CS3724, Fall 2000

Due as per class calendar.

Activities

1. Prepare for client/user interviews:

• Find out as much as possible before-hand about your client
• Understand organization's policies and culture
• Know current system and history
• Prepare script of questions for interview - in particular, plan to get the information you will need to answer items 4-10 in the reporting list below
• Obtain permission to observe and/or interview
• Decide what questions to ask

• Document work processes, business process, work flow, what gets done and how, and how it all interrelates. Gather insight into behavior and organizational context.
• Establish rapport with managers and clients
• Observe and/or interview users in workplace
• Collect quantitative and qualitative data
• Collect artifacts (e.g., paper forms) as available
• Follow leads
• Be a detective! Dig out what you need. You will probably  need more than one meeting with your client to do all this.

Inside the binder, create a "tabbed" section labeled "Project 2". Add this section to the front of your team binder. This way, your binder becomes a cumulative record of your whole project, with the most recent parts first. This section should start with its own separate cover page with (mostly the same as on the front of the binder):

• "Project 2: Systems Analysis"
• Team number
• Project name
• Name of client organization
• One-line description of project
• Team member names
• "CS3724 – Fall 2000"

This report documents your system proposal and the systems analysis process and should include the following. Number and label your items per this list:

1. To make this report a stand-alone document, repeat your synopsis or a revised version thereof.
2. Describe the process (not the results yet - those are reported in items 4-10) of preparation and interviewing of your client. You should interview real potential users (and not just CS or ISE students--get out into the client/user community, as appropriate) as part of systems analysis.
3. Include a copy here of the questions you prepared for the interviews.
4. How many client representatives and/or users did you interview in total? Describe how you decided how many you should interview?
5. Describe overall business process, work flow (what gets done and how). In what ways, if any, does the organization of the client business, company, or group impact your approach to requirements and design? This refers to the work flow of the work that the target system is designed to support. It almost certainly includes the work flow for the users.  If you are also considering backend processing for the client's side of the transaction, that end of the work flow (the client's internal process) should be also be included.
6. Describe 3 business objectives, each no more than 50 words (these are not system or usability objectives).
7. Define/describe all (at least three) target user classes (up to two or three sentences per class). As part of each user class definition, give a brief "bottom line" statement, such as "Users are walk-up-and-use users from the general public, with a broad range of computer skills and background" or "These are highly trained and experienced power users". Download the file called User Class Characterization Matrix and include this matrix, filled out for your three user classes, in this part of the report. Identify user classes by their work context roles (e.g., manager, sales clerk - not "frequent user," "new user," etc.).  If you truly do not have three user classes, explain and justify here.

In the user class characterization matrix, "culture" is the overall flavor, philosophy, ambiance and environment of the users' work context.  It's about their thought processes, policies, terminology and the way they do things. The culture of a steel mill floor is all about noise, dust, hot temperatures, safety concerns, and making iron and steel. The culture of a doctor's office is very different. It's about making appointments, being examined, and having health insurance. For the workers, though, it's also about keeping track of appointments and driving the business process with appointments. It's about keeping records of each visit in the patient's folder, etc.
8. Describe 3 usability goals. These need to be things you can set measurable quantitative values for later in usability specifications, as a way of setting criteria to determine if you have met the goals.
9. Draw a hierarchical task analysis diagram, including as many tasks as you can identify, at least 10 and up to a couple of dozen tasks at 2-3 levels for the overall system (from which you will choose a subset to focus on later).
10. From your hierarchical task diagram, select 10 of the most interesting tasks and briefly describe each with a single sentence description. (If there are not 10 reasonable user tasks, the system and your project scope are too small at this stage.) You need to use words to the effect: "The user will be able to . . . " and not "The system should be able to . . ."
11. Describe two constraints, each no more than 50 words.
12. Choose a few (three or four) key user tasks as the subset you will develop in subsequent exercises. You should choose these key tasks based on tasks that are most likely to be performed, that are needed by most user classes, that are most critical to system mission, etc. Each of these tasks should end up involving several screens in the interaction design. When describing tasks, use words that show tasks are things to be done by the user (e.g., Choose editing mode, see/view). When describing system functions, use words that show functions are things to be done by the system (e.g., Get editing mode choice, display).
13. Include any artifacts (e.g., paper forms) you may have gathered from the client

As with Project 1, the product of this stage is a much broader description of the system than you will actually develop in subsequent projects. To get started, we want you to take a broad view of the system and in later stages you will select a few key parts (subset) of the overall system.

Read what you write, because someone else will! Work on writing as a team. This is the time to really get the spirit of this project and nail this assignment!