Purpose, Functionality, users & testing Of an information system

FROM Arrangements Document Descriptions of purpose, functions, features and appropriate users of a specific information system. Description of the interaction of information systems with search engines. Understand the process and benefits of Beta testing. Describe the process and benefits of usability testing. Understand that compatibility issues may occur within information systems including: sufficient memory and storage requirements compatibility with the operating system

Description of the general Iterative phases of the development process: analysis, design, implementation, testing, documentation, evaluation, maintenance. Description, identification and benefits of Development methodologies including: rapid application development top-down/step-wise refinement agile methodologies

Information system An information system is a way in which information is collected, processed and managed Businesses have a huge amount of data that they wish to store and use as information Fast access to the information is needed Multi-user access is often needed Previously :- information was collated on paper and stored in filing cabinets only one copy of data hard to sort it into a different order Nowadays information is stored on a computer – in a database, spreadsheet or website

Information system In this higher you looked at two types of information systems: Websites Databases Information systems should allow: Multi-access Fast access to information Information to be sorted by different criteria Information to be presented in different formats Information to be inserted, deleted or amended

What is an information system? Hardware: computer-based information systems use computer hardware, such as processors, monitors, keyboard and printers Software: the programs used to organise, process and analyse data, eg databases Users: different elements of an organisation need to be connected to each other, especially if many different people in the organisation use the same information system Procedures: these describe how specific data is processed and analysed in order to get the answers for which the information system is designed

Description of purpose All information systems will have a detailed description of their purpose Allows prospective users to understand the purpose of the information system and what it will be capable of This could include the following information: What information is to be stored Why the information is to be stored How the information is to be stored How the information will be used Who will be using the information system

Description of purpose Purpose is established at an early point in the development process Clients will often have a clear idea of what they want the information system to achieve, but will require specialist input from Systems Analysts and Designers to firm up the points above A poor decision at this stage makes it very difficult to further adapt the information system or add new features in future There are two types of users of information systems that should be considered: humans and other software

Features and Functions of an Information System E.g. BBC website Features – Navigation bar, weather widget, search bar, text, graphics Function is to inform the public about news, sport, tv programs, weather and to play videos of programs

Interaction of information systems with human users The type of users that are going to use the information system must be considered during development. There are two main questions that should be asked: What is the age range of the target audience? What is the experience level of the target audience i.e. novice or expert?

Human users – target audience A website for pre-school children benefits from:- a graphical design lots of bright colours and images Large buttons or links that are easy to click on (Reading age for older children) A website aimed at teachers will contain:- more text have a more refined design it may be colourful but will be easy to read A website aimed at someone with limited technological experience will contain:- a medium amount of text, broken into screens very obvious navigation features a slightly larger than normal font

Interaction of information systems with human users - experience Users fall into two categories for their experience: - Novice – does not have a lot, or any experience with the type of information system that they are to be using Expert – very familiar with the type of information system being used and will have used them before likely to be familiar with all the common features of an information system

Interaction of information systems with human users - experience A database to be used by novice users would probably include:- a graphical user interface so that users were not overwhelmed by a large table a design that allows them to accurately carry out tasks, while not presenting them with too great a degree of complexity making choices by clicking buttons, using menus and drop down lists may allow them to access an appropriate number of commands without feeling overwhelmed

Interaction of information systems with human users - experience A database for an expert user may include:- a form that allows the user to select what feature they require via a button a front-end to an online database system used by business people would be more text based and more business-like in its outlook, with the emphasis being on functionality and corporate identity rather than fun keyboard shortcuts instead of choosing options from menus or drop-down lists which may slow the user down greater access to more complex features The amount of online help and how to access the online help will be varied depending on the experience level of users

Interaction of information systems with human users –well designed system A well designed system should cater for both novice and expert by offering e.g. :- two interfaces, allowing it to be switched between beginner and advanced mode an interface which can be customized in advanced mode, enabling the expert user to add more features if necessary wizards, allowing novice users to complete expert tasks without the need for the degree of expertise or knowledge gained by an expert user

Interaction of information systems with software Apart from human users other software, such as another Information System, should be able to access and use the Information System Designing and standardising the structure of the data being held allows Information Systems to interact with each other without human intervention

Search Engines A search engine is a program which searches for and identifies websites in a database that correspond to keywords or characters specified by the user It is an information system as it uses a browser- based program which uses a database program to solve a particular problem for a user (ie finding specific information or a specific website) Websites are found by using:- spiders and metadata search engine optimisation

Interaction of information systems with software - Internet search engine Web pages are defined by a standard language called HTML and have a standard structure Internet search engines work by:- automatically creating a database linking key words and phrases to the URLs of individual pages by:- software called 'crawlers' or 'bots‘ scan through the HTML structure (just like a browser would do when rendering the page) and pick out the text, links, images and metadata that make up the page this information is then automatically written into the search engine’s database by the crawler

Interaction of information systems with software - Internet search engine Metadata 'helps' the crawler software by providing an easily identifiable piece of information When you look at the source code for a web page, you will usually see this type of metadata in the <head> area of the document

Interaction of information systems with software - Internet search engine

'Aggregating' comparison sites Websites that search through other sites are very popular Used when e.g. booking a holiday, or insuring a car Pull results from a number of websites E.g.

'Aggregating' comparison sites Possible due to good Information Systems design where huge effort has gone into designing, documenting and sharing the structure of data Booking a flight and hotel to Orlando involves searching a huge number of: airline reservation databases hotel databases Sound financial sense - with no human input your product appears in to many more potential customers than just those visiting your website A small arrangement fee is charged to the airline or hotel when a booking is made through a third party site e.g. Expedia Standardised Information Systems allow Expedia™to search for hire cars too using the original locations and dates you entered

'Aggregating' comparison sites Current trend to make sites as structured as possible ‘Semantic web‘ – “provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries” New markup - being invented all the time It should be possible to determine exactly what each element of a page is from the structure information Will go beyond HTML, which only focuses on page structure (e.g. if you add a price to a standard HTML document, there is no way of denoting that it is a price from any other piece of text) Standards such as RDF(Resource Description Framework) are already being used to ensure the trend towards increased interoperability between information systems continues to develop

User Interface - Usability User interface practical task

testing – Beta Testing Beta testing puts the completed product/app/software into the hands of end users in order to see whether these users will actually use the new product or feature once it has been released while gathering feedback and bugs in the process. The developers will be very familiar with the software so might not think of mistakes or invalid operations that normal users will make. Beta versions of software can be made available to the general public so that the developers can gain as much feedback and it can be tested on many platforms.

testing – Beta Testing Process 1. Goals of the test are set out. i.e. what does the company want to find out through beta testing? 2. Participant Recruitment The ideal candidates are those who match the product's target market and whose opinions won't be swayed by a prior relationship with the company. Most private beta tests include anywhere from 10 to 250 participants. 3. Product Distribution Beta is most effective when a complete package including all appropriate materials (software, hardware, manuals, etc.) are sent to participants. 4. Collecting Feedback Feedback comes in many valuable forms including bug reports, general comments, quotes, suggestions, surveys, and testimonials.

testing – Beta Testing Process 5. Evaluating Feedback While bugs are often the core focus of a beta, other valuable data can also be derived from the test. Marketing and public relations material, customer support data, strategic sales information, and other information can all be collected from an effective beta test. 6. Conclusion Providing feedback to the participants about their issue submissions, updating them on the status of the product, and taking the time to thank and reward ( with a free version of the finished product) them for their effort.

testing – Beta Testing Process Summary Draw a diagram

Benefits of Beta Testing Tests performed by real customers across lots of platforms. Cost savings - many testers will be willing to test a website or piece of software, free of charge

Disadvantage of Beta Testing Some users may not be impressed with the number of errors in a project and may not wish to use the product in the future, so care is needed to ensure users are aware of the beta status and the improvements that are implemented.

testing – Beta Testing Process Questioins Can you think of some questions developers would include in a beta test?

testing – Beta Testing Process Questions

testing – Usability Testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVnBdW 6_rE

testing – Usability Testing Usability testing is a way to see how easy to use a program is by testing it with real users. Users are asked to complete tasks, typically while they are being observed by a researcher, to see where they encounter problems and experience confusion.

testing – Usability Testing

testing – Usability Testing Process 1. Goals of the test are set out. i.e. what does the company want to find out through testing? 2. Participant Recruitment The ideal candidates are those who match the product's target market and whose opinions won't be swayed by a prior relationship with the company. 3. Observation Users are asked to complete tasks, typically while they are being observed by a researcher, to see where they encounter problems and experience confusion. 4. Collecting Feedback 5. Evaluating Feedback 6. Conclusion

testing – Usability Testing

Testing – Compatibility Issues (memory, storage requirements, operating system compatibility) Users now view information systems on a variety of different devices. Make a list of the devices below - These devices are able to display web pages they are still very different and have different features - input devices, a different operating system, a smaller memory, smaller amount of RAM and a slower processor. This means that not all devices can display the same version of a website.

Testing – Compatibility Issues (memory, storage requirements, operating system compatibility) If you have used a smartphone before you may have found that when you try to view a web page you are directed to an app, or the smartphone version of the website. This is because the 'normal' version of the website cannot display on the smartphone. Why might this be the case? You might find that it is necessary to create different versions of the same website that are suitable for different devices. If your website cannot be viewed from a smartphone or a tablet then you are limiting the number of potential users and customers that you will receive.

Testing – Compatibility Issues Compatibility issues Solution Maintaining different versions of the same website would be inefficient. 'responsive web design‘ can be used - This means that one website can be coded in HTML where each element’s size and position can then be controlled by CSS. The platform can be detected by a script on the page and the appropriate style sheet selected. Modern browsers usually support media-type definition in CSS by default.