Website Design Development for Work - Research Proposal Example

Running head: ONLINE EXPERIENCE Online Experience Contents A.Introduction 3 B.Background 3 Objective and Aims 3 2.Online presence and experience traits 4 C.Research Questions and Objectives 5 1.What are you trying to achieve? 5 2.Observable outcomes from your research? 5 3.SMART objectives 5 D.Method 6 1.Where? Which organization(s), Industry sector, cohort of consumers? 6 E.Data Collection 8 1.Questionnaires 8 2.Interviews 9 3.Primary and secondary research 12 4.Method chosen and steps 13 F.Timescale 15 Sequence of activities: 15 A. Introduction The primary research is for the design of website for job search which would facilitate the better searching of data and information for users and vendors. Firstly the aims and objectives are highlighted. Secondly the methodology chapter carves out the basic feature of the research technique used for gathering the requirements to construct the website to its exactness. The discussion of the process design paradigms are taken into consideration and made sure that sound engineering techniques are applied for making the right mark. B. Background 1. Objective and Aims The objectives of the research are to fetch the right customer evaluation for the websites. The customer experience would largely depend on the various experiences with the website and the basic rules for knowing the website. The exposure to the various activities would generate customer confidence and ensure greater use of the website for greater use. The handling of user errors and exceptional conditions with the various customer experiences would make it smooth. 2. Online presence and experience traits The website is the face of the company (Neilson, 2002) and makes sure that the entire objective is served through the website. The various characteristics would be to make the specialty of featuring the services required to all for availing the benefits. The benefits of the website can be as follows: The website will be able to cover the user base well by spreading the good word of the company over the internet. Efficient job searches would be facilitated so that they are able to maximize the use of the website with large users become visitors and finally job takers. Hiring companies can advertise their company details and requirements marketing a number of solutions and promoting their company in one way. The feedback system can also be added so that future caterings can be handled better. People can access at their convenience and make payment through credit card or other means at their convenience. C. Research Questions and Objectives 1. What are you trying to achieve? This project is a deep acknowledgement to the investment of time and effort on the part of the idea generator and the innovator of an online business. It is a huge sense of gratification towards the customers for whom the proposed service is framed. It is an exposure to the success of the business and the design of various strategies which must be evaluated to fall into place. 2. Observable outcomes from your research? This research is aimed at evaluating customer experience for an online store and extensive understanding of the various factors of online presence and ensures customer satisfaction and retaining. It holistically evaluates the various features of a website and capitalizes time and effort for the business to ensure that the customer experience is really splendid. 3. SMART objectives The SMART objectives are aimed at evaluating the customer for a particular product or service. It is as follows: Specific – It must be stated as the objectives that the product or service is aimed to achieve. The clear indication of the set of objectives ensures proper identification of business needs and demands from time to time. Measurable – This step quantifies the previous step and decides whether it has been met or not. Achievable – The probability of fetching the set of objectives is very essential and must be met. The decision as to the attainment of objectives is very crucial and ensures right set of commitments for the business. Realistic – The basic feasibility is to be decided and made sure that they exist in practice. Time – The basic time factor is very important for enabling the right decision. D. Method 1. Where? Which organization(s), Industry sector, cohort of consumers? The case for consideration is Jobcentre Plus and Gum tree which perhaps the most widely known example of job search websites in UK. Jobcentre Plus and Gum tree offers numerous forms of content to enhance the user’s job search experience. Information is available with regards titles, cover art, synopses, reviews and interviews by other prospective users of the website. Information content is relevant to users needs and is inter-related to page layout. For instance Jobcentre Plus and Gum tree writes for scannability (Nielsen, 1997) and avoids chunking too much information. They tailor content for individual countries known as localization. Due to the complexity and diversity of large scale web development it is vital that our prospective website would adhere to web engineering principles when re-developing their site. These principles offer a disciplined approach to achieving the most competitive website. Engineering principles will ultimately affect profit; costs of bad design are high. Our client must consider the Quality Requirements addressed by (Pressman, 2000) and aim to maximize performance in usability, functionality, reliability, efficiency and maintainability. Engineering principles will prevent problems with outdated or irrelevant information, slow response, crashes or security breaches to which web applications are sensitive. Engineering principles will minimize risk; improve quality, maintainability and scalability. (Murugesan, 1999.) Software Configuration Management and Quality Control should be addressed to maintain standards. Testing will help our client plan, monitor, control and cope with the challenge of their web application. E. Data Collection 1. Questionnaires This form of requirements gathering is best suitable for a large number of people in a relatively short period of time and can be less biased in the interpretation of results. In the Job search website, the questionnaires method would be also suitable but not that effective as the interview method. It would largely save time on the vendor’s part but would generate no personal touch on each others part. Strengths: There could be various sections of people, arranged in groups and they can be catered with different set of questionnaires to exactly match their information gathering platform. It would focus on specific direction so as to fetch the information rich in content and exact content can be analyzed. The information richness is medium to low. Weaknesses: It is quite expensive in operation. Chances for follow-up and probing are limited and follow-up done after original data collection. In this case respondent can be unknown. No clear commitment is done on the subject (Hoffer, 2002). Opportunities: Time consumed is quite less and distribution of questionnaires to a wide section of people in the organization is possible. Threats: Busyness of people can hinder obtainment of correct data and requirements gathering stage would result in fiasco. 2. Interviews The interviewing method is quite essential in identifying the various entities of a system. Early in the project the analyst spends a large amount of time in gathering information about the work environment of the client and the types of processing which requires to be done within the business for the successful envelopment of the businesses workflow process and their understanding. The guidelines for effective interviewing are as follows: Prepare interviewee, appointments, priming questions Prepare checklist, agenda and questions Listening carefully and take notes Review notes within 48 hours of interview Be neutral to seek diverse views In our Job search website, the interviewing method would be of use for collecting the requirements as the diversification would be quite less. The following is an interview guide which can be adhered for taking requirements: Interview Outline Interviewee: Interviewer: Name of person being interviewed Name of the person leading Location /Medium: Appointment Date: Office, conference room or phone number Start Time: End Time: Objectives Reminders: What data is to be collected? Background of the interviewee On what to gain agreement? Known options What areas to explore? Agenda Approximate Time Introduction on project 1 min Background on project 2 min Overview of interview 1 min Topic 1 questions…………. 5 min Topic 2 questions…………. 5 min Summary of Major points 2 min Questions from Interview 5 min Closing 1 min General observations Unresolved issues, topics not covered It can be expressed in the SWOT analysis as follows: Strengths: It is quite rich in content and the chance for follow-up and probing is good. The clarification questions can be tackled by both sides leaving no room for further complications. There is a personal touch in this process. Weaknesses: It is quite time consuming and expensive in nature. Fixing appointments and visiting the clients place is often a problem. Opportunities: The opportunity is the personal touch where the both sides are known to each other and face to face approach is quite essential in relationship building and getting in-depth of the system. In addition to that, personal views are also drawn for better arriving at conclusions. Threats: The cultural differences can prevent one to completely open up in an interview and the very nature of people and their personal differences are often a hindrance to gather requirements. 3. Primary and secondary research In the primary method the various books, journals and previous documents and the projects are looked upon to make the right mark for the topic. Strengths: Knowledge can be derived for the correct use of certain technology and is often the rich source of information for the subject. The information is from renowned sources and approved by officials. Weaknesses: It is only theory and no practical exposure is proved which educates one to face the world. Opportunities: Rich source of information to know the outcomes in general. Threats: It is quite time consuming. The secondary form of requirements gathering takes place when the information is quite large for simple gathering methods. Strengths: It is precisely used in cases where a lot of information is desirable to make an ultimate decision. The information richness and time is quite low. The chances for follow-up and probing are quite low and saves a lot of time as the document is in depth. Weaknesses: There is no clear commitment to the information or data provided. Opportunities: The potential audience is medium to low which makes it possible to gather in-depth data about the respondents. Threats: It is quite time consuming but the ultimate objective is served. 4. Method chosen and steps The combination of survey method and interview method is required to be adopted for fetching the requirements of the users so that all information is capitalized upon for better design of the website. Survey questions for the job seekers: What information do you desire from a job website? What kind of search options would make your job search really suitable? What keywords would you like to specify for job searches? What section of jobs and classifications are desired for making the job usable to be found? What details are desired in the job description? Does email or company site address help in application? What are the best methods for communication with the company for forwarding the details? The notifications which are desired for job status and applications made require to be evaluated? Questionnaires and interviews for the hiring companies: What information must be propagated for job hunters to seek? What is the current job market trend which requires to be catered to the right job seekers? Which information is good and bad for job seekers? What kind of job description is of real good and makes an impression to the job seekers? What kind of communication style is accepted for job seekers? Time and information are the exact measurements which must be capitalized upon for job seekers. Justify? The above set of questionnaires is just a sample for catering to the various requirements of the website and make sure that both of them are taken seriously for larger depth and information representation. F. Timescale Sequence of activities: It includes the activities which must take place in sequence: Activity (Tasks) Duration (Days) Preceded By A Working out the feasibility of the system 1 _ B Collection of information from different groups and creating data flow diagrams 3 A C Internal review of information collected and its validity with the management 2 B D Identifying the relationships between the entities 3 C E Define the degree of interaction between entities 2 D F Creating E-R Model and establishing cardinality ratios with distributed feature taken into account (as the Center has 5 sub locations in the city) 2 D,E G Identifying Functional dependencies and others and then Normalization of relations 1 F H Converting the normalized relations to tables in database 2 G I Creating primary key and foreign key relationships and implementing business rules using integrity constraints 1 H J Creating interfaces and report generation techniques 3 I K Connecting the database tables with the interfaces and distributing the application to become geographical independent 3 J L Testing the system 2 K M Implementing the system across locations 2 L N Create maintenance plans and documentations 1 L,M O Final review report after installation 1 L,M,N References\Bibliography Barry, Mawer (2000). Systems Maintenance, vol 32, pp 12. Booch, Grady (2003). Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, 2nd Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional. Boehm, B. (1988), "A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement," IEEE Computer 21, 5, 61-72. Bullinger, Hans-Jörg (1999). Human-Computer Interaction: Proceedings of HCI, pp 231 – 218. Ghosh AK (2001). Software security and privacy risks. Korth, F. Henry (2005). Database Management systems. McGraw Hill. Lynch, P. & Horton, S. (2002) Web Style Guide, 2nd Edition. Retrieved 12, November 2008 from http://www.webstyleguide.com/. Murugesan, S. & Ginige, A. (2005) Web Engineering: Introduction and Perspectives. Navathe, Elmasri (2004). Fundamentals of Database systems, Singapore: Pearson Education. Nielsen, J. (2008) Ten Usability Heuristics. Retrieved 12, November 2008 from http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html. Norton, Peter (2003). Introduction to Computers, second edition, Tata McGraw Hill. Pressman. R. (2004) Software Engineering: A Practitioners Approach, McGrawHill, Maidenhead. Hoffer A, Jeffrey (2002). Modern Systems Analysis and Design. Pearson Education. James A. O’Brien (2003). Management Information System, 6th ed Tata Mc Graw Hill. Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon (2003). Management Information System,6th ed New York: Tata Mc Graw Hill. Korth F. Henry (2005). Database Management systems(pp 204-225).McGraw-Hill. Transparencynow.com. Retrieved 12, November 2008 from http://www.transparencynow.com/index.html. Usability.gov. Retrieved 12, November 2008 from http://www.usability.gov/ . Read More

Strengths: There could be various sections of people, arranged in groups and they can be catered with different set of questionnaires to exactly match their information gathering platform. It would focus on specific direction so as to fetch the information rich in content and exact content can be analyzed. The information richness is medium to low. Weaknesses: It is quite expensive in operation. Chances for follow-up and probing are limited and follow-up done after original data collection. In this case respondent can be unknown.

No clear commitment is done on the subject (Hoffer, 2002). Opportunities: Time consumed is quite less and distribution of questionnaires to a wide section of people in the organization is possible. Threats: Busyness of people can hinder obtainment of correct data and requirements gathering stage would result in fiasco. 2. Interviews The interviewing method is quite essential in identifying the various entities of a system. Early in the project the analyst spends a large amount of time in gathering information about the work environment of the client and the types of processing which requires to be done within the business for the successful envelopment of the businesses workflow process and their understanding.

The guidelines for effective interviewing are as follows: Prepare interviewee, appointments, priming questions Prepare checklist, agenda and questions Listening carefully and take notes Review notes within 48 hours of interview Be neutral to seek diverse views In our Job search website, the interviewing method would be of use for collecting the requirements as the diversification would be quite less. The following is an interview guide which can be adhered for taking requirements: Interview Outline Interviewee: Interviewer: Name of person being interviewed Name of the person leading Location /Medium: Appointment Date: Office, conference room or phone number Start Time: End Time: Objectives Reminders: What data is to be collected?

Background of the interviewee On what to gain agreement? Known options What areas to explore? Agenda Approximate Time Introduction on project 1 min Background on project 2 min Overview of interview 1 min Topic 1 questions…………. 5 min Topic 2 questions………….

5 min Summary of Major points 2 min Questions from Interview 5 min Closing 1 min General observations Unresolved issues, topics not covered It can be expressed in the SWOT analysis as follows: Strengths: It is quite rich in content and the chance for follow-up and probing is good. The clarification questions can be tackled by both sides leaving no room for further complications.

There is a personal touch in this process. Weaknesses: It is quite time consuming and expensive in nature. Fixing appointments and visiting the clients place is often a problem. Opportunities: The opportunity is the personal touch where the both sides are known to each other and face to face approach is quite essential in relationship building and getting in-depth of the system. In addition to that, personal views are also drawn for better arriving at conclusions. Threats: The cultural differences can prevent one to completely open up in an interview and the very nature of people and their personal differences are often a hindrance to gather requirements. 3.

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