Development and usability testing of Smart Record Management Solution in Higher Education Institutions in Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

In this modern technological world, approximately everything has been electronic. Manual documentation is not a safe way; it might result in the loss of employees’ important information. Managing huge amounts of data manually means organizations need much more human resources for handling paperwork. On the other hand, cost, time, and efficiency are also needed. This is the fact that fully automated systems are beneficial over manual and semi-computerized systems. However, it is also a question that how much fully automated systems are beneficial over manual or semi-computerized systems. Because, the usability of the application could be a barrier between such types of solutions to switching from manual or semi-computerized systems to fully automated systems, whose answers were tried to find out in this study. For this, a web-based Smart Record Management Solution (SRMS) was developed and evaluated in three universities in Sindh, Pakistan, so that, the usability of the app can be measured. The Application was evaluated by 60 employees distributed in three groups (Administrative head, clerical staff and General employees) in district Shaheed Benazirabad, Sindh, Pakistan. The data was collected through a questionnaire from the participants to measure the usability of SRMS. According to the results, the majority of the participants reported that the app was easy to use and participants were equally satisfied with the application. The results are promising; in the future, an experiment will be conducted for the successful implementation of Smart Record Management Solution and to find out the proper deployment of such systems.