SkillMart: skills sharing and marketplace platform

Abstract

This project focuses on a addressing the gap between the rising popularity of online education platforms and customer-to-customer marketplace platforms by developing a software solution dedicated to peer-to-peer skills and knowledge exchange, SkillMart. A market analysis shows that SkillMart is feasible by targeting low to middle income extroverted students and young adults who are seeking for jobs or freelancing with penetration pricing strategies such as the freemium model. Design considerations were then drawn up based on design principles such from the field of Human Computer Interaction, followed by a wireflow low-fidelity prototype adhering to the established initial design considerations. To identify problems early and to ensure that the user interface aligns with the expectations of potential users from the target segment, a multi-modal evaluation study was conducted with target users as well as experts with experience in the design of user interfaces. While the evaluation indicated positive reception to the design, several flaws and rooms for improvement were pointed out, and several participants indicated desire for inclusion of more complex and advanced features such as collaborative tools. With the feedback and insights of the initial evaluation study in mind, the initial design considerations were refined with more detailed use cases, though the inclusion of desired additional features were not included but kept in view for future work. Use case specifications, a use case diagram, and sequence diagrams were created to guide the next stage of development, which was the development of the high-fidelity prototype. The high-fidelity prototype was developed drawing concepts from various fields such as database design, software security, artificial intelligence and search engine optimisation. Following the code implementation of the high-fidelity prototype, comprehensive testing was conducted which included automated unit tests and manual integration and end-to-end tests. Finally, with a working prototype, a second round of evaluation study was conducted, this time focusing more on the objective usability measurements rather than subjective satisfaction. The evaluation study concluded indicating that the insights from the first round of evaluation studies had been valuable in improving the user interface and helping to develop a highly usable user interface. However, few flaws were also introduced due to the changes made in the design, highlighting a continuous need for iterative improvements in the design lifecycle of software development. With the satisfactory results from the second evaluation study, the stage is set for future work such as the addition of complex desired features in SkillMart.