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Are there any conditions for borrowing a videocassette (e.g. being a member)?
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What sort of problems do have when handling the data?
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What sort of problems do you have with the customers (e.g. answering their queries)?
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What sort of details do you need about the videocassettes, to answer the customers’ questions? Are TITLE, PRICE OF RENTAL, STAR and GENRE sufficient? Are they necessary or useless? Is any other information required to meet the customers’ needs?
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What do you do with the details you keep of the videocassettes?
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What information do you need to know about the customers? Are NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE NUMBER, VIDEO ON RENT, DATE DUE and HAS HE PAID? sufficient? Are they necessary or useless? Is any other information required to meet the needs of the business?
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What do you do with the details you keep about the customers?
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What sort of questions do you get asked by the customers (give real scenarios)?
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Interview
How do you carry out a rental transaction?
The customer comes in the shop, looks around and selects a cover of his or her choice. They then show the shopkeeper the cover, who then gives them the videocassette. The customer in turn pays for it and leaves.
What information do you write down when someone rents a video?
The customers’ address and the videocassette they have rented under the heading of the date rented and the date due.
How do you record the necessary data you need of the customers and videocassettes?
Write it down in files.
Are there any conditions for borrowing a videocassette (e.g. being a member)?
Yes. The customer must be a member.
What sort of problems do have when handling the data?
Sometimes, because the data is not organised in a fashionable manner, some of it may get lost or may be difficult to search for.
What sort of problems do you have with the customers (e.g. answering their queries)?
It is easy to answer their questions about a chosen cassette because most of their queries will already be answered by the details on the cover. However, occasionally when searching for a particular videocassette, due to the details being kept in files, it is difficult to locate.
What sort of details do you need about the videocassettes, to answer the customers’ questions? Are TITLE, PRICE OF RENTAL, STAR and GENRE sufficient? Are they necessary or useless? Is any other information required to meet the customers’ needs?
All you need is the title and its price of rental because once it’s located the rest of the information (such as theme, bad language and age rating) is usually on the cover of the videocassette anyway.
What do you do with the details you keep of the videocassettes?
Most of the necessary details, I have memorised. We don’t keep any fixed detail about the videocassettes.
What information do you need to know about the customers? Are NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE NUMBER, VIDEO ON RENT, DATE DUE and HAS HE PAID? sufficient? Are they necessary or useless? Is any other information required to meet the needs of the business?
It is vital that we have information about the members such as their names, addresses and telephone numbers, because they assist us when locating and contacting an individual member (e.g. to give them notices of overdue videocassettes).
What do you do with the details you keep about the customers?
Use them when they are needed, for example contact them regarding an overdue videocassette. The information most of the time, are filed away in paper files.
What sort of questions do you get asked by the customers (give real scenarios)?
A customer may come in and ask any of the following questions:
- Do you have “Terminator 3”?
- Who is the star in “Cliff-hanger” which has the age rating PG?
- Is it possible that you can tell me the theme and the price of rental for “Sinbad and the Seven Seas?”
- Do you have the videocassette “Finding Nemo” with Albert Brooks as the lead character?
- Is “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” available here?
- What is the age rating for “The Hulk”?
User Requirements
To understand what the user requires, I must firstly identify a problem. I have assumed the sort of problems which may occur concerning the aspects I chose before. Now, after having done the interview, I can define the particular problems which I must create a system for.
Problem Identification
- No organised system of managing the data
- Finding a videocassette is time-consuming because the data is kept in files which requires a lot of time to search trough to find a particular videocassette.
- For information concerning whether the customer is a member or not is placed in files but is not used because the shopkeeper tries to remember it-could be inaccurate.
- Information is written down, which may be difficult to recall or remember.
- A customer would not get the information of an overdue videocassette or the notification of any bargains instantly, which may cause the business problems.
My task is to solve all the problems mentioned above.
User requirements
- An organised, user-friendly system, showing the necessary information about the videocassettes, created as a database in Microsoft Access because that is the only software available to me which makes databases.
- A similar system recording information about the customers.
- An easy searching capability to access specific information.
- Creating a mail merge would be necessary – i.e. templates for letters. The letters could be regarding:
- An overdue videocassette
- Any bargains the business is offering
Attributes list
The attributes that I will place as fields in my database tables can be deducted from the interview results; firstly from the attributes selected by the shopkeeper. I can also find the necessary attributes from the scenarios presented by the shopkeeper.
Attributes for the videocassettes
- Title
- Price (rental for one day)
- Theme
- Other information (e.g. bad language)
- Age rating
- Cast
- Quantity
Attributes for the customers
- Name
- Address (Street name and house number)
- Telephone number
Identification of Inputs, Outputs
and Processing
When a customer enters the video store, he or she may have some queries. They approach the shopkeeper and present the problem or the questions they want answered. The questions put forward by the customer are the inputs. In this case the inputs are the scenarios shown in the interview. Each question requires either a single or many fields to be displayed. Also the inputs can have one condition or can be multi-conditional. These are as follows:
- Do you have “Terminator 3”? – title (single condition)
- Who is the star in “Cliff-hanger” which has the age rating PG? – title, cast and age rating (multi – conditional)
- Is it possible that you can tell me the theme and the price of rental for “Sinbad and the Seven Seas?” – theme, price and title (single condition)
- Do you have the videocassette “Finding Nemo” with Albert Brooks as the lead character?
- Is “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” available here? – title and cast (multi – conditional)
- What is the age rating for “The Hulk”? – title (single conditional)
These questions require answers which must be given by the user. The answers that are received by the customers are known as the outputs as they are the results of the data input. However there must be a procedure to get from the inputs to the required outputs and a form in which the outputs are presented to the user so that he/she may verbally or in any other way give the information desired to the customer. The way I shall do this is by using Queries from Microsoft Access, rather than using any other software for various reasons (mentioned in the Design Phase comparing the software with other alternatives). Queries allows the user to input the information gained from the customer or any other source, select the wanted criterion and thus get final results in table form. The steps taken to get from the inputs to the outputs (i.e. using Query) is known as process.
The business, alternatively, occasionally may require some information about their customers. Therefore I shall input some business queries also and get some outputs just as a means of testing the system.
Data Collection Sheet
Videocassette Details:
Customer Details:
Justification for
Softwares Chosen
There are two softwares necessary to complete this task; one to create the letters for notifications to the customers of an overdue videocassette and another to create the organised systems so the user requirements can be fulfilled. I shall show the two chosen softwares and the reasons why I chose them, justifying them using comparisons.
First Software (Microsoft Word)
The first software is going to be used to create the templates of the letters. I chose this software for the following reasons:
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: Word offers great new ways to polish the formatting in your document. You can use the Styles and Formatting task pane to create, view, select, apply, and even clear formatting from text. You can also open the Reveal Formatting task pane to display text formatting attributes.
- Select all text with similar formatting
- Clear formatting from text
- View, create, and apply formatting
You can also check formatting for consistency as you type. Word marks formatting inconsistencies with blue, wavy underlines.
In addition, you can control automatic corrections and pasting without having to click toolbar button or open a dialog box. The AutoCorrect Options and Paste Options buttons appear directly in your document to help you fine-tune these tasks.
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Simplified mail merge: Word takes advantage of the task pane to deliver a brand new way to connect to your data source and create form letters, mailing labels, envelopes, directories, and mass e-mail and fax distributions. The Mail Merge Wizard is easy to use, but still offers rich, advanced functionality. To create a letter is imperative in my task.
Another software which offers similar features, which I have access to is Microsoft Publisher, which was meant to help in creating newsletters, brochures, flyers and Web Sites. I feel Microsoft Word is more useful than this software which also has Mail Merge because the Mail Merge Wizard in Word is easier to use than that in Publisher.
Second Software (Microsoft Access)
Another thing which the user requires is a system providing the information of the customers as well as another one for the videocassette. There is a variety of softwares which could be used for this task. Examples of these are Excel, Lotus, Pinpoint, Approach, Star Office and of course Microsoft Access. I have access only to Excel and Microsoft Access but I have chosen Access because it suits my task, for the following reasons:
- The software is designed to hold data. It is compatible to hold the data needed for this task. However Excel is designed for Mathematical calculations which are not needed for this task.
- Access makes it easy to do complex sorts and searches. You can only do simple sorts and searches in Excel.
- Access can represent the data well, in a logical manner.
- Microsoft Access allows us to place conditions on the data just in case there is any mistake, such as the length of the field.
- Microsoft Access has a comprehensible Wizard which gives certain instructions to aid me along my task. Excel does not have this feature.
Clearly Access is more suitable for this task.
Justification for
Hardwares used
Specification 1 (expensive and sophisticated) and its Advantages and disadvantages
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VDU: a TFT (thin film transistors) monitor – visual display unit
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CPU: Intel Processor Pentium 4 – central processing unit
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Sound sensor (microphone) – entering data into computer
Specification 2 (inexpensive and unsophisticated) and its Advantages and disadvantages
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CRTs – visual display unit
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CPU: Celeron – central processing unit
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Keyboard – entering data into computer
I choose Specification 2 because the company is not very big and doesn’t have much stock or customers so having cheaper and sufficient hardware would be more beneficial.
Evidence for
Collection of Data
Website page (example) from
Catalogue page (example):
Design for
Database
Videocassette database
Original design:
Final design:
I have chosen the latter design over the former one for the following reasons:
- The extra validation rule allows me to assure that I make less mistakes
- The additional default value will allow the implementation to be quicker
- Some of the lengths have been increased just in case future data is larger
Customer database
Original design
Final design:
In my final design for the customers’ details I chose to have presence checks rather than using the “required” condition. This is because I can enter a validation text so I know why I went wrong if I leave that space empty – this is the advantage of using presence check over the “required” condition. In addition the second design has a larger character size for name and street name just in case any future data is larger.
User Interface
Designs
The user interface is basically what the user shall see when using the system. There are three designs for this:
- The table: this displays the data as a whole in a single grid. It is necessary to have this if other things want to be done such as making queries, forms, reports etc.
- Forms: this displays the records in an attractive manner. I have decided to make forms because it may be tiring to look at a table when searching manually through a database. A form is easier and nicer to look at.
- Query: the replies to questions are displayed in a certain form.
The table
My table will look like a simple grid:
The following are sketches of what the actual one would look like (done in Paint).
Videocassettes:
Customers:
Forms
When making a form there is a series of choices given by the form wizard leading to a final design. They are described as follows:
- Layout
- Tabular
- Columnar
- Datasheet
- Justified Do not apply to
- Pivot table
- Pivot chart
- Style:
- Blends
- Blueprint
- Expedition
- Industrial
- International
- Rice paper
- Sandstone
- Standard
- Stone
- Sumi Painting
- Features:
- Record navigation
- Record operations
- Form operations
- Report operations
- Application
- Miscellaneous
I have decided to have the same layout, style and features in both the forms so that the task is kept constant. For the designs I will just show the customer form as an example rather that showing both.
1. Choice of Layout (either tabular, columnar or datasheet):
The following are sketches of what the actual one would look like (done in Paint).
Columnar:
Tabular:
Datasheet:
I have chosen columnar for the following reasons:
- Columnar shows only one record at a time which is easier and nicer to look at
- The other layouts are almost identical to the table so there wouldn’t really be much of a difference if the other layouts were used.
2. Style:
Most of the styles are either plain or have a single colour with varying textures. I do not think this would be suitable because a single colour isn’t very attractive. However the style named “International” is very attractive because it shows the picture of the globe in different colours which I prefer.
3. Features:
There are many features which can be placed besides the form. The table shows the features I wish to place and why:
