Human-Computer Interaction, Automatic Hairdressing Salon System - Essay Example

Human Computer Interaction Product Description. This is a hairdressing salon computer system that will allow both the salons clients and staff to make booking & cancel appointments for their clients and enable them to be billed automatically. It will also enable automatic computation of sales be it daily, weekly monthly yearly. Product’s target audience Salons staffs. Product rationale This new system is very necessary since the previous manual system was very time wasting, most of the bookings could be performed twice since the manual way of doing things was very confusing. There was excess duplication of data and it even led to clients being charged twice for the same job or the salon losing money by giving incorrect invoices to the corporate clients. But with the new system everything is computerized since there is very little human intervention. Automatic Hairdressing Salon System This is an automatic hairdressing salon system that will enable both the in house salons staff compute their daily, weekly and monthly sales. It will also enable the salons staff and the salon clients to make booking appointments, pay their services online, cancel their appointments or even request to now their balances due as some clients especially the corporate clients could access the services on credit and pay later. Advance payments of the services is also acceptable and one can even store the personal credit card details on the main salon core system for automatic payment deductions without necessarily entering the credit card details. The system is to be operated with only one member of staff on shift basis due to security reasons because it will contained confidential client information such as the credit card numbers. Main Impediments towards the new system. However with the introduction of the new system most of the staff are very hesitant towards its introduction, they strongly opposed the system since they believed that their jobs would be taken away and they would be victims of retrenchment, There are also some members of the salons staff who are computer illiterate and are also very worried, because there are rumors going round that they could be on the line to be axed since when the new system is implemented they will no longer be useful to the organization and the best way forward according to their perception was for the organization to do away with them. Proposed solution to the current impediments. The organization with a very solid reputation of being one of the best employers does not want to taint its image both locally and abroad and has decided that the best way forward to these problems is that members of staff who are displaced by the new technology are going be redeployed to other operational and management areas of the salon depending on the qualifications & experience. Secondly an outside computer training computer is to be outsourced, this company will be given the mandate to train members of staff who are completely illiterate or partially illiterate on the field of computers and the same company is also going to thoroughly train the entire member of staff on the operation of the new system. Systems value. A lot of resources have been committed to see the operations of this system come to a reality. Money and time have been spent and it is arguably wiser that the system should posses some value amongst it. The system must posses’ value to the business itself, the people who will be using it and the society at large. Business value. First and foremost the system is very user friendly, easy to use with a very organized interface. The interface layout is very easy to navigate through The envisaged system is set to reduce inefficiencies since everything will be automated, all calculations are going to be automated and stored with an automatic billing and receipt system. With the ability of making a booking efficiently the system is likely to retain clients for the salon and even attract new ones, this will eventually bring more revenue for the business. Wasted man hours will be eliminated since the automated system will handle everything online and there will be no tedious handling & filing of files. Also there will be more space for air to flow freely which is a necessity for most salons since the space which previously had been occupied by the files will be free flowing with fresh air. The salon will deploy all the previous staff who handled the manual system to different areas of operation of the salon, or even retrench the incompetent ones, the salon eventually will save time and become more efficient towards its daily operations. With proper record keeping and procedures the business is set to eliminate corruption …. Some of its staff since all receipts will be automated and there will be a record of each and every transaction in the shared database which only the data-base administrator who is going to keep the password. With corruption being one of the most stumbling blocks amongst many business growths, the salons both short and long term growth will be set to record high. Also the system can accept credit/debit card payments which is less risky and more efficient for the salon. Organization will hire staff for its booking & billing offices, this will overtime save them the living cost and hence reduce pension budget as the number of staff to cater for has been reduced significantly Personal value. With the automation of the salon system, operation of the salon is going to be more efficient since confusions amongst staff will be dealt with since we will now be running an automated & efficient system. There will be no more time wastage lets say in cancellation or booking of an appointment you do not have to go through the normal tedious file perusal process. There is also the likelihood of increased employee motivation since there is increased efficiency in the salon and with the satisfaction of some of the clients there is a tendency of increased tipping from clients to employees which would boost the employees personal morale and let them work & give extra energy to the salon without an extra pay from the organization offers. Society value. With the automation from manual to computerized system, less paper are going to be used which means less felling of trees and more trees in our forest, better rains and hence good harvest and an overall improved food security in our society. We should not just look on the quantity of paper save on a daily basis but we should perceive it on a long term basis e.g. 15-30 years time frame. Human Computer Interaction Principles incorporated into the design and liability of the product. With the proper automation of the salon system there were clear advantages since the system could recognize user diversity:- many users could use the system simultaneously without the system chocking up or giving an error message, it was very consistent with a prompt menu, with clear consistent prompt colors not forgetting its onscreen layout together with the modern graphical user interface,. Apart from the above features it also came with system shortcuts for quick access, a customer feedback prompt, an error protection mechanism with very simple easy to use menus. Rationale on human computer interaction principles. User Diversity This system is multilingual so people with very many languages could operate it, it supports up to five different major languages to be chosen onscreen. It supports English, Spanish, German, French and Danish. With its user friendliness you only need to read and write to operate the system, no need of pre-defined level of education for its operation. Consistency There will be no human intervention in the system whatsoever so the billing will be consistent, the calculation of value added taxes which are usually based on a standard percentage rate will be very accurate. With the built in database client will be allowed even to pre-pay directly to the salon or take credit depending on their personal or organization credit approval, this will make it easier for the system to issue automated balances after a certain period directly to the clients electronic mail boxes. Shortcuts. The system was built with time consciousness in mind due to the status of the people it is meant to serve therefore it come with built in graphical user interface short cuts to ease its operation and make it more user friendly. If a client is on the salon website he would just enter his unique customer identification then click on either show my balance, show my appointment date, or even cancel my appointment. Feedback The salon system has a capacity of giving instant feedback to the salon incase she was dissatisfied or very satisfied with the service rendered since sometimes some things are very hard on expressing them face to face. Error prevention. Because human intervention in the new computerized system has been reduced to minimal the chances of the system making errors have been greatly reduced and all the billing are automatically performed by the system in which all receipts of the transaction will be automatically generated by the salon system. This also brings about accuracy& reliability from the system itself. Easy reversal of action. If for example the system malfunctions which is the core salon system he/she will just need to re-start the computer system and proceed with his work. This eventually recovers all the lost effort and it even leads to renewed hope on the employee and the client as opposed to when everything could be lost. Feeling in control. Both the employees and the clients will be feeling in control while operating the salon core system, since everything is displayed on graphical menus which are very easy to use and they can choose to have all their automated receipts printed or not, print their balances or even the personal statements of how they have been paying for the service in the salon. This boosts both the employees and client’s morale and can even make the client a return customer which means more revenue for the salon. Reduction of short term memory load. With simple menus and navigation implemented entirely on the system the likelihood of guesswork is reduced which would have made the system gets confused and hence too much in its random access memory which could eventually lead the system to overheating or its operating system crashing. Design report. In coming up with the main salon core design we had to come up with designs that mainly focused on user centered principles; the designs themselves had to be co-operative, participatory and contextual which basically means they have to be customer centered or easy to use. The main approaches in coming up with the system design was mainly based on the following criteria: Purpose: This is mainly who is the user, what are his tasks and goals, the level of experience and amount of information one should be able to achieve from the system. Accessible: Users will be in a position to find information easily and the information and all the navigational structures in the entire program are very consistent. Legibility: All information in the system is very easy to read, see and understand with very bold formatting used throughout the system. Language: A variety of languages have been used and to be precise 5 major languages of the world have been used in the entire program. It is now up to the prerogative of the user to choose a language he feels he is proficient in. Audience: the system has considered members of staffs age, gender, education background together with their geographical location by integrating a multilingual technology With all these user centered designs principles we managed to come up with these system which we have also included its screen shots. The following diagram will be using the following conventions in its layout. LIGHT GREEN: It is for the labels. WHITE: These are the text input fields or outputs. GREY: These are the onscreen buttons; they are both touch screen and can be clicked by use of a mouse. SYSTEMS MANUAL. The system is also following some set of procedures to work. 1. After the splash page you need to log on first. 2. After login in you select the type of service you prefer (fig 1.3) 3. Incase you select a hairstyle and needs to be done that particular style you will have to make a payment in which the cost of your preffered hairstyle will appear automatically. As shown in figure 1.5 4. You can also see the sales figure of particular dates( fig 1.6) 5. You can also view balance (fig 1.7 & 1.8) 6. You can also book for the client an appointment 7. You can also cancel a clients appointment. DIAGRAMS MAIN SALON CORE SYSTEM FIG 1.1 FIG 1.2 FIG 1.3 FIG 1.4 FIG 1.5 FIG 1.6 FIG 1.7 FIG 1.8 FIG 1.9 FIG 1.10 APPENDICES. 1.1 This is the welcome screen or rather the splash page prompting the user to select a language to be used entirely the system. 1.2 This is the user I.D logon window , you may enter a staff number or a client number. 1.3 This a window for selecting any desired service, they are listed as Graphical User interfaces 1.4 This is the main window from the system that enables you to select the hairstyle make you preffer. 1.5 This is the main payment window from the system 1.6 This is the payment window interface used for payments. One can select from either of the radio buttons whether to pay by cash, cheque or credit card. 1.7 This is the window for requesting balances. 1.8 This is the window showing a clients balances and you can even print a receipt for this through the print button. 1.9 This is the systems window for booking appointments 1.10 This is the main window for cancelling appointments.; Read More