Final Technical Report Draft

Digital directories in shopping malls have been helping consumers with directions to their desired shops, dining place, ATM machines and other amenities. It also displays the floor plans so that consumers can have a visual representation of the mall. However, there are consumers who are still struggling with navigating around the malls even after the use of digital directories as consumers fail to remember the route to their destination. The current directories in shopping malls are limited to one user at a time, which lead to unnecessary time wasted on waiting if the directory is in use by others. Moreover, it is a hassle for consumers to remember the layout of the mall, the list of shops and their prefered directions with just one look at the directory.  

The mall should provide a reliable navigation system so that consumers are able to have a pleasant experience. According to Singapore Tourism Board (2016), the tourist receipts spent on shopping had tremendous growth of 51% in the year 2016 as compared to 2015 (Singapore Tourism Board, 2016). This showed that more tourists are willing to spent more in shopping malls. Therefore, malls should look for ways to increase their respective average duration spent in shopping mall per visitor.

It is also important to standardize the directories in shopping mall so that consumers will be familiar with the directory. Nowadays, most malls have digital directories which may or may not be touchscreen depending on how advanced is the mall. The non touchscreen directories are useful to consumers to a certain extend as it lacks the navigation features. For touch screen directory with navigation system, it requires regular maintenance to prevent unresponsive or faulty directories.

Besides that, the current digital directories are prone to malware attack. According to “Singapore malls, users hit in cyber attack”(2017), it stated Tiong Bahru’s mall directory was hacked and malware message was showed on the directory.  Even though confidential statistics were not exposed but it has proven that digital directories are more likely to be hacked as compared to smartphones.