A Study of Users' Perceptions Toward Mobile Dua and Zikr for Hajj (MDZ4H) Usability

Hajj consists of several rituals which require the pilgrims to recite specific dua and zikr for each of them. Since there are so many dua and zikr involved, pilgrims who are not well versed in Arabic have difficulties to memorize them. They require a tool which is portable that can help them to recite the dua and zikr easily and conveniently. This paper introduces the Mobile Dua and Zikr for Hajj (MDZ4H), an Android application to help pilgrims to recite the dua and zikr while performing all the Hajj rituals. Android platform has been chosen due to the dramatic increased in the Android mobile phone users worldwide. This paper discusses the development process and also evaluation of MDZ4H among sample of users. In developing the application, all the required Dua and Zikr were gathered, compiled and verified before the application could be developed using J2ME. The application displays the Arabic text, the translation in Malay and also the Arabic audio files of the dua and zikr. The application has been evaluated among users and experts and the results indicated that the application fulfils the functional and non-functional requirements of the developers. The users were also satisfied with the interface of the application and rated highly the application in terms of Usefulness, Ease of Use, and Outcome and Future Use. It is hoped that the developed application could be made available in order to help Hajj pilgrims to easily and conveniently recite the Dua and Zikr towards achieving Hajj Mabrur.