Design overview
This document provides the graphical user interface design documentation of an android mobile application for a bookshop. It focuses mainly on usability and adheres to applicable graphical user design principles.
Design overview
This document provides the design of a book shop mobile application according to usability principles such as the 8 golden rules, the ISO Nielson’s Heuristics and the ISO/IEC 9126-1 Product quality specifications.
Project scope
This document is the graphical interface design document for a bookshop mobile application. The main aim of this document is to provide the design perspective for the application and is mainly centered on the end users who will interact with it. The overall objective is to enable the users to search for books and place orders in as much a short time as possible. Secondary objectives include:-
- The user interface should be easily navigable
- New users should be able to easily register
- Registered users should be able to quickly search for books by specifying criteria
Key assumptions
The key assumptions of the project include:-
- The client will cater for the project’s budget from start to finish.
- Various platforms will be accommodated in the application.
- Multiple clients will be handled at the same time.
- The allocated budget will be enough to cater for the project.
The main pages that will constitute the mobile application include the register, login, navigation, categories, display results and contact us pages. Additional pages and functions will be required, but are not included in the scope of this report.
Register
The purpose of the register page is to enable new users to register in the system. The page contains six fields to capture data as depicted in the diagram below:-
Login
The purpose of this page is to allow the customer to log in to the book shop mobile application.
Navigation page
The navigation page takes the user to the high level functionalities of the application
Categories
The categories page allows users to search for books by the allotted criteria.
Display results
This page displays the search results to the user with the depicted fields. The ISBN field may be included if the user uses that as a search criterion.
This page allows the user to give constructive and meaningful feedback to the bookshop management. This may include suggestions, comments, and any question that the customer may have had.
Usability testing and evaluation
The following sections describe usability testing and the evaluation methodology applicable to the mobile application.
Evaluation methodology
The bookshop mobile application is mainly user centered and is meant to enable customers to search for books and place orders in the shortest time possible. The evaluation is criteria based and is derived from the ISO/IEC 9126-1 Product quality specifications and will focus on usability. Among the aims of the evaluation are:-
Navigability- This determines the level of ease with which the end users will be able to use the application.
Accessibility- This is the quality of the system to enable users of varied skill levels to use the application.
Interactivity- This will show how well the users will interact with the application.
Organization- The application’s graphical user interface should be visibly clear.
Helpfulness- The system should be able to display helpful text and descriptions.
Interoperability- The system should be able to interoperate with other or related software
The evaluation will approximately take three weeks to complete and compile findings.
Test audience selection and ethical considerations
Project scope
The primary audience selected for the evaluation of the prototype application are the customers who wish to register as members and order book items. Some of the ethical considerations in the development and implementation of the system include:
Privacy- Keeping of customer data confidential
Security- Keeping the system safe from external intrusion
Customer compliance- This entails respecting the general wishes and requirements of the clients as regards the adoption and use of the system.
Evaluation experiments
Evaluation experiments of the mobile application include unit tests, integration tests, automated GUI test frameworks, scripts for testing GUI components that have not been automated, and validation tests. Examples of evaluations in the mobile application are shown in the table below:
|
Events |
Entities affected |
Nature of the effect |
|
Register user |
New customer |
New customer is entered into the bookshops database |
|
Login |
Customer account |
The registered customer is directed to his/her account |
|
Search |
Book items data base |
The application displays the desired book to the user |
|
Contact us |
Messaging system |
A message is relayed to the application’s mail server |
Analysis methodology and procedures
Fact finding techniques are employed to gather facts that are relevant to the new system. The facts discovered form the basis for defining the requirements of the new system, implementing the requirements and maintaining the system throughout its use and existence. The following techniques are used in analysis and design of the mobile application.
1)Data flow diagrams (DFDs)
A data flow diagram is a graphical representation of how data will move through the system. A data flow analysis reveals the processes that make up a system, what data is used in each process, what data is stored and what data enters and leaves the system. There are two types of DFDs. These are logical and physical DFDs.
Logical DFDs focus on the flow of data between processes without regard for the specific devices, storage locations or people in the system.
Physical DFDs focus on the flow of data between the physical aspects of the system, for example people, departments, locations and devices used.
The diagram below depicts DFD components:
2) Entity relationship diagram (ERD)
An ERD shows the relationship between actual/real things (entities) about which data is stored. Apart from the relationships and ERD defines the attributes (qualities) of the entities and the degree of the relationships between them.
The degree of a relationship may be one to one, one to many or many to many. The diagrams below portray the mentioned degrees respectively:
3)Structure chart
This is derived from the data flow diagram and represents an hierarchical structure of the systems entire modules. A module represents a process to be executed in the system. Modules can be reused and can be triggered or called by other modules. The diagram below illustrates:
Modules may consist of the condition, loop, jump, control flow and data flow structures. The diagrams below illustrate
4) Data dictionary
This is a repository of data which describe the actual data being used by the entire application and related software. It provides a detailed description by means of entries such as name, description of the name, aliases, type, format, values, security and comments. This central repository of data about data is known as metadata.
5) Decision trees
This is a design tool which provides a graphic representation of the various choices or decisions which are available, the events which might occur and their consequences. The diagram below illustrates:
6) Structured English (Pseudo code)
This is a precise, highly restricted subsets of the normal English language which describe what is to be coded and how to code it. This helps in error free code. Examples of tokens in structured programming include “if-then-else” and “do-while-until”.
References
Fuggetta, A., & Di Nitto, E. (2014, May). Software process. In Proceedings of the on Future of Software Engineering (pp. 1-12). ACM.
Jalote, P. (2012). An integrated approach to software engineering. Springer Science & Business Media.
Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlsson, M. C., Regnell, B., & Wesslén, A.
(2012). Experimentation in software engineering. Springer Science & Business Media.
