System Analysis and Design for integrated sponsored SMS/USSD Based M-Services (A case study of Maternal Health M-Service in Tanzania)

TL;DR

This paper analyzes and designs an integrated SMS/USSD-based M-Service for maternal health in Tanzania, using advertising to subsidize operational costs and ensure sustainability in low-income settings.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated M-Service model that incorporates advertising for cost reduction, guided by ISAD principles, with a prototype implementation for maternal health.

Findings

Successful integration of advertising reduces operational costs.

Design ensures sustainability of maternal health M-Services.

Prototype demonstrates feasibility in low-income contexts.

Abstract

Mobile phones have proven to be the best way of providing reliable access to information to people in low and mid income countries where other forms of communication perform poorly. As a result of the wide spread of mobile phones, there has been an increase in number of Mobile Application (M-Services) which are being used as a tool for disseminating different type information to people. M-Services of this nature are established to address informational challenges that are faced by people especially low income people. Because of this then, these projects must be sustained so that people can enjoy the benefits of it. Contrary to this, reports show that most of these M-Services are facing the challenge of cost of operating them, which in a direct way affects the sustainability of these services. In this paper therefore we present an analysis and later design of a noncommercial M-Service, which integrates advertising functionality as a tool for subsidizing the cost of operating M-Services. To achieve this we have employed some concepts of Information System Analysis and Design (ISAD) as the guiding principle towards achieving our design. A prototype of M-Health is used for the study.