Creative Concepts

The main requirement that we wished our solution to satisfy is to allow the users to have an overview of all their internet communication channels in one place. We believe that Bawabaty portal is the right platform that should be improved and used to oer new possibilities to mobile users.

An alternative solution would be to "bypass" the portal and implement the service by installing an application directly to mobile phones of users. This approach would deny new functionality of this service to the web portal. As an application installed on mobile phones, the service would have a separate life from the portal, which would mean a missed opportunity for cross promotion of the portal and the service.

Our approach is user-centric – it places the highest emphasis on the users of the Bawabaty portal and their need to be informed – while spending time on the web pages of the portal – of any new messages from a social network or whether someone wishes to initiate contact via instant messengers.

Another important aspect of our solution is the fact that users are allowed at any time to update their status with several social networks at the same time (for example, Twitter and Facebook), as well as to send messages to their friends on these networks without leaving the Bawabaty portal.

Interaction Design

Front Page – first time visitor (not logged in)

First we will consider the case of new users, i.e. users who have not been registered with any of the communication channels of our aggregator.

A new section labeled My Bawabaty will appear at the front page, under the current content of the website.

It is important that users immediately notice a short description in order to realize its value.

Below this introductory sentence we would place a list with social networks and instant messengers in our oer.

Clicking on any link from the list opens the registration form for My Bawabaty service.

Registration for My Bawabaty service

Before connecting to desired networks, users need to register for My Bawabaty service.

Registration requires a minimal set of information (figures 2 and 3) and results in creation of a user prole that is necessary for utilization of the service and aggregation of user's other proles at the networks he/she intends to use via Bawabaty portal.

In time, the Bawabaty prole will receive additional information in accordance with users' needs. Within this segment, we will allow users to further personalize content of the portal as well as other internet content and services.

We recommend that this user proles serve as the connection between users and services of Nawras Telecom. In the future, users would be able to use this point for access to Self Care and Self Provisioning services and other forms of user support.

Personalization is most denitely the rst step needed to gain more information about our users, their habits and needs, which is a precondition for better relationship with users and creation of tailor-made services.

Establishing Network Connection

After the user's registration with My Bawabaty service, it is necessary to connect with the networks the user wants to communicate with from the Bawabaty portal.

Connection procedures are dened by each of the networks and we are required to follow them. These procedures are mostly intended to protect privacy of user data and to ensure they agree that our service may access their proles within the desired networks.

Front page after registration 

After registering with the service and activating the proles within the networks that the user wishes to aggregate at the front page of the Bawabaty portal, the user can perform the following actions:

Update user status
Open the form for creation/sending of messages
Open the Friends List (Contacts)
Open a widget to use the external network

For example, a user who has set Facebook and Twitter proles at the Bawabaty service will be able to use the front page of the portal to update his/her status on both networks at the same time.

At the same time, notications next to names of the networks will inform the user about new messages, invitations etc. from specic networks. The number in parentheses indicates the number of new notications.

Access to the service from other pages of the Bawabaty portal

Apart from the front page of the portal, the visitors will be able to access My Bawabaty from all other pages of the portal.

The active link within which users will see the number of new received notifications will be located in the header of each page of the portal.

Clicking on this link will open the My Bawabaty page.

My BawaBaty page

The contents of My Bawabaty page will be identical to the contents of the My Bawabaty section on the Front Page. This page is necessary because we want to avoid users having to open the Front Page of the portal each time they want to access their personalized pages.

This page will have:

Widget list with notications
Link to Friends List (Contacts)
Field for Status Update
Link to detailed settings (Settings page)
Link to the form for message sending

Friends List (Contacts)

Friends list (Contacts) is a list of all friends and contacts created by way of aggregation of contacts from all networks utilized by the user via My Bawabaty page.

For example, if Alen has a prole alen@gmail.com at Gmail and alen@yahoo.com at MSN, the Friends List will show both contacts.

Online status of each friend is shown next to their names in the Friend List. This information is necessary if we want to communicate with someone using IM.

Send Message & Status Update

As we have already seen, one way is to click directly on the friend's name in the Friends List.

A form to send a message directly to our friend from Facebook will open within My Bawabaty portal..

My BawaBaty Profile Set-Up

Users will manage their proles in My Bawabaty pages using the My Bawabaty prole set-up page.

On this page, users will be able:

To choose their avatar
To change their password
To change their visibility status (oine or online)
To activate or deactivate widgets
To update their status