METHODS OF COLLECTING INFORMATION
JUSTIFICATION OF CHOSEN METHODS
I have chosen to do an interview to collect my information as it is the most appropriate method they can be given in more detail if they can find more time and more depth questions can be asked.
EVIDENCE OF METHODS OF COLLECTING INFORMATION
Interview of Robert James, Shenfield Motors
- What information/data does your company currently use?
Information on stock lists and prices of cars etc.
- How computer literate are you?
Quite, we have a website which displays all the information of our stock and we type up our stock lists every month.
- What does your company do with that data (e.g. sorts/searches/printouts/write letters/create graphs)?
As a reference to carry out searches, graphs and to see what kind of cars are doing best, e.g. printout stock lists.
- Are you and your colleagues familiar with using Access, Excel or word?
I am familiar with using word but not Access, I am not that experienced with using Excel.
- How is your data currently stored and does it have some sort of order e.g. alphabetically?
The data is typed up onto the computer and kept in a filing cabinet, some is edited by hand and it is all kept in date order for how long the cars have been in stock.
- What problems do you have with this current system?
I do not have access to it at all times e.g. whilst moving around I cannot get to the files as I cannot get to the filing cabinet. I sometimes loose files or they are not clear to read.
- What other things would you like to do with the storage method of your data?
On the computer I would like to sort the data by price or type of car – alphabetically. Customers don’t use this system so more complex searches and printouts can be done.
- Would you need a user guide with the new system?
Yes but I may need someone to explain it to me in more detail.
INPUTS, OUPUTS & PROCESSING
Requirement 1- A customer comes into the showroom and wants to buy a ford Mondeo but it must not be red in colour. The owner then has to search the entire filing cabinet to find all the ford Mondeo cars. He then needs to search through these making sure that none of these are red in colour. Having found the cars, which match these criteria, he writes down all the information the customer wants to know about the car e.g. the price.
Input data- Type of car (Mondeo), Colour (red)
Processing- the user looking through the filing cabinet
Output data- a list of the ford Mondeos that aren’t red.
Requirement 3 - My user is away from his office where the filing cabinet is which has all the files in it. He receives a call from someone inquiring about a car on his phone. My user now needs to go all the way back to the office to look through the filing cabinet as he can not take the filing cabinet around with him so this is very time consuming. He then must find all the information about the car needed and tell the customer who wants to know what cars he has to offer them.
Input data- a type of car wanted
Processing- driving all the way back to the office and searching through the filing cabinet.
Output data- the information about the suitable cars needed and then ringing the customer and telling them.
Requirement 4 - My user wants to calculate the different ages of the different types of cars at the end of the month so they can see what ages are the most appealing to customers. This means the user must search through all the different files in the filing cabinet and then put them all in piles of different types of cars and then split these up into ages and create a graph by hand.
Input data- the different ages of cars and their types
Processing- searching through the filing cabinet and then placing these into there separate groups
Output data- a hand drawn graph showing the different ages of different types of car.
SOFTWARE NEEDED
There are three different types of software that I can use; I shall assess each one first.
Types of software:
- Single application- general purpose including a spreadsheet database, a word processor, graphics. When using these you are just opening the features that go with that particular type of software.
- Integrated software e.g. works- it automatically comes with the facility to do word processing, databases and spreadsheets. It is cheaper and preloaded onto many new computers and it is easy to learn how to use.
Its disadvantages are that they only have limited features compared to single application and not many advanced features. When you open up works you open up all of them. It is a larger application with more memory so it can move information from one application to another application. Although if a part of this isn’t working it could affect other parts.
- Suite software e.g. office professional- A suite gives you a database, spreadsheet and a word processor but they are individual so you can load up one at a time. Its advantages are that you can easily move information from one application to another and if one part goes wrong you can still use the other parts.
I have chosen to use a single application because they are simple to use as I use these frequently and they are already loaded at school, it is also easy to transfer documents to my home system and if one application is not working it does not affect the others.
HARDWARE NEEDED
DATA STRUCTURE DESIGNS
The two designs must have at least two differences and these differences must be appropriate. For example changing the number of characters for a ‘name’ field from 25 to 20 would not be appropriate. Whereas, splitting a single name field into a surname and forename field would be.
You may be able to add or remove a field in the second design if you can come up with a suitable reason. See the examples below:
- In the above database structure the ‘year of registration’ may be more suitable than the ‘date of registration’.
- Likewise, the make and model could be split into two separate fields to allow the user to sort based on make
- Or, the sunroof field could be changed to a text field to show none, automatic or manual as this gives more information to the customer
- In a video database you may have included a field called ‘year of release’ and then in the second design you could have removed it as customers do not ask for films based on their year of release.
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An address field can be split up into three fields – street; town; county for example, as you could then search for all people in a certain street or town.
You will need to try and identify changes that can be made to the database structures for your specific problem. REMEMBER THEY MUST BE APPROPRIATE
CHOSEN DESIGN
DESIGN DIFFERENCES
JUSTIFICATION OF CHOSEN DATABASE STRUCTURE
I have chosen to do table 2 because I think that the changes I made to table 1 make the table a lot better. I think that year of registration is better than having date of registration because it is more suitable as the month or date of when the car was registered may not be available to the user. The user also might not want the month details but just the yearly ones. This also means less work for the user overall as if they need the date of the registration then that means researching into the log books whereas the year of registration is easily available as you can tell this by looking at the cars registration letter.
Another reason why I have chosen table 2 is because instead of having make and model in the same field (table 1) it is now separated into two different fields. This now means it makes it more flexible to sort and search on either or both fields.
VALIDATION TEST PLAN
To test a text field you can only try to enter one more character than you stated in the properties unless you have an actual validation rule such as “Married OR Single”.
To test a number or date field you can type text in such as ‘one’ which will generate an error message.
USER INTERFACE DESIGNS
You will also need to create two interface designs for your project and each will contain the all of the fields in your chosen database structure. See the example database structure for the example car database below. Describe the designs including format of fonts, colours and layout.
Design 1
Design 2
You need to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each design and justify your choice of design. You can use the tables shown below and then write a brief justification of your final choice.
Written justification here.
OUTPUT DESIGNS - REPORTS
You will also need to create two report designs for each of your columnar and tabular reports. The different designs will have the fields in a different order or have different fields; you can also change the fonts, font size, formatting, etc. See examples below:
Tabular Designs
Design 1
Design 2
Columnar Designs
Design 1
LESSONS TODAY
Design 2
JUSTIFICATION OF DESIGNS
For each report you create you will need to discuss why you have chosen a tabular/columnar report for this report.
Your justification needs to relate the advantages of the chosen type of form to the query/table it is based upon and what it is to be used for.
For example if you are producing a report of a query that sorts the data as a list of customers for example then you would choose a tabular report as you can see a number of different customers at a time.
Whereas if you were producing a report to show all the fields of each customer then a columnar report would be chosen as it may not be possible to fit all the fields at the top of a tabular report.
Your reasons for choosing one type of report over another must be directly related to your database and your requirements.
Justification of Chosen Design
As with your form designs you must justify the chosen design discussing advantages and disadvantages of each design.
You will then write a short paragraph stating the chosen design and why it was chosen.
OUTPUT DESIGNS – MAIL MERGE LETTER
You will do exactly the same for your mail merge letter as you did for your chosen report designs. i.e. a table showing the advantages and disadvantages of each design and a written justification of the chosen one.
WESTCLIFF HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS 16637
Jenny James 9058 A
