tools or components etc.
License - Is the tool (or aspects of it) open source? Are there  
license restrictions?
Roadmap - Are new features planned? Is the tool relatively future- 
proof from a technology point of view?
User base - Is the tool proven? How many existing users/deployments?  
Are there case studies available?

Ramp-up - Time required to set up, specific technology required such  
as a certain type of server, a Mac etc
Skills - Required technology skills, programming languages, other  
skills to operate or deploy the tool.
Maintenance - Resources required to maintain the tool or service  
including time and personnel, frequency of maintenance etc.
Documentation - Is documentation available? Is it comprehensive? It is  
multi-lingual? Online or offline? Who is the target audience?

Target audience - What audience can be served using this tool (age,  
demographic, region etc.)
Reach - Projected reach of the tool. Are there external factors that  
will affect reach of this tool (geographic, language, cost, required  
partnerships?)
Cost to end-users - If the output of this tool requires interaction by  
end-users, what are their costs? (hard costs, time required for users  
to learn interface, language, specific mobile platform etc.)

Some of these factors already seem to overlap so feedback would be  
welcome. Reminder as well that this list is incredibly preliminary!

Best regards,

Steph

http://yiibu.com
Yiibu: Lovingly crafted mobile experiences

+44 (0)7957 651 177
Twitter: stephanierieger

Received on Thursday, 29 July 2010 13:17:20 UTC