Vision

Help Me Help Application

Vision Document

Version <1.5.1>

Revision History

Date	Version	Description	Author
15.01.2026	1.0	First draft	Team 6
27.01.2026	1.1	Sustainability analysis	Cathrine Kristiansen
29.01.2026	1.2	Risk Analysis	Cathrine Kristiansen
02.02.2026	1.3		Meenakshi Jayachandran
02.02.2026	1.4	Risk Analysis	Cathrine Kristiansen
02.02.2026	1.5	Table formatting, 1.5 line spacing, and minor tweaks.	Adrian
06.02.2026	1.5.1	Grammar corrections and formatting adjustments	Robin Strand Prestmo

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction 3

1.1 Purpose and scope 3

1.2 Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations 3

1.3 Overview 4

2.0 Positioning 5

2.1 Business Opportunity 5

2.2 Problem Statement 5

2.3 Product Position Statement 6

2.4 Assumptions and Dependencies 7

3.0 Stakeholder and User Descriptions 8

3.1 Stakeholder Summary 8

3.2 User Summary 8

3.3 User Environment 9

4.0 Evaluating Sustainability Impacts and Project Risks 10

4.1 Sustainability Analysis 10

4.2 Risk analysis 12

5.0 Functional Requirements 16

6.0 Non-Functional Requirements 19

7.0 References 21

Vision Document

1. Introduction

The Help Me Help application is developed as part of the IDATT1005, Norges Teknisk – Naturvitenskapelige Universitets (NTNU) Software course. The project assignment has been given by the project owner, Robin Strand Prestmo, and is aimed at developing a desktop application that will present trustworthy information about charitable organizations based on data from Innsamlingskontrollen (IK). The application allows the user to create a profile and donate to selected charity.

1.1. Purpose and scope

The purpose of this Vision document is to overall vision, goals and boundaries of the Help Me Help application. It describes the functional and non-functional requirements, identifies the key stakeholders and users, and outlines the main features of the system. The details of how the Help Me Help Application fulfills these needs are detailed in the use-case and supplementary specifications.

This document covers the design of the application, user profiles, presentation of verified charity information, and donation functionality. The application is intended to be implemented as a Java-based desktop application with persistent data storage in a relational database.

1.2. Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

Acronyms:

IK (Innsamlingskontrollen)

PII (Personal Identifiable Information)

SusAF (Sustainability Awareness Framework)

SusAD (Sustainability Awareness Diagram)

MVP (Minimum Viable Product).

1.3. Overview

The Vision document is structured into clearly defined sections, that describe the systems of opportunities, stakeholders, user needs, risks, sustainability considerations, and both functional and non-functional requirements. The document also provides references to related project documentation and serves as a guiding framework for how to develop the Help Me Help application throughout all project iterations.

2. Positioning

2.1. Business Opportunity

This project addresses the need to make it easier and safer to donate money to organizations and projects that carry out relief work. By collecting and presenting quantitative and qualitative data about charities, the solution will help facilitate the flow of currency to organizations/projects that provide aid. This will help both users by making informed decisions and organizations/projects with increased donations. The project thus contributes to increased trust in the donation process and facilities for increased financial support for serious and legitimate relief organizations.

2.2. Problem Statement

Problem	Statement
What is the problem	Tensions in the world are rising, and the need for monetary support for organizations/projects providing aid is increasing. With the wast number of potential organizations/projects that can be supported, there is a need for a tool to demonstrate the legitimacy and impact of a given organization/project.
Who is affected by this problem	Parties who wish to donate but are unsure of legitimacy and impact. In addition, organizations and projects that struggle to reach potential donors and build trust are affected.
What are the current consequences of this problem?	Potential donors might choose to refrain from donating to organizations/projects because they fear that the money will not be used effectively or for its purpose. Which can lead to reduced financial support for organizations that are carrying out important relief work.
What can a successful solution to this problem contribute to?	A successful solution will provide a clear and concise user experience, giving the user confidence in their choice of backed organization/project.
Business opportunities?	The solution can contribute to increased funding for charitable and non-profit organizations and projects. This can eventually open up to collaboration with payment processors and other relevant actors.

2.3. Product Position Statement

Problem	Statement
Who is the IT solution designed for	The software solution is designed for people who wish to donate money to charities and projects that carry out humanitarian work. The primary user is the project owner, but the solution is also targets a broader audience of potential donors
What needs do the users of the IT solution have	Users need reliable and verifying information about the legitimacy and effectiveness of organizations and projects they are considering supporting. They also need a simple, secure and user-friendly solution that makes the donation process transparent for both ends
Name/working name for the IT solution (product)	Help Me Help (HmH) is a desktop application that collects and presents reliable and quality assured information about charities based on data from the Norwegian Fundraising Control (IK). The application allows the user to create a profile, explore organizations, and donate money in a safe and informed way. The most valuable benefit is the increased trust and security in choosing an organization.
Are there other solutions used for similar problems	Yes, Charity Navigator offers information about charities and the option to donate. Other solutions, such as IK, give.org, and GuideStar, provide information about organizations, but none offer direct donation through the same application or website.
What characterizes the new IT solution, and how does it differ from other solutions used for similar problems?	The Help Me Help Application uses data from IK, which provides strong demands from its listed organization/projects, and is a Norwegian controlled organization, rather than an international one. It combined verified information and donation in one comprehensive solution.
Goal formulations	Result: The user should be able to create a private user profile, and information from the fundraising control (IK) should be displayed in a readable manner Effect: The solution should contribute to increased trust in charities, more informed donation choices, and increased financial support for serious aid organizations. In the long term, this should contribute to a positive social and sustainable effect.

A product position statement communicates the intent of the application and the importance of the project to all concerned personnel.

2.4. Assumptions and Dependencies

The following assumptions and dependencies underlie the functionality described in this vision document. If one or more of these assumptions are changed, it may affect the scope and content of the solution and therefore require changes to the vision document.

• The application should be developed as a Java based desktop application and run locally as a standalone application on a laptop.

• Application data shall be stored in a relational database.

• It is assumed that the necessary development tools and libraries for Java are available throughout the project period.

• Access to updated and reliable data from the Collection Control (IK) is assumed, either via API or a structured data file

• The development of the project is caried out in three main phases:

• Planning/vision

• Development om MVP

• Completion

• The project is dependent on the timeframes, milestones, and requirements set out in the course IDATx1005 being maintained throughout the development process.

The application should be written in Java and function as a self-contained application running on a laptop.

Application data should persist into a relational database.

The development will be done in 3 stages (planning/vision, MVP, finalizing).

3. Stakeholder and User Descriptions

In order to effectively develop products and services that meet the needs of both stakeholders’ and users, it is necessary to identify and involve all relevant stakeholders as part of the Requirements Modeling process. It is also important to identify the users of the system and ensure that the stakeholder group adequately represents their needs and interests.

This section provides an overview of the stakeholders and users involved in the project, and the key challenges that they experience and that the proposed solution will address. The section does not describe their specific requests or requirements as these are documented in a separate stakeholder requests artifact. Instead, it provides background and justification for why the requirement for the system is necessary.

3.1. Stakeholder Summary

There are several stakeholders with an interest in the development and not all of them are end users. Present a summary list of these non-user stakeholders. (The users are summarized in section 3.3.)

Name	Description	Responsibilities
Robin Strand Prestmo	The project owner The project owner	Facilitates the scope and deadlines for the milestones of the project.
Student Assistant	Coordinator and reviewer	Helps steer the course of the project and provide aid.
Course Professor	Coordinator and teacher	Provides courses about relevant knowledge and skills. Sets the overarching course of the project.

3.2. User Summary

Present a summary list of all identified users.

Name	Description	Responsibilities	Stakeholder
Project group (Team 6)	Development team	Plans, designs, and implements the solution. Responsible for technical choices, documentation, testing, and deliveries.

3.3. User Environment

The primary user of the system is an individual donor who uses the application to retrieve information about charities and make donations. Tasks are typically performed by one person at a time, and this is not expected to change significantly.

A typical task cycle consists of logging in or creating a user profile, exploring available organizations, reviewing presented information, and eventually donating. The time spent per activity will vary depending on the user's needs and commitment but is expected to be short and smooth.

The application is developed as a Java-based desktop application and is intended to be used in an indoor environment, primarily on a laptop computer. There are no specific environmental limitations such as using outdoors or in mobile situations. The application does not require continuous internet access beyond retrieving updated data.

The system platforms used are modern updating operating systems that support Java. Future platforms may include extensions to other environments, such as web or a phone based solution, if the project expands.

For development and collaboration, the project group uses tools such as Microsoft Teams for communication, GitHub for version control and project management, and Facebook Messenger for informal communication.

4. Evaluating Sustainability Impacts and Project Risks

4.1. Sustainability Analysis

The sustainability analysis of the Help Me Help (HmH) application is conducted using the Sustainability Awareness Framework (SusAF). The analysis was carried out by the project team as part of the organizational strategy, to identify and uncover potential sustainability impacts of the system across multiple dimensions.

To support this analysis, the Sustainability Awareness Diagram (SusAD) was used as a visualization tool to reason and identify possible positive and negative impacts of the system, considering individual, social, technical, economic and environmental sustainability dimensions, as shown in Figure 1. Furthermore, the identified impacts are categorized according to the following dimensions: immediate, enabling, or structural.

1. Individual Effects

• Immediate: Users gain immediate access to a centralized platform that provides verified information about charities. This helps reduce the mental strain and uncertainty of choosing where to donate. This contributes to a positive and reassuring user experience.

• Enabling: It is possible to create personalized user profiles in the system that store donation history, preferences, and well-informed news feeds. Profiles can help increase user engagement but also contribute to privacy concerns regarding personal and financial data. To mitigate these risks, it is proposed to introduce anonymity options, opt-in/opt-out notifications, access control, and transparency regarding data usage.

• Structural: Repeated positive donation experiences can help foster a sense of empowerment among users. The ability to track and monitor the impact of one’s actions and maintain control over privacy settings contributes to trust and continued engagement in charitable activities.

2. Social Effects

• Immediate: Trusted verified data from the fundraising audit increases the system’s legitimacy of listed organizations. This strengthens user trust in the donation process while reducing the risk of fraud.

• Enabling: By donating alongside others, the system creates a sense of community while allowing anonymity. Objective presentation of organizations, thematic categorization, and equal visibility for both large and small charities promote inclusion and fairness in social impact.

• Structural: In the long term, the platform can influence how donations are made at a societal level by focusing attention on verified and transparent organizations. However, there is a high risk that highly visible organizations will receive disproportionate attention if the platform design allows for this. Therefore, we emphasized the importance of balanced ranking mechanisms and rotation of selected organizations.

3. Technical Effects

• Immediate: The digital solution replaces manual, paper-based donation processes and physical information distribution. This simplifies workflows, reduces administrative overhead, and improves data consistency and availability.

• Enabling: Using Java-based architecture and relational databases makes it easier to maintain and test code during both the development phase, during later updates and during any further developments. This supports good software development such as modularity, version control and automated testing. Regular synchronization with the Collection Control ensures up-to-date verification of organizations.

• Structural: As the number of users increases, the system may face scalability and performance challenges. Increased user activity and data volume require good database management, access control, and system monitoring. Designing the system with extensibility in mind reduces long-term technical issues and supports future system expansion.

4. Economic Effects

• Immediate: Digitizing donation management reduces costs associated with printing, distribution, and manual administration for both users and organizations.

• Enabling: By reducing intermediaries, the platform enables more efficient distribution of donations. However, large or unregulated donation flows can create financial imbalances, such as favoring certain organizations or influencing local markets. Introducing donation limits or reporting mechanisms can help mitigate these risks.

• Structural: In the long term, increased efficiency and trust in digital donation systems can encourage continued financial support for nonprofit initiatives, contributing to the financial stability of charities.

5. Environmental Effects

• Immediate: The reduction in paper consumption and physical documentation reduces direct material consumption and waste.

• Enabling: Centralized digital access reduces the need for physical transportation of documents and promotional materials, which reduces indirect energy consumption and emissions.

• Structural: Over time, the system contributes to a reduced carbon footprint compared to traditional donation methods. However, increased reliance on server infrastructure and data centers can increase energy consumption. This trade-off emphasizes the importance of efficient system design and moderate scaling.

Through the sustainability awareness diagram and this analysis, the project team systematically identified how the Help Me Help application can impact sustainability across multiple dimensions and time horizons. This information contributes to better design decisions and will be reviewed throughout the project period as part of risk assessment, requirements refinement, and future system development.

4.2. Risk analysis

A risk analysis was conducted to identify potential technical, social, and organizational risks related to the Help Me Help (HmH) application. The analysis is based on the system requirements, sustainability considerations (SusAD), and identified external dependencies. Risks were evaluated based on their probability and potential consequences, and appropriate mitigation measures were defined to reduce their impact.

Several of the identified risks are closely related. For example, inaccurate charity information and security breaches may directly impact user trust and long-term adoption of the system. To address these risks, the project prioritizes verified data sources, secure system design, and transparency toward users. Scalability and maintainability are considered primarily as long-term risks and are addressed through modular architecture and good software engineering practices.

Risk factor	Risk description	Probability	Consequence	Mitigation measures
Inaccurate charity information	Incorrect or outdated information about charities	Medium	High	Automated scheduled updates from IK API, data validation, logging of update failures
Bugs	Functional or performance-related bugs in the system	High	High	Unit testing, integration testing, code reviews, stress testing
Security breach	Theft, hacking, unauthorized access	Low	High	Secure coding standards, regular updates, penetration testing, access control
Identity theft	Theft or misuse of user identities	Low	High	Two-factor authentication, secure login procedures, session management
PII (Personal Information) leak	Leakage of personal or donation-related data	Medium	High	Data minimization, encryption at rest and in transit, access logging
Unreliable database system	Database failures or data inconsistency	Low	High	Backup routines, transaction handling, database monitoring
Anonymity failure	Incorrect handling of anonymous users	Low-Medium	High	Clear anonymization rules, testing of anonymity flows, separation of identity data
Corruption (organizations)	Organizations misuse donated funds	Low	High	Rely on IK verification, manual review, ability to remove organizations
Poor universal design / UI	Inaccessible or confusing user interface	Medium	Medium	WCAG-based design, user testing, accessibility checks
Biased visual representation	Overexposure of large organizations	Medium	Medium	Neutral sorting, category-based views, rotation of featured organizations
Scalability limitations	System cannot handle increased user load	Low-Medium	Medium	Modular design, performance testing, clear system limits
Data synchronization errors	Inconsistent data between local DB and IK	Medium	Medum	Timestamp checks, reconciliation routines
GDPR non-compliance	Improper handling of personal data	Low	High	Privacy policy, consent handling, right-to-delete
Lack of transparency	Users do not understand how data is used	Medium	Medium	Clear privacy notice, UI feedback
Loss of user trust	Users lose confidence in system	Medium	High	Transparency, reliable updates, visible verification
Misuse of reporting feature	False reports against organizations	Low	Medium	Manual review, abuse detection

5. Functional Requirements

User Story 1: Access to verified information

As a donor,

I want to view verified information about charitable organizations retrieved from Innsamlingskontrollen (IK),

so that I can reduce my uncertainty and make more informed and trustworthy donation decisions

Sustainability impact:

• Individual: Reduced mental strain and uncertainty

• Social: Increases trust and reduced risk of fraud

User Story 2: Detailed view of organizations

As a donor,

I want to access detailed and objective information about each organization,

So that I can compare organizations fairly and understand their intentions and impact.

Sustainability impact:

• Social: Promotes fair visibility for both large and small organizations

• Economics: Contributes to a more balanced distribution of donations

User Story 3: User profile and history

As a donor,

I want to create and manage a personal user profile with donation history,

so that I can track my contribution and stay engaged over time.

Sustainability impact:

• Individual: Increases user engagement and long-term donations

• Technical: requires stable and maintainable data storage

User Story 4: Anonymity and privacy

As a donor,

I want to choose whether my donations are anonymous,

So that my privacy and personal data are protected

Sustainability impact:

• Individual: Building trust and responsible handling of personal data

• Social: Lowering the threshold for participation

User Story 5: Donation functionality

As a donor,

I want to donate money directly through the application,

So that resources are transferred efficiently to legitimate organizations

Sustainability Impact:

• Economic: Reduced administrative costs and intermediaries

• Environmental: Reduced the need for paper-based processes

User Story 6: Balanced presentation of organizations

As a donor,

I want to see organizations presented in a neutral and balanced way,

So that no single organization received disproportionate attention due to how the application is designed.

Sustainability impact:

• Social: Prevents unequal distribution and systematic favoritism

• Economic: Contributes to more equitable financial support

**User Story 7: Technical maintenance and data quality **

As a system,

I want to store and synchronize data securely using a relational database,

So that information remains consistent, scalable and up to date

Sustainability impact:

• Technical: Supports maintenance, scalable and further development

• Environmental: Efficient data processing reduces unnecessary resource use.

6. Non-Functional Requirements

Non-functional requirements characteristics related to security, usability, performance, standards, and similar aspects. Refer, for example, to ISO/IEC 25010 or FURPS+. The intention is to provide a high-level description; detailed specifications will be addressed in the requirements document.

GDPR (most important article 5 (limit scope of PII), 6 (consent for PII), 17 (erasure of PII), 32 (security for PII)), Don Norman’s UI Principles,

This section describes the non-functional requirements of the Help Me Help application. These requirements will address the quality attributes such as security, usability, performance, and compliance with relevant standards.

Security and privacy

• The system shall comply with relevant GDPR regulations [1], in particular:

• Article 5: Personal shall be limited to what is necessary for the systems purpose

• Article 6: Explicit user consent shall be required before processing personal data

• Article 17: User shall have the right to request elimination of their personal data

• Article 32: Appropriate technical and organizational measures shall be implemented to ensure security of personal data

• Personal data and data related to donations shall be protected through secure authentication, access control, and encrypted storage.

• The system should support anonymous donations to reduce unnecessary exposure of personal identifiable information.

Usability and user experience

• The user interface shall follow Don Norman’s principles of interaction design, including visibility, feedback, consistency, and error prevention [2].

• The system shall present the information in a clear, understandable, and neutral way to support informed decision making.

• The application shall be easy to learn and use for first time users, with minimal mental distress.

Performance and Reliability

• The system shall respond to user actions within an acceptable time frame under normal usage conditions.

• Data retrieval from the local database shall be efficient and consistent.

• The system should maintain stable operation during typical user sessions without any data loss or corruption.

Maintainability and scalability

• The application should be developed using modular Java based architecture to maintainability and future extensions.

• The system should be designed to handle increased data volume and user activity without major architectural changes.

• Code quality, version control, and automated testing practices shall be applied to support long-term technical sustainability.

Standards and Compliance

• The system shall align with relevant characteristics described in IOS/IEC 25010, including security, usability, reliability, and maintainability [3].

• Universal design principles and accessibility considerations shall be considered where applicable.

7. References

This subsection provides a complete list of all documents referenced elsewhere in the Vision document. Identify each document by title, report number if applicable, date, and publishing organization. Specify the sources from which the references can be obtained. This information may be provided by reference to an appendix or to another document.

[1] «Art. 5 GDPR – Principles relating to processing of personal data», General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Åpnet: 2. februar 2026. [Online]. Tilgjengelig på: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-5-gdpr/

[2] «What are Norman’s design principles?», Educative. Åpnet: 2. februar 2026. [Online]. Tilgjengelig på: https://www.educative.io/answers/what-are-normans-design-principles

[3] «ISO 25010». Åpnet: 2. februar 2026. [Online]. Tilgjengelig på: https://iso25000.com/index.php/en/iso-25000-standards/iso-25010