Coral Seas Tour Company - Case Study Example

CORAL SEAS TOUR COMPANY. Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 2 Scope 2 Intended outcomes 2 Discussion 3 The product and its expected achievement 3 DATABASES 7 INTERFACE DESIGN 8 User centered design approach 8 Usability principles used in the design 9 Conclusion 10 User guide 11 Room reservation 11 Appendix1 14 Appendix2 15 References 16 Semiotic analysis of Westpac Bank 18 Significance 18 Structure 19 Language tools analysis 20 Use of plain language 20 Use universally understood symbols and formats 20 Use of positive language 20 Critical thinking and global implication. 20 Economic effect of Banking 20 Environmental and social effect of Banking 21 References 21 INTRODUCTION Scope This report begins by identifying the product and providing an overview of what it is supposed to achieve. It explains the different tasks that can be carried using the system. The report will then discuss how the different usability design principles influenced the design of the interfaces. The report will then discuss the database design of the system with the different entities and attributes. Here it will show the different relationship between the entities. This will show how data flows within the organization to achieve an activity. Intended outcomes The design of this report gives an overview of the product design and identifies several of the products functionality characteristics and what it can deliver within the context of the tasks that are required by the business. The next section will seek to clarify why the particular characteristics of the interface were chosen and relate the justification to some of the key processes and concepts of HCI design. The report will also briefly identify where these design concepts and philosophies can be found within our system design and what are the benefits to the user. The identification of software and infrastructure requirements provides an indication of the next step in the development of the system towards implementation as well as possible costs to be incurred. The user guide that has been included was developed to speed up the user learning process and allow users to identify the steps required for task completion at an early stage. Discussion The product and its expected achievement Coral seas needed an online reservation system for their client to replace the manual system where the clients had to walk to their offices and fill some paper work. We developed a system that allowed customers to book rooms from anywhere in the world and this reservation be viewed in any of their hotels. The system also allowed the administrator of different hotels to review the terms of their services as they were viewed online eg the cost of a room. We were also tasked with developing a system that would be acceptable by the different clients and staffs of coral seas who would work with the system. The following figures show some of the screencast of the system. Home page This screencast is the first page that the client and different users find when they visit the site. The only person supposed to log in is the administrator and the different hotel staffs but the client will use the book button. The reservation page that shows the different rooms available at a certain hotel after the user click on a certain hotel. This is the last page the user finds asking him to fill in his personal details so that they can finish on the booking of the room. DATABASES Coral seas are a business that serves a wide range of tourists. Based on these facts the system is supposed to provide information on different location where tourists can tour and also collect information about these tourists. This led to a need of a database that is supposed to be accessed through the network. This database space would be purchased from the domain provider so that it would be accessible through the internet by all clients and workers of the company. The database would require tables of client, booking, holiday types ,hotels, room and room types. The client will have the following attributes first name, last name and passport which is a primary key in the table. The client entity is a representation of the different tourists who are interested in booking of the rooms.The hotel table will contain information of the different hotels managed by the company where we shall be required to provide information about the name of the hotel its location and the id which will be used as a primary key. The other entity is the rooms which are the different accommodations that a client can reserve when on tour. In the room entity the client is provided with the amount payable and the maximum occupants who can use the room at a certain time. The client has a one to one relationship with the booking table which carries the client-id and the room-id which are primary keys from the table client and rooms respectively. The hotels and the rooms have one to many relationships that a hotel can have many rooms but a room cannot be available in many hotels. The relationship between the room types and the rooms is one to many because the room cannot be in two classes for example a one bedroom villa cannot be classified at the same time be two bedroom villa. The holiday type and the rooms have many to many relationships. This arises because certain room can be available in a destination that is visited as a honey moon site and also as a romantic destination. Also a holiday type can be available in different places this quantifying the many to many relationship. The holiday type has the attributes type which is the name given to any holiday type and destination which shows where that type of holiday type can be found. The most preferred database software for use agreed upon was MySQL because of it being open source and easy to use. Database diagram for the company INTERFACE DESIGN User centered design approach The online reservation system was designed taking into consideration user centered design philosophy. This was ensured by carrying out a survey who were the main people who would be using the system and found out mostly are the tourist from all over the world and the clerks in hotels room during the confirmation of the booking of the rooms. The knowledge of these users on efficiency of usage of computers was looked and it was found out that most of them had a basic knowledge in using computers. These users were involved in the developing of the system and gave the requirement and how the users would require the system to appear like. A prototype was developed and given to the user to use and then asked to give their feedback on the usability of the system. After the user gave their suggestions after using the prototype it was improved on including those requirements and suggestions user brought forward. This facilitated us to draw closer to a system that would be easily acceptable by the different users. To make sure that the system met requirement and users were happy with it we used the iterative design where programmers were supposed to add components to the system as we continued developing it. Through iterative design after completion of the system something that had not been catered for in the design stage can be added. This mode of development allowed for error elimination in the system. Usability principles used in the design 1. Feedback –the feedback principal was important in designing this website so that the client and the staffs would know if what they wanted to achieve with the site is completed. Some of the feedbacks in the system are when the client is filling the form of his or her details during the booking if he sends the information a message is displayed to the client showing the details filled. The other important aspect where feedback has been used is during the time the administrator is adding a new hotel or deleting an old hotel. The administrator is first displayed with a pop up message which he confirms if the action he or she wants to carry on he believes is correct. 2. Constraints: this system applied the use of constraints in the design to make sure the user does not feed incorrect data and only when someone logs in as administrators they can make changes in the system. The constraint was applied where the user is supposed to feed his first name and middle name. The system cannot allow for an integer for a name but allows only strings. To implement this JavaScript was used to validate the fields immediately they lose focus. The system used constraints where it does not allow the user to save blank fields but it displays an error messages asking the user to feed the information. Constraint was applied where the user log ins as clerk he or she cannot delete any detail or update information in the database. 3. Visibility- the principal of visibility had to be employed in developing this system in all the pages to allow for easier navigation and location of information within the system. This was mostly applied by having both the vertical menu at the top of each page and also the horizontal menu at the left side of each page. This enables users of the system to be able to locate easily any page of the system they want to visit. Also colors were used as a means to ensure visibility of buttons. All the buttons changes their color upon gaining the focus at a point when the mouse is hovering them. This enables the user to be sure when he is pointing at the button without any difficulties. Visibility allows for good utilization of the computer memory and the network bandwidth where the user is not supposed to access the database each and every time he needs any information. This is ensured by providing information both in picture form and writings on the pages of the website allowing it to be displayed immediately the site is loaded from the server. Conclusion Coral seas services approached us to develop an online reservation system that would replace their old system where clients had to travel to their different agent’s offices to make hotel reservations. They perceived this system would be cheaper, efficient and faster in delivery of services. This system was supposed to be accessed by all the clients globally only if they understood English and be accessed by clerks in the different hotel joints. This report has been able to analyze and show what benefits the system would deliver to the organization. The report was also used to show how users were involved in the design of the system through prototyping. This was carried out to ensure the system would be easy to learn by the users and also the user would accept it. The report was also able to discuss the usability principles that were used in the design of the system. Metaphors were also identified to be used in the system so that they could enable the user to remember and not have difficulties in using the system. User guide Room reservation A client can make reservation of any room from any fraction of the world. Once a client makes that the reservation he can a call to the hotel to make confirmation of the booking. The guide shows the procedure followed by the client. 1. At the welcome page is a button to make reservation. The user is supposed to click on it to start the process of room reservation. 2. The next screen displays the different option to select the holiday type that the client would like to book. Select the holiday type from the list provided. The list contains all the holiday types that coral seas offers at the moment. The company will update the list on new holiday types to new destination as they arise. 3. The next screen displays the destinations where that type of holiday can be availed by the company. The customer is supposed to click on the destination of choice as a way of choosing one of them. The destinations are also updated by the hotel administrator frequently as changes takes place. 4. The next screen shows the different hotels available at the place of destination of the client. The client has to choose on one of the hotels to be able to see the different rooms available in the hotel .the name of the hotel is a link and so the client will just click on it to access the next information. 5. The next screen shows the different rooms available in the hotel with their cost, no of spaces available and the maximum number of people allowed at a go in the hotel room. The client is supposed to click on the desired room to make a booking. The client should note pricing does not include the cost of transport. 6. The next screen the client is asked to fill his or personal information so that he can complete the reservation of the room. If the client fills the correct information and presses the ok button a room is reserved for the client and a confirmation message is displayed to the client to signify the reservation is complete. Appendix1 The user has to select the choice of the trip that fits him or her from this page so that they can proceed to the page on destinations offering that trip type. Appendix2 The client will click on the choice of destination he or she admires to proceed to the next page and view the different hotels available in those places. References Alan Dix, Janet Finlay and Gregory D, (2004). Human computer interaction Julie A Jacko and Contantine Stepards ,(2003). Human-Computer interaction: Theory and practice. Qiyand Chen ,(2001) Human Computer Interaction : Issues and challenges. Julie A Jacko, (2009). Human Computer Interaction: Design for Diverse Users and Domains. Mark R Jones , (1989). Human Computer Interaction: A design guide. Julie A. Jacko , (2009). Human compute interaction. Ambient, Ubiquitous and intelligent interaction: Springer. Semiotic analysis of Westpac Bank Significance The message that is communicated through the West Bank business bank is the benefits that clients get after banking with them. West Bank wants to signify the benefits clients get after opening a community account which they are advertising. Also the bank is trying to show the clients the investment benefits that the client get by claiming that they offer high deposit rate with their investments solutions. The picture above shows people on top of each which is signifying that people together can raise high in the ladder with west bank being the foundation. This is shown by the person below has a symbol representing west bank. This is a way of west bank telling their clients they should open the community accounts. Also they are two houses where one is a massionate and the other one is a bungalow. This signifies the benefit that accrues from investing with west bank is high. Structure Heading and numbering of the different headings is used throughout the document. This is done to make it easier for people to identify information about the different products that the bank offers. Purple color has been used together with white. Purple is mostly used in parts that that the bank would like the client to bare more attention to. This would make the client to be enthusiastic as the go through the brochures by the changes of colors from one part of the document to the other one. Information is arranged in table so that to make easier for a client to trace information within the document with ease. Part of the page to show information organization in tables and color mixing in the document. Language tools analysis Use of plain language There is use of short heading and subheading most of them being three word headings. There is avoidance of use of slang in the writing and hard vocabularies that would be hard for the reader to understand. Use universally understood symbols and formats There is also use of short form of words that are universally accepted like $ sign which signifies that the currency is in form of dollars . The name www.westpac.com is widely used in the document to signify the company’s website. Sentences in are mostly short and concise make it easier for the client to get their meaning. Paragraphs are also made of mostly five sentences making them acceptable. Representation of time is done in universally understood way like 24hr which is a short form of 24 hours. Use of positive language Positive language is used throughout the document to encourage the clients to bank with the Westpac bank. In one of the sentences they talk of save time and money with a community solutions package to encourage clients to open this type of accounts with the bank. They also say that Westpac is committed to community where they use the word committed to signifying how they carry out their activities and care about their clients. Critical thinking and global implication. Economic effect of Banking Banking industry has been seen to contribute positively to most growing economies. This is through the lending to small scale businesses and large scale businesses. This is mostly done through long term loans and small term loans. The banking industry is seen to contribute to the internal debt of the country by lending to governments to do infrastructure development like roads and hospitals which is a positive contribution of banking. The banking sector has also been taken as the best solution offered for investment solutions. They advise their clients on the best investment sectors of the economy. They are also used to manage trust property on behalf of people who have attained maturity age to manage their inherited property. Environmental and social effect of Banking Each and every bank has a social economic and environment responsibility to its clients. Most of the banks are seen to contribute to community activities that are environmentally friendly like tree planting project or cleanup projects. Banks have also been seen to contribute to building of hospitals and homes of old people which a social contribution of banking to the community. So the banking industry has a lot of positive contribution in the environment and social set up of the communities around them. By the fact banks are global like the Barclays Bank they are seen to contribute to cultural exchange in situation where they employ people of different nationalities to work in different parts of the world. They are seen as the main contributor of making the world a global village apart from information technology. References 1.Neil Coulbeck ,(1984)The Multinational banking industry. 2. Sada Nand Bidani, P.K. Mitra ,(1984) .Bank finance for industry :working capital and tem loans. Read More

The reservation page that shows the different rooms available at a certain hotel after the user click on a certain hotel. This is the last page the user finds asking him to fill in his personal details so that they can finish on the booking of the room. DATABASES Coral seas are a business that serves a wide range of tourists. Based on these facts the system is supposed to provide information on different location where tourists can tour and also collect information about these tourists. This led to a need of a database that is supposed to be accessed through the network.

This database space would be purchased from the domain provider so that it would be accessible through the internet by all clients and workers of the company. The database would require tables of client, booking, holiday types ,hotels, room and room types. The client will have the following attributes first name, last name and passport which is a primary key in the table. The client entity is a representation of the different tourists who are interested in booking of the rooms.The hotel table will contain information of the different hotels managed by the company where we shall be required to provide information about the name of the hotel its location and the id which will be used as a primary key.

The other entity is the rooms which are the different accommodations that a client can reserve when on tour. In the room entity the client is provided with the amount payable and the maximum occupants who can use the room at a certain time. The client has a one to one relationship with the booking table which carries the client-id and the room-id which are primary keys from the table client and rooms respectively. The hotels and the rooms have one to many relationships that a hotel can have many rooms but a room cannot be available in many hotels.

The relationship between the room types and the rooms is one to many because the room cannot be in two classes for example a one bedroom villa cannot be classified at the same time be two bedroom villa. The holiday type and the rooms have many to many relationships. This arises because certain room can be available in a destination that is visited as a honey moon site and also as a romantic destination. Also a holiday type can be available in different places this quantifying the many to many relationship.

The holiday type has the attributes type which is the name given to any holiday type and destination which shows where that type of holiday type can be found. The most preferred database software for use agreed upon was MySQL because of it being open source and easy to use. Database diagram for the company INTERFACE DESIGN User centered design approach The online reservation system was designed taking into consideration user centered design philosophy. This was ensured by carrying out a survey who were the main people who would be using the system and found out mostly are the tourist from all over the world and the clerks in hotels room during the confirmation of the booking of the rooms.

The knowledge of these users on efficiency of usage of computers was looked and it was found out that most of them had a basic knowledge in using computers. These users were involved in the developing of the system and gave the requirement and how the users would require the system to appear like. A prototype was developed and given to the user to use and then asked to give their feedback on the usability of the system. After the user gave their suggestions after using the prototype it was improved on including those requirements and suggestions user brought forward.

This facilitated us to draw closer to a system that would be easily acceptable by the different users. To make sure that the system met requirement and users were happy with it we used the iterative design where programmers were supposed to add components to the system as we continued developing it. Through iterative design after completion of the system something that had not been catered for in the design stage can be added.

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