System Analysis: The Creation of a Website for African National Parks - Case Study Example

SYSTEM ANALYSIS PROJECT Section one: overview and background of the project System analysisis the evaluation of a system by breaking down its components to study the interactions of different components integrated to achieve a common goal (Shelly, 2012, p.16). In other words, it involves analyzing a system in order to realize the objectives and purpose of the system, and putting in place systems and procedures that allow the system to work efficiently. This project is a case study involving the creation of a website for African National parks. It entails collecting information to create a website by employing requirements gathering methods and formal notations. The requirement methods and notations break down the system into sub-systems that make up a fully functional website. People who generate traffic in such websites include; scientists, students, tourists, and volunteers. African national parks situated in vast regions of Africa provide destinations for tourists, students, volunteers, and scientists for collecting information, recreational purposes, and getting away from their usual environments. African national parks have a wide range of ethnic, natural resources, climatic conditions, plants, and animals that people come to see. Such individuals browse the internet first to make arrangements and view the number of products and services on offer before paying the visit. Without the internet and websites, tourism, resorts to the traditional print media and application to work effectively. This project looks at the analysis of the tourists and synthesizes information collected to describe how a fully functional and efficient African National park’s website operates. Web design involves shaping the information system, improving the performance of the system and achieving the intended purpose of a website to maintain profitability and growth. The emphasis of the system is on action, the working of sub-systems, and the interactions of different sub-systems to achieve a common goal. The evaluation of a structure helps to determine how effectively it functions to improve the quality of output of the system (Shelly, 2012, p.16). Websites are complex systems that comprise of related sub-systems. Modifying a system in one region may result to numerous consequences in a different region of the website. The systems’ approval provides a structure for organizing the environmental factors that influence the website. Requirements gathering methods Section 2: Card-sorting technique The card-sorting module is a technique involving collection of information based on user experience. It provides the basis for information architecture in a website. This module requires the creation of taxonomic groups for the website and reducing them to index cards. The types of index cards determine the categories to structure the WebPages. A national park’s website offers a wide range of services and products; therefore, the navigation structure should give a wide range of contents and functions. The navigation provides the system with what it needs to guide a user to their interests. The designer should have in mind the target audience before creating taxonomic groups. Four taxonomic groups exist in this website including; the scientists and students, tourists, volunteers, and general travel information. The taxonomic groups come from the audience that intends to use the website. The categories, therefore, comprise of information for travelers, for example; tourists, scientific information for students and scientists, general information for travelers such as costs incurred, and information for volunteers. This provides the basis for structuring the information into categories in the WebPages and enhancing navigational functionalities (Satzinger, 2012, p.6). This project case study employed closed card sorting because there were no real online subjects to conduct the interview with at the time. Due to this fact, there are four navigations for categorizing the homepage national parks into scientists and students, information for volunteers, information for tourists and general information for all travelers. The closed card-sorting module involved preparation of cards by listing the topics and then putting them into logical groups. A qualitative analysis of the data helps determine which cards appear together (Satzinger, 2012, p.6). The closed-card sorting system involved organizing the index cards into rational groups and finding an appropriate name for each created. The system, therefore, generates patterns by anticipating the needs of the prospective web users. The advantages of the module in web design and analysis are that, it provides a means of finding out whether a set of category names gives an effective way to classify information and a way of evaluating the mechanism by finding patterns that help make structures that aid to create the navigation system of the pages (Perks, 2003, p.32). This technique enables the web designer to understand the expectations of the user and put them into topics. It helps build the structure of the website by labeling categories and navigations. It also assists in determining what information to put on the homepage of the website. The diagram below represents the main taxonomic groups developed by card sorting: Diagram for card sorting technique Figure 1. Card sorting technique (Spencer, 2009, p.7) Rosenfeld media 2009 cited in Spencer, 2009, p.7 Section 3: User/audience analysis module The user refers to the target group of the website and is the audience. This unit involves assessing the users to find out whether the information provided is appropriate to meet their demands. To create such a website, the web designer must understand their audience by differentiating between their needs, and wants. This information determines how users will receive the site. The more a developer knows the more effective the website is at meeting its objectives (Wang, 2012, p.67). The user/audience analysis unit involved determining the users of the website. The users include; tourists, students, scientists, and volunteers. The developer then decides on the manner to conduct the analysis that helps build the user group profiles. The information about the users comprise of details such as demographics, job responsibilities, frequency of user, environment, software, computer experience, web application experience and task knowledge (Wang, 2012, p.67). The method of conducting audience analysis depends on the audience, the amount of information required, and the resources available. This study focuses on creating an analytical tool. The analytical tool is the means for collecting information. The module selected insures the details are appropriate. The analytical tools were interview questions issued to friends and neighbors; the interview questions help indicate the users’ attitudes towards the internet resource (Reykjavik, 2010, p.23). The questions included, the number of times they visit the website, their jobs, the basic information regarding themselves like age, names, purpose they ascribe to visiting national parks, knowledge of computers, the means with which they opt to maneuver around the website, and their technical knowledge of computer applications. A test sample, consisting of twenty people, from whom ten were men and the remaining others women, indicated information that was crucial to web design. The test samples came from different environments to give the results acquired variability. The test samples had different degrees of education and consisted of people from the school environment such as students, parents, and neighbors. However, to get more accurate results, a large test sample would be required. Most people who visit websites for African national parks earn a decent amount of salary (averagely 1000 dollars per month). Their ages range from 20 years old for students and more than 65 for adults. The test sample consists of people who are comfortable with computer use; therefore, they have a rudimentary understanding of the internet and computer applications. To gauge their technical knowledge of the computers, the analyst asked whether they pursued courses in computer packages. Based on their answers, it was evident that the individuals past the age of 65 had limited understanding of the internet and computers; however, those who completed college education were familiar with basic computer applications. The question regarding the user-friendliness of national parks’ websites indicated that as long there is logical arrangement of the information of a website, the users would have no problem navigating the system. The test samples insisted on a logical arrangement of the website. The information acquired helped build the profile of the visitors for the website. There were four taxonomic profiles to group the clients, including; the general traveler, the tourist, the scientist or student and the volunteer. The general traveler seeks general travel information. This section of the website provides information for the convenience of the traveler such as costs incurred and accommodation. The scientist or student section provides information regarding species of animals and plants, the size of the parks, topography, historical data, geological information, and the longitude and latitude of the parks. The volunteer section provides information regarding the opportunities available for voluntary services, the benefits they are entitled, availability of opportunities and the dates that such opportunities become available (Reykjavik, 2010, p.23). The table below tabulates the information acquired: Table for user/audience analysis Young males (more than 20 years old) Young females (more than 20 years old) Older males (more than 50 years old) Older females (more than 50 years old) age 1000-2000$ 1000-1200$ 1000-1500$ 1000 – 1500 $ salary High High Average Average literacy Computer literacy High High Average average Ease of internet use Study/leisure/volunteer Study/volunteer/leisure Leisure leisure Purpose of visit Figure 2. User/audience analysis (Brink, 2002, p.101) Morgan Kaufmann 2002 cited in Brinck, 2002, p.101 Section 4: Hierarchical task analysis module This section describes what duties the users of a website execute to achieve their objectives. This involves the breakdown of high-level tasks into a hierarchical model of sub-tasks. The designer of the website created a detailed evaluation of the manual and mental events involved in completing a task, the frequency of the task, the allocation and difficulty involved in the task, the environmental conditions that affect the task, and other distinct factors involved. This unit is important in designing the system and the information acquired from user/audience analysis plays an important role in its structure (Shelly, 2010, p.33). The system entails breaking down tasks into high-level actions and low-level actions. The system designer recognized the multiple levels of tasks to create a system that works efficiently. The module gives a deep and broad understanding of the performance of a task. In this project, it enabled the developer evaluate the functions of parts of the website along with how these parts coordinate to make up the user experience. The model is a structured objective approach in describing tasks involved in carrying out multiple errands. The hierarchical system analysis begins with the human factors (Shelly, 2010, p.33). In its basic state, it provides the basis for understanding the tasks user’s need to perform to obtain their aim. To understand the user tasks, the programmer must know the primary objectives of the user, write down the steps users perform to achieve these objectives, and optimize the procedures involved accordingly. While conducting user experience analysis, the hierarchical task analysis provides crucial information relating to the interaction of the user with the web interface. It shows many ways of completing a given task. Once a programmer creates a hierarchical task analysis, it serves as a means of system documentation for future use, and helps them in knowing how the users interact with the website (Shelly, 2010, p.33). Figure 1 shows a high-level task analysis for achieving the task of booking a tourist destination site. Diagram for Hierarchical task analysis Figure 3. Systems analysis and design (Shelly, 2010, p.21) In this analysis, there is a breakdown of the main task into sub-tasks. This breakdown shows the connection between the parent tasks by incorporating a numbering system. This is a simple task analysis that does not show the relationship between the system and the user. It only provides the developer with a clear understanding of the high-level steps required in booking a tourist destination site. A relatively complete task analysis would include the user interactions, while completing different task. For example, to illustrate the task for completing the address, the task analysis would include many other fields. These fields include; locating the full name field, moving the cursor to the insertion point and typing the full name. Secondly, there would be location of the address line field, moving the cursor to the insertion point and typing the address. The developer repeats the procedure to cover the fields for county, country, town, or city, and address until they have all the details (Noyes, 1996, p.35). The system enables one to differentiate the techniques of manipulating similar tasks. It is beneficial in reducing the number of tasks to help the user perform many tasks rapidly. The system creates an effective design because; it helps in understanding how the system works, and the stages involved in performing a given task (Noyes, 1996, p.35). Section 5: Information architecture module Information architecture is a system of designing information into structural models based on the data collected. It provides the means of labeling the index cards of the website to make the website usable and information on it findable. This module requires knowledge acquired in hierarchical task analysis to collect information about its clients. A web programmer employs this technique when the activities they need to exhibit complex information systems (Herr, 1974, p.12). This system is particularly important while creating the section for scientists and students. Scientists and students often require information about African national parks. Such bits of information may include; the species of animals in a national park, the longitude, and latitude of a park, the topography, geological structure and the variability of animal and plant life in the national park. The information provided by this module helps build a database or a library system on its WebPages. This part focuses on classifying, arranging, and labeling content in an efficient and organized manner. The main agenda is to enable the web users to locate information easily and accomplish their tasks. To achieve this, the programmer understands how the parts of the system work together to make up the coordination. The purpose of the system is to enable the web user to easily identify their location in a website. It provides the user with information concerning where they are within a website, and what to expect during website perusal. Information architecture is the basis for creating the content by using appropriate words and creating a user interface that works with an interaction design that helps in wire framing and modeling (Herr, 1974, p.12). To accomplish the task, the analyst requires an understanding of the standards of the tourism industry, which include; making, storing, accessing, and representing information. First, the main gears of conducting information architecture comprise of organized schemes and structures. This refers to ways employed to group and structure information. Secondly, it involves labeling the system and its components, and thirdly, it specifies how the users search for information in the system. To achieve the task, the programmer is required to understand the interaction of users by the content they search, the context in which they search information, and the nature of the users (Dennis, 2009, p.45). The context refers to the objectives of the user, their culture, knowledge, resources, and restraints. The content refers to the data types, volumes of information they might require, the government, the objectives for looking for the information, and ownership of the data. The users refer to the type of audience expected, the tasks they hope to accomplish, their experiences while looking for information, and the general information seeking tendencies of the web users (Dennis, 2009, p.45). System analysts know these three factors as ecological information, which help them organize and categorize information. The diagram below represents the information ecology: Diagram for information ecology Figure 4. Information ecologies: using technology with heart (Nardi,1999, p.23) MIT press 2013 cited in Nardi, 1999, p.23 While designing an African national park’s website, it is essential to consider finding the long-term and short-term objectives of the website by establishing why people would visit the website. A requirement analysis of the audience helps to give the website a simple structure. The requirement analysis groups the users into four categories, including; the general traveler, the tourist, the scientists and student and the volunteer. These four groups require different information. The system, therefore, needs content designed to its specifics; the programmer develops an inventory for this information. After creating an inventory, the designer develops an organizational structure that could be hierarchical, sequential, tag-based, broad, or shallow structure. The system adopted for the proposed website is sequential and this makes the information appear in independent clusters. The clusters appear on the home screen, displaying the four taxonomical groups developed, and when clicked, grants the web user access to the information they desire (Dennis, 2009, p.45). The developer then creates the outline of the website by including the content inventory. The content inventory gives a sequential view of the content of the website in a spreadsheet format. It indicates, in summary, the kind of information to find in a website and specifies where the information emerges in global and local navigation systems. The outline includes the site maps. Site maps are visual aids that help the user to locate site navigation and areas that have the most important contents. The site maps, incorporated into the proposed website, are flow chart diagrams that show the user how to navigate from one web page to another, and the relationship between different web pages and their contents. The web designer then creates a visual model of the website that incorporates wireframes, which are sketches that show content, and the model of the web site. The wireframe shows how users interact with the website interface. They indicate where information is highly prioritized, especially in regions that have competition of information. It helps the web manager to place appropriate information in the required places. Lastly, the web designer identifies the navigation systems to incorporate into the site. Global navigation is the main system of navigating through a web site. In this system, links emerge from the screen located either at the top or on the side of the site. Local navigation provides the system with textual links in the content of the site as a sub-menu. The local menu for the proposed website is on the left of the homepage. The utility links emerge from the header or the footer of the webpage. The utility links are links that are used on rare occasions such as contact us, about us, customer support, privacy policy, terms of use, site map, sitemap, and pressroom. Once the web designer establishes a navigation system, they conduct a usability research. The findings of the card-sorting module are applicable in this area (Wang, 2012, p.67). The web manager uses the four taxonomic groups, including; the tourist, the scientist or student, the volunteer and the general traveler to provide the tools for implementing the web site. Notations used to implement the system The notations used to represent the process of project development included; personas, case studies, case description, and case descriptions to display the information accurately. Section 6: Personas The persona is a user-oriented system for representing the process of the project. It involves creating characters that represent the types of prospective users who would visit the website. The web designer uses qualitative personas along with the information collected by the requirement-gathering modules to divide the website into segments. The personas help in the decision-making process of determining the objectives, intentions, and limitations of the web users by including the interface and the visual design of the website (Wang, 2012, p.67). The persona is a model representation of the typical performance of a theoretical group of users. The programmer synthesizes the personas developed from the four taxonomic groups from the information gathering techniques into the website interface. The use of personas in web design incorporates behavioral patterns, objectives, and environment from which prospective users operate. Each persona is then ascribed certain theoretical personal attributes to make them relatively practical. The personas assume social and demographic characteristics according to their desires, wants, needs, habits, and cultural backgrounds (Wang, 2012, p.67). Creating personas involves finding out the role of the website, the title of the website, the kind of skills and tools required to create the website, and the responsibility of the website. Other factors include; the biggest challenges for the website, how the website conquers these challenges, the kind of industry the website provides information for, and the kind of associations the website belongs (Wang, 2012, p.67). The personal attributes include; age, and family. That is, whether the user is single, married, or has children. The user preference questions include how the users interact with the website, that is, whether they use emails or phones, and how they prefer to search for information, whether by use of search engines or after recommendations from friends and relatives. The analyst created forms to research the personas. The form fields created captured the important aspects of the persona such as the age and the social media they prefer to use. The analyst then contacted the personas via phone. For effective analysis of the data acquired, the designer tabulated the information and evaluated them for emerging trends (Wang, 2012, p.67). The practical aspects of using personas require interviewing individuals who work within an online platform; however, in this case, the individuals were real-life people from the surrounding school. This was because; it was difficult to find a website for conducting research in such a manner. Diagram representing personas The tourist Aged between 20-55 years old Salary between 1000$-2000$ Visits African national parks during winter Visits to enjoy the climate The volunteer Aged between 25- 45 years old Salary between 1500-2000 $ Visits African national parks to volunteer Visits thrice a year The student/scientist Aged between 20-45 years old Salary between 500- 4500 $ Visits for research purposes Visits once a year The general traveler Aged between 25-65 years old Salary between 2000-6000 $ Visits for official or business purposes Visits at random times of the year Figure 5. Personas: user focused design (Nielsen, 2013, p.12) London publishers 2013 cited in Nielsen,2013, p.12 Section 7: Case studies This step involved the analyzing of case studies of previous research findings in system analysis to make accurate conclusions. This involved comparing the research finding of the techniques employed for research in this project with other findings. Once the web designer created data and converted it into meaningful information, they compared it with previous research findings to increase the scope of the research. Since it was a small-scale research, it provided an opportunity to view the works of other designers (Satzinger, 2012, p.6). The kind of information on display on other websites gives a structure to this website. Information provided on similar websites include; distance maps, daily updates, login and registration options, links to social media sites, availability of different camps designated in various regions of Africa, promotions available, news, and payment options. Most designers prefer to employ the user/audience module, card-sorting technique, and hierarchical task analysis and information architecture to gather information about the users before implementing a website. Many designers opted for various methods of notation to present their research findings. Some of the methods commonly employed to visualize the data gathered include; the use of personas, case studies, case descriptions, and case diagrams. The notations used to represent the process of project development included; personas, case studies, case description, and case diagrams to display the information accurately (Satzinger, 2012, p.6). The process of finding out the processes involved in other designers’ work involves going through literature reviews for insights into projects. Section 8: User diagrams User diagrams refer to pictorial representations of the steps involved in the web site to achieve the goals of the web user. This system helps depict the ideal situation on the ground to see what takes place before the user accomplishes their goals. The user utilizes a mobile phone or a computer to gain access to the internet. The internet connects to the server that grants entry into the website. At the website, they are able to view the information on the website. They must sign up with the website to enjoy the benefits of the website. The sign-up page determines the type of user they are, and therefore, access information relevant to the type of user. After accessing the information, they log out from the system (Satzinger, 2012, p.6). The diagram below represents the information described above. Diagram of user diagrams Figure 6. Systems analysis and design (Shelly, 2005, p.147) Thomson Course Technology 2010 cited in Shelly, 2005, p.147 The use of diagrams enables the system analyst to define the roles of the system and its interrelationship with the user, anticipate problems in the system, understand the language of the user by considering their perspective, identifying the needs of the system, and to know whether the system meets the needs of the user (Satzinger, 2012, p.6). Section 9: User description The user description represents the behavior or the functionality of a system. The description entails a number of possible series of interactions between the system and the user in the website, while obtaining a particular objective. The system analyst anticipates all possible sequences of interactions between the website and the users. The information acquired helps them to understand the requirements of the system (Perks, 2003, p.32). It helps to design the system according to the perspective of the user, enables the user to understand the terms of the user because they are acquainted with their communication, and to provide a means of identify the external behavior of the website (Perks, 2003, p.32). The main benefits of user description are that; they provide a means for the analyst to know the job of the website, how the website responds to the promptings of the user, what the user obtains from the system, and what information or worth the user acquires from the system. By identifying the system classes, the system analyst is able to determine the essential parts of the system that they must incorporate for the system to function normally (Perks, 2003, p.32). This system is dependent on the ability of the system analyst to visualize a situation and play with an idea in their mind. The creation of this website involved the description of events from the perspective of the user. It required them to create an outline of events that succeed each other for the user to gain access to information in a website. The process may also involve a short description of the internal operations of the system. This helped the designer to verify that the system has all the internal components it requires to work, and therefore, proposes that the external components work properly if the internal components are in place. The description gave the system analyst important steps that the system requires to be fully functional. The analyst then created the classes, which they named analysis classes (Perks, 2003, p.32). The analysis classes make up the model of the system. The process also involved the assignment of certain responsibilities to the classes to ensure that different classes do not perform the same functions. This provided efficiency of the system and eased the developer’s work. By determining the associations, the developer knows the interrelation between different classes. The associations define the nature of the relationships and indicate the responsibilities shared between different classes. The next stage involved describing how the classes behave while they interact with each other. This involved characterizing information into classes; send and receive. The last part is of this module was to determine problems that were likely to arise and solving them (Perks, 2003, p.32). Section 10: Conclusion and further work System analysis breaks down a software or computer system into its constituent parts and evaluates them to ensure the sub-systems work together to achieve goals (Shelly, 2012, p.16). This project was about the creation of a website for an African National park. It analyzed the aspects involved in creating sub-systems that work together to make up a fully functional computer system. This aided in reducing the number of errors and improving the user-ability of the website. A good interface and functional systems enable the website to generate more traffic that translates to profits for the business. 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