Found some old University Project Documents the other day, makes me smile about how much time and effort we put into these modules:
5.1 Aims & Objectives
The aims and objectives for the project have been specified in 4.0 – System Proposal, and remain unchanged. i.e. to provide an interactive template to enable the end-users, clients of Limited Employment, to easily create a CD providing general information on their skills, achievements, experience, responsibilities using text, video and photo’s etc. Thus providing a professionally formatted and structured document that the end-user can take with them to job interviews etc. In order to meet the client’s secondary objective of enabling the end-user to become more self reliant the system has been designed to be as uncomplicated as possible.
5.2 Constraints
The constraints for the project have again already been set out in the System Proposal – the two main areas being financial (at this point the client has not secured financial backing) and Technical, e.g. the lack of specific programming expertise within the group, which has meant that some desirable features will not be included at this stage and will be left for future development.
5.3 System Design
The functional requirements for the system have been analysed and mapped and entity relationship, processes and data flow diagrams drawn up in order to give a logical representation of the system to be used as a basis for the design/coding. Functional Requirements The main functional requirements of the Personal Profile Creator is that it allows the end user to:
• Save their personal profile
• Print their personal profile
• Email their personal profile
The main requirement as stated by the client is that the end user can save their personal profile so that it can be copied onto a CDROM to be sent to potential employers. The end user inputs their details in the form on the “Enter Details” page, once the end user submits their form; their details are then displayed on the “View Details” page. From here the end user can save their personal profile as a HTML file. (HTML is the preferred format as it can be viewed from most email programs). Another feature of the personal profile creator is that it allows the end user to add two video files and two images. This page is saved with the end users personal profile. There are links between the two documents that will allow the end user to view their details then view their videos and then go back to viewing their details. In some cases the end user may require to have a hard copy of their personal profile. We have added a print function to the “View Details” page. However, this does not stop the end user from printing when they are still in the entering details process.
With email being one of today’s most popular forms of communication and ways of transferring information quickly, we also added the email function to the “View Details” page. This way the end user can send their personal profile to a potential employer as soon as it has been created.
Form standardisation The system has been designed with a consistent feel to the different screens, with all input forms having the same logo, font, and menu style. In order to maintain an overall user-friendly environment for the customer to work with these standards should be adhered to if any future development work is carried out on the system
5.4 Disk Space Requirements
Every user is advised that they may contain media and picture files that will keep them below the capacity of a standard CDROM (720Mb) therefore the Hard Drive size of the PC / Laptop is something that should be seriously considered. The customer has predicted moderate usage and production of Profiles (1 per week) therefore a years worth of profiles might take up to a maximum disk space of approximately 37 GB. If the application proves more popular than anticipated then the archiving process should be re-reviewed and the data could be archived off the computer on a monthly basis. The size of the data files will have a minimum impact on the performance of the application providing that the system administrator doesn’t allow the hard drive to become greater than 90% full.
5.5 Backup/Archiving
The Requirements Specification did not include any backup or archiving procedures, therefore the solution provided does not incorporate any built-in functionality for either of these activities.
System Backup The operating system that has been chosen for the application to run on, Microsoft Windows XP, does provide a complete solution to backing up and restoring the user created profiles. It is recommended that this wizard is followed and scheduled to run on a daily basis to maintain data integrity. Use of the wizard will ensure human error is not responsible for deleting data or backups as the backup function is fully automated after it is initially setup. (See The System User Guide for information on using this Wizard) The activity of producing a Profile through the application results in the user creating his / her own CDROM of their details with the video and pictures attached. This should be considered a first level of backup. However it is important to adopt both backup and archiving procedures for the profiles that are created on the main computer in order to ensure that users are able to reproduce/amend a previously stored profile without the need to re-input their details or have to recapture potentially valuable video and still images of themselves. It is recommended that a folder containing all users Profiles with attached media is created with each profile. The organisation of data in a logical way like this is crucial in organising an efficient backup schedule.
Profile Archiving If the use of the application is kept to a moderate 1-2 uses per week it is recommended that an archive process is conducted on a monthly basis. There are two options available to the organisation for archiving the profiles, however both incur additional costs.
1. All profiles when produced could be duplicated on another CDROM that is stored externally to the copy on the PC / Laptop.
2. Alternatively an external USB Hard drive could be purchased and utilised on a monthly basis to backup a master directory of all the Profiles.
Disaster Recovery Disaster Recovery process for this application will involve installing the application on an alternative PC and running the Restore function from the Backup utility
5.6 Data Security
The documents produced by the system will contain sensitive personal information about the client’s end-users. Therefore consideration needs to be given to the protection and security of this data. The data may be produced in several different formats, i.e. sent as an email, saved to hard disk, saved to CDROM or printed out as a hard copy. If it is intended that the end-user should save their information to disk the client should ensure that they have adequate protection/restrictions in place to prevent unauthorised access to files stored on hard-disk, with each user having their own personal storage space that other end-users cannot access. An alternative to this would be to only allow the end-user to save their profile direct to a re-writable CDROM. However if this option is used, consideration need to be given to backup implications as CDROM’s can be easily misplaced, resulting in loss of data if there is only the once copy. Furthermore loss of this CD could compromise the integrity of the users personal information. To ensure their end-user’s privacy a secure location should be provided for storage of CDROM’s or paper copies of the documentation. The client should make certain that the end-users of the system are fully aware of and understand the implications of sending their personal information via email before allowing them access to this functionality.
5.7 Testing
The project team was unable to undertake testing of the system with the actual intended end-users. Therefore Limited end-user testing has been carried out using volunteers from different age/sex and social backgrounds in order to get an overview of user reaction and a reasonable idea of any problems with the system. An evaluation questionnaire was drawn up to assist with this, see appendix H. These results have been analysed – (see appendix Ifor results spreadsheet) and conclusions/recommendations for future development drawn up. The completed questionnaires are included as appendix J The overall conclusion drawn from the testing is that the application does meet the objective of providing the end-user with an easy to use template to create and save their personal profile, which can be written to CDROM. All functionality set out in the system proposal has been incorporated and works well, however there are a number of additional features that may be included in any future development. These results show that most people (77%) liked overall appearance of the application and users that took part in the survey found it easy to use. The email and print functionality was well received, as was the additional feature of being able to include video and still images. However a small problem was highlighted with the video in that both videos start to play as soon as the link is clicked, rather than waiting for the user to manually start them when ready to view them. This will be corrected in future development. The function to allow the user to change the background colour to suit their personal preference was only thought to be a useful feature by 1/3 of testers, however as it was specifically requested by the intended users during the analysis phase, this feature will be kept. From the user testing came the suggestion that it might instead be more useful to include a “font size changer”. Again this will be put down for future development, with the users currently able to change the font size from within Internet Explorer this is not considered to be a high priority at this time. Comment was made on the format of the “number of hours to work” box, with some testers finding it confusing with the –6 for less than 6 hours and 16- for over sixteen hours. This will be amended before the final version is handed over to the client. Also there is no input mask to prompt the user to input the correct date format in the “ date of birth” field. Whilst over 80% of testers stated that they could put in all or most of the information that they wanted to, many requested that a free form text box should be included to allow input of additional information. Some felt that the options provided were too limiting and leant too far towards academic qualifications, not taking account of life skills such as being good at cooking or gardening, etc. A free form text box would go some way towards addressing this issue, therefore it is recommended that this should be an addition to be included in any future development. The final point that came out of the user testing was dynamic storing/retrieval of profiles – no save button is included in the application, with users instead having to use the standard save functionality of Internet Explorer. Once again it is recommended that this is put down for future development.
5.8 System Delivery
A presentation will be made to the client on Monday 19th May, giving details of hardware specification and costing, etc. Following this the system will be demonstrated, with the evening finishing off with a question and answer session. Two copies of the system, saved onto CDROM will then be handed over to the client for installation onto their system once funding has been secured and the hardware purchased.
5.9 Training
A training/user manual will be included on the CDROM and a hard copy incorporated into the handover package. There are no plans at this time for the project team to carry out any end-user training. This will be the responsibility of the client.
5.10 Future Development
Recommendations for future development fall into two categories. “Nice to have” features that were put down for future development in the original system proposal and updates/bug fixes that were highlighted as a result of user testing. There was one main feature that was not included in the original specification, but was stated as a being desirable by the client, this being the option of using the application via voice recognition software. This was outside the scope of this project and put down for future development as an entirely separate venture. Integrated backup/archiving of profiles has not been included with the system. If the client deems this necessary, then once again it is recommended that this should be the subject of a new undertaking.
Another feature that was mentioned early on by the client and has not been included in the application is for the user to be able to attach a sound file, where they can talk about themselves and their achievements, rather than just having the text of their profile. The value of such a feature would have to be analysed by the client and if it was deemed a useful feature an upgrade to the system could be commissioned at a later date. As stated above, user testing highlighted 3 areas for possible enhancement to be included in any future development. These being:
• Font size changer, similar to the current background colour option box
• Inclusion of free form text box
• Dynamic save/retrieval of profiles
There were 2 small problems that came to light as a result of user testing that will be corrected by future development, as they do not cause issues with the correct use of the system at this time.
• Video’s start to play as soon as the link is clicked – future development should change this to allow the viewer to start the videos themselves when they are ready to see them.
• Input mask for “date of birth” field to ensure correct date format.
Outline Solution
The Personal Profile Creator that is proposed to meet the needs of the project proposal will be a linked set of HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) pages that feature the object orientated JavaScript programming language. JavaScript was embedded within the HTML pages as it was the most efficient way to achieve navigation between pages and the processing of the data captured to produce the final data display screen that also features links to either mail, print or email the profile that has just been created.
Hardware / Software
The software will require a JavaScript enabled browser (Netscape Navigator version 2 and above or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2 or above) and will also require Microsoft Outlook to be the default mail client on the machine. In addition to the prerequisites above the Laptop requirements, which is proposed to run this HTML application, are stated below
Laptop
Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processors-M 1.2Ghz
56 Kbps V.92 modem
15” TFT display
NVIDA® GeForceTM 4 4200 Go 4X AGP with 32MB
Mouse kidi-tracks (with switches)
256MB RAM
2 USB ports
CD-RW Drive
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
30GB EIDE ATA-100 Hard Drive
Microsoft Office
Internet Explorer 6
Digital Camera Canon Digital Ixus 400
4 Mega Pixel Camera with video capture capability
256MB Compact Flash type 1 Memory Card
User view (Human Computer Interface)
The users primary view of the interface will be of standard browser based HTML pages. Familiarity with Browsers will be advantageous but far from essential as the interface offers navigation and help buttons throughout. There have been considerations paid to the colour scheme of the interface which is user customisable from within the application by the easy use of drop down menu lists. The client has requested that the interface remains unbranded
Prototype view
Development / Capital and Running Costs
Hardware Budget £3,000
Resource Budget £20,000 (400hrs @ £35 + 200hrs @£30)
Overtime Budget Nil
Prototype Development
Analysis and Prototyping projected spend
Project Team cost £5940 (3 people * 10hours * 6weeks * £33 per hour)
Capital
Laptop £1400
Mouse £99
Camera £400
Installation £50 (probably completed in house)
Project Team cost £11880 (3 people * 12hours * 10weeks * £33 per hour)
Post installation Video Training £100
Post installation Application Training £100
Total Costs Capital + Prototyping £19969
Yearly Running Costs
Internet ISP monthly charge £180
Printer Consumables £240
Media Consumables £30
Training £300
Bug fixing £600 (based on 2 bugs per year)
Development £2000 (based on 1 minor software release per year)
Total Yearly running costs £3350
Benefits
Use of this application has many benefits including
• Standardization of Profiles
• Clarity and Accuracy of information (using drop down lists and combo boxes)
• The efficient distribution of the individuals profile (email / cdrom)
• Rewarding the client with their personalised CD-ROM that can be taken directly to potential
employers
• No further licensing requirement to run the software (compared with a Visual Basic / Access solution)
• Software totally portable (stored as HTML)
Assumptions
JavaScript enabled Internet browser
Defaulted mail client Microsoft Outlook
Video Clips maximum of 3 minutes in duration
No more than 2 video and 2 pictures per profile
Combined media size not to exceed 700MB
CDROM Media having a capacity of 740MB
Active Internet connection
Printer connection to Laptop
Video and Picture clips using standardized titles (mov1.avi, pic1.jpg etc)
Skills / Resources required (client and users)
The users of this interface will initially be supervised by Leaders but the interface has been build for anyone to use and as it has extensive help and simple instructions it should be possible for an untrained user to input details into the data capture part of the interface. Therefore basic keyboard skills are required for clients to use the interface efficiently. There is a special requirement for user to control the interface with a specially adapted mouse, known as a kidi-track mouse. This will enable users with impaired motor skills to operate and navigate the Personal Profile Creator. We envisage the physical act of burning (creating) a CDROM from the file produced will be carried out by a leader with previous computer experience. Instructions in how to burn a CD-ROM from within the Operating system (Windows XP) will be provided.
Business Implications
The organisation should ensure that there are people with adequate skills and experience to operation and train people in the correct use of the interface. Media should be available for clients to utilize. The Digital Camera will capture the video and picture media and be transferred to pre-defined positions and names on the clients disk.
Factors Critical to Success
• Utilizing the interface correctly and efficiently
• Bug fixing and development enhancement potential (JPG consultants or further HND BIT courses)
• Ease of use
• Willingness of clients to attempt new skills
• Finance for the project to be secured
• Correct capture of video and picture formats
Success Measurement
Due to the nature of the application the main measurement of success will come from the organisation’s leaders in them providing feedback on its suitability. This can only be correctly assessed once the application is used in real life after allowing for a few initial training and development enhancements to be made. If the Application was eventually to be put online for general use then a hit-counter would be suitable to record the actual usage.
Alternative Solutions – James Brabyn
The ability for the organisation’s clients to produce a personal profile for prospective employers has been enhanced by the production of the Personal Profile Creator. There are other ways to product a Personal Profile but each have a downside that outweighs the advantages to that method.
Profile created with Word Processor
Advantages
Relatively inexpensive
Quick development (time to market)
Short Return on Investment (ROI)
No License required (if using Wordpad / Notepad)
Disadvantages
Unstructured results
No Templates or Data Input / Validation by default
No Interaction or Content on request
Profile created with Power Point
Advantages
Potential Colourful / Impressive results
Shorter Return on Investment (ROI)
Quicker development of application
Skills already within organisation
Disadvantages
No potential to include links to media clips of the person
Software license required
Individual Effort required on every profile production
Profiles produced by Visual Basic / Access applications
Advantages
Developers have knowledge of Applications
Quicker development of application
Shorter Return on Investment (ROI)
Disadvantages
Software license required
Application required to be installed on 3rd party computers
User friendliness is difficult to achieve and maintain through development
Personal Profile Generator
System Specification stage 3 – James Brabyn
9, Backup and Recovery
The activity of producing a Profile through the tool we have created results in the user creating his/ her own CDROM of their details with the video and pictures attached. This should be considered a first level of backup but it is important for the main computer where the profile are created to adopt backup and archiving procedures for the profiles that are created on it. This will enable any user that has previously used the application to produce a personal profile to get it reproduced without the need to re-input their details and re-capture potentially valuable video and pictures of themselves. It is recommended that a folder containing all users Profiles with attached media is created with each profile. The organisation of data in a logical way like this is crucial in organising an efficient backup schedule. The Microsoft Windows XP Backup utility wizard provides a complete solution to backing up and restoring the user created profiles. It is recommended that this wizard is followed then scheduled to run on a daily basis to ensure that the data is kept secure. This will ensure that human error isn’t responsible for deleting data or the backups as the backup function is fully automated after it is initially setup. Appendix A shows in a step by step task list how to back up files to file or tape and also how to schedule that process to run on a daily basis. If the use and creation of the application is kept to a moderate 1-2 uses per week it is proposed that an archive process is conducted on a monthly basis. As the requirements specification didn’t contain any backup requirements there are currently no ‘free’ effective measures available to this application to archive the profiles.
There are two options available to the organisation for archiving the profiles, but both incur costs. All profiles when produced could be duplicated on another CDROM that is stored externally to the copy on the PC / Laptop. Alternatively an external USB Hard drive could be purchased and utilised on a monthly basis to backup a master directory of all the Profiles. Disaster Recovery process for this application will involve installing the application on an alternative PC and running the Restore function from the Backup utility (see Appendix A for instructions on how to start the restore function)
10, Database Sizing
Every user is advised that they may contain media and picture files that will keep them below the capacity of a standard CDROM (720Mb) therefore the Hard Drive size of the PC / Laptop is something that should be seriously considered. The user has predicted moderate usage and production of Profiles (1 per week) therefore a years worth of profiles might take up to a maximum disk space of approximately 37 GB. If the application proves more popular that anticipated then the archiving process mentioned in section 9 should be re-reviewed and the data could be archived off the computer on a monthly basis. The size of the data files will have a minimum impact on the performance of the application providing that the system administrator doesn’t allow the hard drive to become greater than 90% full.
Help Info – Burning CDs for Win XP
Windows XP does not have a CD burning interface, but it has CD burning artfully integrated into the operating system Open the folder where your saved PPC files are. Look at the folder options on the left of your screen. You should see an option to Copy All Items to CD or Copy to CD, depending on your folder view. You can also right-click a file or folder and choose Send To and then CD drive. It does not copy the files immediately. Instead, it places them into a repository and waits for further instruction on when and where to burn the CD. Now, place a blank CD into your CD drive or navigate to your CD drive in My Computer, and choose to write the files to a CD.
Post Implementation Review – Personal Profile Creator
Introduction
The Personal Profile Creator that is proposed to meet the needs of the project proposal will be a linked set of HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) pages that feature the object orientated JavaScript programming language. JavaScript has been embedded within the HTML pages, as it was the most efficient way to achieve navigation between pages and the processing of the data captured to produce the final data display screen that also features links to either mail, print or email the profile that was created.
Group Work
Most IT Projects involve multiple resources (personnel) that are diversified in terms of ability, experience and location. Indeed my most recent project for my employer (Insurance Company) involved utilising the skills and knowledge of a contractor; a home disabled worker, a trainee Business Analyst as well as senior and junior developers. This mix of people is normal in modern IT projects and enables the collective strengths of individuals to provide the project with effective individuals that are able to achieve the project’s goal The combining of talents and abilities allows opinions to be expressed that may be non-conventional but may give rise to ideas and solutions that wouldn’t have naturally emerged. The more effective Projects have team that can communicate effectively, typically a project team will, once given the project specification on an initial project inception meeting, be able to communicate regardless of the geographical limitations of the team. Ideally, a company will operate a hot-desk policy whereby a newly formed project team can work together for the duration of the project; if this is not possible or desired then the team can communicate via email and telephone (mobile and landline) on a daily basis. A weekly team meeting should always be organised and attended by all team members to enable the project manager to update all individuals, to ensure that milestones are being met and that the project will be delivered on time and on budget, which is the two pre-requisites to every project that I have worked on. The team members should provide the PM with a weekly update and timesheet of their activities so that the PM can ensure his ‘ship’ doesn’t begin to steer of course. All team members should be made aware of the importance of their roles and their part in the team structure for the project which will ensure that they adhere to their company standards of attendance and work ethos providing the Project Manager with an effective tool in his armoury to achieve the project’s goal. When individuals are introduced to their team members and fully explained everyone’s status and roles for a project they are naturally included to put additional pressures on themselves as they do not want to be the weak link or the one that lets the team down. This team-working ethos has been tried and proven in IT and not IT teams.
Scale of Project
As this module was the first in the series of modules that involved working as a team within the HND there were obviously going to be difficulties to be faced and overcome. This is undoubtedly a good test for potential candidates for employment within a Modern IT department. In our particular team we were initially left at a disadvantage as the team was comprised of only 3 people other that the recommended 4 or 5 students. This setback was anticipated and overcome by allocating extra roles to the 3 students. The roles were, probably, distributed correctly (most effectively) but it would have been interesting to replay the module with different roles. This would give us a better understanding of the responsibilities and work load that each person faced. One problem during the development of the product was found to form the remainder of the project’s work and deliverables. The developer was unable to produce a working interface that allowed input and produced a further formatted output, it was decided to allow another of the roles to become a ‘part-time’ developer but as the development became more technical, the system analyst practically became the developer as well.
Benefits of Solution Chosen
Use of this application has many benefits including
• Standardization of Profiles
• Clarity and Accuracy of information (using drop down lists and combo boxes)
• The efficient distribution of the individuals profile (Email /CDROM)
• Rewarding the client with their personalised CD-ROM that can be taken directly to potential employers
• No further licensing requirement to run the software (compared with a Visual Basic / Access solution)
• Software totally portable (stored as HTML)
• Updates can be deployed simply and easily
• Knowledge of HMTL / JavaScript is common allowing other developers the ability to update the source
Relevance of Module
The only aspect of this module that I regret or thing is possibly not relevant to the additional modules in this course of study is the languages chosen for the development of the application. The languages of HTML / JavaScript were not one studied or one that any team member had any experience with until they undertook a period of self-study to enable them to produce a satisfactory application. It would have been far favourable to have already gained the language skills within the HND so that this project module could have been attacked in a more organised and effective way. Projects are the mainstay of many developments I have and currently am involved with, as such this module is extremely relevant to anyone that is proposing to become a member of an IT department.
