Modern Systems Analysis and Design PDF

Modern Systems Analysis and Design Eighth Edition, Global Edition Joseph S. Valacich Joey F. George Designing Forms and Reports Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-1 Learning Objectives...

Modern Systems Analysis and Design Eighth Edition, Global Edition Joseph S. Valacich Joey F. George Designing Forms and Reports Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-1 Learning Objectives ✓ Explain the process of designing forms and reports and the deliverables for their creation. ✓ Apply the general guidelines for formatting forms and reports. ✓ Use color and know when color improves the usability of information. ✓ Format text, tables, and lists effectively. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-2 Learning Objectives (Cont.) ✓ Explain how to assess usability and describe how variations in users, tasks, technology, and environmental characteristics influence the usability of forms and reports. ✓ Discuss guidelines for the design of forms and reports for Internet-based electronic commerce systems. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-3 Designing Forms and Reports FIGURE 10-1 Systems development life cycle with logical design phase highlighted Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-4 Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) ◼ Form: a business document that contains some predefined data and may include some areas where additional data are to be filled in  An instance of a form is typically based on one database record. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-5 Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) ◼ Report: a business document that contains only predefined data  It is a passive document used solely for reading or viewing data. ◼ A report typically contains data from many unrelated records or transactions. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-6 Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) ◼ Common Types of Reports:  Scheduled: produced at predefined time intervals for routine information needs  Key-indicator: provides summary of critical information on regular basis  Exception: highlights data outside of normal operating ranges  Drill-down: provides details behind summary of key- indicator or exception reports  Ad-hoc: responds to unplanned requests for non- routine information needs Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-7  The Process of Designing Forms and Reports ◼ Is a user-focused activity. ◼ Follows a prototyping approach.  First steps are to gain an understanding of the intended user and task objectives by collecting initial requirements during requirements determination. ◼ Wireframe  A simple design to show the placement of information elements on a screen and the space needed for each element Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-8  The Process of Designing Forms and Reports ◼ Requirements determination:  Who will use the form or report?  What is the purpose of the form or report?  When is the report needed or used?  Where does the form or report need to be delivered and used?  How many people need to use or view the form or report? Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-9 The Process of Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) ◼ Prototyping  Initialprototype is designed from requirements.  Users review prototype design and either accept the design or request changes.  If changes are requested, the construction- evaluation-refinement cycle is repeated until the design is accepted. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-10 The Process of Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) ◼ A coding sheet is an “old” tool for designing forms and reports, usually associated with text-based forms and reports for mainframe applications. ◼ Visual Basic and other development tools provide computer-aided GUI form and report generation. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-11 The Process of Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) FIGURE 10-2 The layout of a data input form using a coding sheet Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-12 The Process of Designing Forms and Reports (Cont.) FIGURE 10-3B A data input screen designed in Microsoft’s Visual Basic.NET (Source: Microsoft Corporation.) Figure 10-3A A data input screen designed as a wireframe Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-13 Deliverables and Outcomes ◼ Design specifications are the major deliverables and serve as inputs to the system implementation phase. ◼ The forms, reports, and designed databases we’ve talked about so far are part of the design specifications. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-14 Deliverables and Outcomes (Cont.) ◼ Design specifications have three sections:  Narrative overview: characterizes users, tasks, system, and environmental factors  Sample design: image of the form (from coding sheet or form building development tool)  Testing and usability assessment: measuring test/usability results (consistency, sufficiency, accuracy, etc.) Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-15 Formatting Forms and Reports ◼ General Guidelines  Meaningful titles — use clear, specific, version information, and current date  Meaningful information — include only necessary information, with no need to modify  Balanced layout — use adequate spacing, margins, and clear labels  Easy navigation system — show how to move forward and backward, and where you are currently Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-16 Formatting Forms and Reports (Cont.) FIGURE 10-5 Contrasting customer information forms (Pine Valley Furniture) (Source: Microsoft Corporation.) (a) Poorly designed form Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-17  Formatting Forms and Reports (Cont.) FIGURE 10-5 (continued) (b) Improved design for form Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-18  Highlighting Information ◼ Notify users of errors in data entry or processing. ◼ Provide warnings regarding possible problems. ◼ Draw attention to keywords, commands, high-priority messages, unusual data values. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-19 Highlighting Information (Cont.) Highlighting methods: Blinking and Reverse video audible tones Boxing Color differences Underlining Intensity All capital letters differences  Offsetting the position Size differences of nonstandard information Font differences Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-20 Highlighting Information (Cont.) FIGURE 10-6 Customer account status display using various highlighting techniques (Pine Valley Furniture) (Source: Microsoft Corporation.) Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-21 Color vs. No Color ◼ Benefits — Color:  Soothes or strikes the eye.  Accents an uninteresting display.  Facilitates subtle discriminations in complex displays.  Emphasizes the logical organization of information.  Draws attention to warnings.  Evokes more emotional reactions. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-22 Color vs. No Color (Cont.) ◼ Problems from Using Color  Color pairings may wash out or cause problems for some users.  Resolution may degrade with different displays.  Color fidelity may degrade on different displays.  Printing or conversion to other media may not easily translate. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-23  Displaying Text ◼ Case: display in mixed upper and lower case, use conventional punctuation ◼ Spacing: use double spacing if possible, otherwise blank lines between paragraphs ◼ Justification: left justify text, ragged right margins ◼ Hyphenation: don’t hyphenate words between lines ◼ Abbreviations: use only when widely understood and significantly shorter than full text Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-24 Displaying Text (Cont.) FIGURE 10-7 Contrasting the display of textual help information (Source: Microsoft Corporation.) (a) Poorly designed help screen with many violations of the general guidelines for displaying text Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-25 Displaying Text (Cont.) FIGURE 10-7 (continued) (b) An improved design for a help screen Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-26 Designing Tables and Lists ◼ Labels  All columns and rows should have meaningful labels.  Labels should be separated from other information by using highlighting.  Redisplay labels when the data extend beyond a single screen or page. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-27 Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) ◼ Formatting columns, rows and text:  Sort in a meaningful order.  Place a blank line between every five rows in long columns.  Similar information displayed in multiple columns should be sorted vertically.  Columns should have at least two spaces between them.  Allow white space on printed reports for user to write notes.  Use a single typeface, except for emphasis.  Use same family of typefaces within and across displays and reports.  Avoid overly fancy fonts. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-28 Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) ◼ Formatting numeric, textual and alphanumeric data:  Right justify numeric data and align columns by decimal points or other delimiter.  Left justify textual data. Use short line length, usually 30 to 40 characters per line.  Break long sequences of alphanumeric data into small groups of three to four characters each. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-29  Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) FIGURE 10-8 Contrasting the display of tables and lists (Pine Valley Furniture) (Source: Microsoft Corporation.) (a) Poorly designed form Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-30  Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) FIGURE 10-8 (continued) (b) Improved design for form Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-31 Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) ◼ Use tables for reading individual data values. ◼ Use graphs for:  Providing quick summary.  Displaying trends over time.  Comparing points and patterns of variables.  Forecasting activity.  Simple reporting of vast quantities of information. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-32 Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) FIGURE 10-9 Tabular report illustrating numerous design guidelines (Pine Valley Furniture) Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-33 Designing Tables and Lists (Cont.) FIGURE 10-10 Graphs for comparison (a) Line graph (b) Bar graph Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-34 Paper vs. Electronic Reports ◼ Laser and ink-jet printers can print reports that look like display screen  Same guidelines apply ◼ High-speed impact printers are faster, but less user-friendly in appearance  Good for large batch reports  The coding sheet from figure 10-2 may be useful for these types of reports Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-35  Assessing Usability ◼ Usability: an overall evaluation of how a system performs in supporting a particular user for a particular task ◼ Three characteristics of usability:  Speed — Can you complete a task efficiently?  Accuracy — Does the output provide what you expect?  Satisfaction — Do you like using the output? Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-36 Usability Success Factors ◼ Consistency — of terminology, formatting, titles, navigation, response time ◼ Organization — good text/data alignment for efficient navigation and entry ◼ Ease — self-explanatory outputs and labels ◼ Format — appropriate display of data and symbols ◼ Flexibility — maximize user options for data input according to preference Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-37 Usability Success Factors (Cont.) ◼ Characteristics for consideration:  User: experience, skills, motivation, education, personality  Task: time pressure, cost of errors, work durations  System: platform  Environment: social and physical issues Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-38  Measures of Usability ◼ Learnability – how difficult to perform the task for the first time? ◼ Efficiency – how quick can user perform task once learned? ◼ Error rate – how frequent are errors, how easy to recover? ◼ Memorability – how easy is it to remember task accomplishment steps? ◼ Satisfaction and aesthetics – does the user enjoy the user experience? Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-39 Electronic Commerce Application: Designing Forms and Reports for Pine Valley Furniture WebStore ◼ General guidelines for rapid deployment of Internet Web sites have resulted ◼ Three possible solutions to the problem:  Make it possible to design reasonably usable sites without having UI experience.  Train more people in good Web design.  Live with poorly designed sites that are hard to use. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-40 Designing Forms and Reports at Pine Valley Furniture ◼ PVF established the following guidelines:  Use lightweight graphics.  Establish forms and data integrity rules.  Use stylesheet-based HTML. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-41 Lightweight Graphics ◼ Lightweight Graphics: the use of small, simple images to allow a Web page to more quickly be displayed  Quick image download  Quick feedback from the Web site will help to keep customers at the PVF WebStore longer Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-42 Forms and Data Integrity Rules ◼ All forms that request information should be clearly labeled and provide adequate room for input. ◼ Specific fields requiring specific information must provide a clear example. ◼ Forms must designate which fields are optional, required, and which have a range of values. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-43 Stylesheet-Based HTML ◼ A web design approach that separates content from the way in which it is formatted and presented ◼ Makes ongoing maintenance easier ◼ Facilitates site-wide consistency Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-44 Summary ◼ In this chapter you learned how to: ✓ Explain the process of designing forms and reports and the deliverables for their creation. ✓ Apply the general guidelines for formatting forms and reports. ✓ Use color and know when color improves the usability of information. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-45 Summary (Cont.) ✓ Format text, tables, and lists effectively. ✓ Explain how to assess usability and describe how variations in users, tasks, technology, and environmental characteristics influence the usability of forms and reports. ✓ Discuss guidelines for the design of forms and reports for Internet-based electronic commerce systems. Chapter 10 Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Ltd. 10-46