Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design - Assignment Example

?Task Project Evaluation Project Alpha Total Investment Cash Flow Payback Period Present Value 0 Year 000,000 000,000 000,000 1st Year 8,000 -992,000 7,273 2nd Year 200,000 -792,000 165,289 3rd Year 800,000 8,000.0 601,052 4th Year 820,000 560,071 5th Year 970,000 602,294 Net Profit 1,798,000 ROI 1.798 Payback Period 2.99 Present Value 935,979 Project Theta Total Investment Cash Flow Payback Period Present Value 0 Year -2,400,000 -2,400,000 -2,400,000 1st Year 900,200 -1,499,800 818,364 2nd Year 940,000 -559,800 776,860 3rd Year 980,000 420,200 736,289 4th Year 960,000 655,693 5th Year 500,000 310,461 Net Profit 1,880,200 ROI 0.783416667 Payback Period 2.61204082 Net P-Value 897,665 Project Mu Total Investment Cash Flow Payback Period Present Value 0 Year -1,200,000 -1,200,000 -1,200,000 1st Year 0 -1,200,000 0 2nd Year 400,000 -800,000 330,579 3rd Year 900,000 100,000 676,183 4th Year 1,000,000 683,013 5th Year 700,000 434,645 Net Profit 1,800,000 ROI 1.5 Payback Period 2.88888889 Present Value 924,420 Formula The following formulas have been used to calculate the net profit, pay back period, return over investment, and present value (Ecology, 2000). Net Profit: Total Revenue – Total Expenses Payback Period: Initial Investment Cost / Annual Operating Savings The formulas have been taken from the website of the Finance Formulas. Return over Investment: (Earnings – Initial Investment) / Initial Investment Net Present Value: (Initial Investment + (Cash flow 1st year) / 1.1 + …… Recommendation Keeping in view the above calculations, I believe that the project ‘Alpha’ should be selected for execution. The ROI and Net Present Value of the project ‘Alpha’ is greater than the other two projects. However, the net profit and payback period of the project ‘Alpha’ is a little less than the other two projects. It is pertinent to mention here that the profit / revenue of the project ‘Alpha’ is growing yearly that would be beneficial for the company. Task 2: Project Analysis After entering activities, predecessors and duration of the activities (as given in the scenario - Omicron) in the MS Project From, a Gantt chart and network diagram have been developed. It has been identified from the Gantt chart that the project would be completed within sixteen (16) days that would start on 13th May 2013 and completed on 3rd June 2013. It is pertinent to mention here that the Saturday and Sunday (two day weekend) have been set off in the MS Project. The critical activities have been represented by red lines (bars) in the Gantt chart and Network Diagram. These activities include: Analysis Module 1, Implemented Module 1, Integrated Module 1 &3, Document Module 1 and System Test. After reducing the completion time of activity ‘F’ (7 in the Gantt chart) by 50 %, the total duration of completing the project would be reduced by one (1) day. In this case, the project would be started on 13th May 2013 and completed on 31st May 2013. Moreover, the critical activities of the project would be increased from five (5) to nine (9). The critical activities include: Analysis Module 2, Analysis Module 3, Implementation Module 2, Implement Module 3, Integrate Module 1 & 3, Test Module 2, Document Module 1, Integrate Module 2 & 3, and System Test. Reducing the completion time of the project by applying more human and technical resources, the technique is known as project crashing (Sparrow, n.d). The screenshots of the Gantt chart and Network diagram of the Omicron project’s second case (reduced activity duration) has been shown below: Task 3: Testing Part ‘A’ – Block Box Testing Several aspects of the final product would be tested to ensure that the website of the New World Resources website is working properly and finding out the potential bugs in the website. The black box testing ensures the functionality of the website / software application without reviewing the code (HTML, PHP, etc.) and implementation details, keeping in view only the requirement specifications of the website provided by the New World Resources (Rungta, n.d). Some of the ‘Black box testing’ aspects is given below: The functionality of the website would be tested that comprises of the web links checking (internal and external links), broken links, orphan pages, and cookie testing. The usability of the website would be tested that encompasses the ease of use, navigation of the website, logical representation of the contents, and appropriate site map / help. The interface of the website would be tested including all the interactions of the client with the server and proper error handling with appropriate message boxes. It is required to check the compatibility of the website with diverse browsers, operating system compatibility, mobile browsing and appropriate printing options. The performance of the website would be tested including the web load and stress testing to check how many users can access the website at a time. Moreover, the reliability of the website would be tested to ensure that the website is working properly on different internet connections. It is pertinent to test the security of the website that comprises of the testing session, string testing and direct URL of the internal pages without providing username and password. Part ‘B’ – Usability Testing There are ten (10) usability heuristics provided by the Jakob Neilsen in 1995 for evaluation of the user interface. It is required to utilize the usability heuristics to evaluate the web interface of the New World Resources website. The guidelines of the Neilson for usability testing are as follows: i. The website of the NWR should facilitate the users by informing the current status of the system. And if by any means the system would not be able to show the output, then it has to show a message to the users to keep them informed. ii. The data and contents should be defined in a way so that it could resemble with the real world and the users can easily understand. iii. The users should be given functionality as if they have entered the incorrect data, they can re-enter the correct information to get accurate results. iv. The design of the NWR website should be consistent; moreover, the icons and text are easily remembered by the users. v. The error messages should be designed in a way that the users get precise information as well as understand the message unambiguously. vi. The icons and contents can easily be recognized by the users to minimize the user’s memory load. vii. The user interface design of the website should be straightforward and irrelevant information should not be included. viii. The website should be as usable and efficient as even the novice user can use the system with ease. ix. Proper help documentation of the website has been prepared. Task 4: Project Management and Quality Assurance The documentation of the project should not be ignored as the project documentation is one of the critical success factors of the effective project management. Keeping in view the project scenario of the New World Resources, the management team of the project believes that in order to complete the project quickly they need to ignore the documentation of the project. In order to complete the project quickly by ignoring the project documentation is not a good strategy as per the effective project management. The project documentation is useful for two main functions include: the specification of the customer’s (NRW) project requirements, their fulfilment and traceability. Moreover, the fulfilment of the customer requirements through proper documentation is the critical factor for ensuring the quality of the project (Mehta, 2011). There are plenty of mistakes that can lead to a project failure include but not limited to the misallocated human as well as technical resources and under / over estimated tasks. In this scenario of the NWR project the main critical success factor is the completion time of the project. There are many ways and techniques in the project management for tackling such mistakes and completing the project before the scheduled deadline. One of the techniques is to re-allocate and put in the work more human resources focusing the critical activities of the project so that the project team able to complete the project within scheduled date. The technique is also known as crashing the schedule. Furthermore, the project management team can consider the project fast track technique in which the project manager needs to review all the activities in a way that these activities can be completed partially or fully in parallel to the other activities. Keeping in view the scenario of the NWR project, the project manager needs to prevent scope creep. As the project team doesn't work normally as per the original schedule, therefore, in such cases the scope of the project is not easy to manage properly. By utilizing one or more above given techniques, the project management team of the NWR project can complete the project within or before the scheduled completion date of the project (Mochal, 2008). There are four (4) predefined success factors and / or quality parameters of a project that include: cost, schedule (time), scope and fulfilment of customer’s requirements. A project is said to be successful if the project has been completed within the specified cost, schedule (completion date), scope (delivered all the milestones / deliverables) and quality i-e the project fulfils user / customer requirements (Taylor and Schied, 2011). Therefore, it is the responsibility of a project manager to fulfil all the requirements of the customer by distributing all the deliverables of the project within specified time and cost to complete the project successfully. Moreover, the Aaron J. Shenhar, Dov Dvir, Ofer Levy, and Alan C. Maltz in 2001 explained the four success dimensions as the project efficiency (meeting project schedule and estimated cost / budget), impact on the customer (fulfilment of functional and non-functional requirements, domain requirements, solution of customer’s problem and customer’s satisfaction), business success and preparing for the future. It is worthwhile to compare the success factors described in the both studies. The first two success factors explained in the later study are similar to the three (3) success factors of the earlier study including the project should meet the schedule, the project should complete within specified cost / budget and the project should fulfil the user requirements. Keeping in view the studies it can be stated that the NWR project could only be said successful if the project would be completed considering the success factors. Moreover, one of the most critical success factors of the given success factors is the schedule (time) for the NWR project. Because the NWR organization needs the projects related to the network infrastructure on priority and as early as possible, therefore, the project management team should consider the fast tracking technique or project crashing technique to complete the project within time. Moreover, the team should consider development of proper documentation, as customer / user requirement specification is one of the parameters of the quality. References Ecology. 2000. Cost Analysis for Pollution Prevention. Ecology Information Document, Hazardous Waste and Toxics Reduction Program Finance Formulas. n.d. Net Present Value – Return Over Investment. [online] Available at: [Accessed 2nd April 2013] Sparrow, P. n.d. Project Crashing and Fast Tracking in Project Management. [online] Available at: [Accessed 3rd April 2013] Rungta, K. n.d. Tutorial 29: Black Box Testing. [online] Available at: [Accessed 3rd April 2013] Neilson, J. 1995. 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5th April 2013] Mehta, P. 2011. Project Documentation and its Importance. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5th April 2013] Mochal, T. 2008. 10 ways to get a slipping project back on track. [online] Available at: [Accessed 6th April 2013] Taylor, J. and Schied, J., 2011. Working with Project Constraints – The PM Triangle. [online] Available at: [Accessed 20th March 2013] Shenhar, A., J., Dvir, D., Levy, O., and Maltz, A. C., 2001. Project Success: A Multidimensional Strategic Concept. Long Range Planning Journal – Pergamon 711 – 714 Lavagnon A. I., 2009. Project Success as a Topic in Project Management Journals. Project Management Journal, Project Management Institute Read More