digital production, design and development project

Digital Production, Design and Development Project Delivery Guide

Digital Production, Design and Development 1

Digital Production, Design and Development

Introduction The purpose of this guide is to give you an overview of how you could holistically deliver a range of Performance Outcomes from the Digital Production, Design and Development Occupational Specialist Component through the delivery of a single project.

When delivering any qualification, it is always useful to look at the full range of Performance Outcomes and consider how they are or could be linked together to give your delivery a more realistic and holistic approach.

A holistic approach will provide you with a structured plan to teach the students how a range of Performance Outcomes work together across the Occupational Specialist Component, providing them with understanding of how skills and knowledge link together in a working environment.

This approach to delivery will also help prepare your students for their summative assessment. To support this we have structured this guide in-line with the final assessment; giving your students the opportunity to explore ideas with their peers and develop an understanding of the content, to practice and refine their skills, and gain an understanding of the depth and breadth that will be required in their final assessment.

The project consists of four tasks covering a range of the Performance Outcomes. Each task includes several activities that students can carry out individually or in groups. If working within a group, we would advise that students contribute to each of the tasks in order to gain the experience and skills required for the external assessment. The activities are designed to help teach the skills required within each of the tasks and give the opportunity for students to practice before their final assessment.



How to use the Project Delivery Guide The first section of the guide is the project scenario. This provides you and your students with the context of the project, and the business requirements and needs.

The next section is the project brief. This gives the brief for the entire project and draws together several of the Performance Outcomes for the Occupational Specialist Component so they can be delivered holistically. We have split the project into four tasks, enabling you to deliver them as individual tasks or as a large single project. We have also provided a separate Student Brief resource that gives your students all the information they require.

Following the project brief there are four tasks. Each task relates directly to the task within the project brief. Within each task you’ll find a mixture of information, resource links, top tips, and teaching and learning activities.

Before your students embark on completing the tasks within the project brief we have created a selection of teaching and learning activities for you to deliver. Each activity will give your students the opportunity to learn more about a skill that they will need to use to complete the task.



Task 1: Analysing the problem and designing a solution Performance Outcomes Covered PO 1: Be able to analyse a problem to define requirements and acceptance criteria aligned to user needs

PO 5: Discover, evaluate and apply reliable sources of knowledge

Works well with these Assessment Objectives 1.3 Understand the key features of, and be able to select, appropriate project methodologies when developing a software solution

1.4 Understand and define the functional and non-functional requirements of a software solution

1.5 Investigate the current and potential uses of emerging technologies and how they impact on industries

2.1 Investigate the legal and regulatory requirements that apply to developing software

3.2 Select and use techniques to obtain qualitative and quantitative data to be able to evaluate software solutions

7.1 Understand, select and apply functional, non-functional and front-end testing.

7.2 Understand, select and apply testing techniques

7.3 Select appropriate tests and test data to test the functionality of software



Skills to cover Software Development Life Cycle The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) refers to a methodology with clearly defined processes for creating high-quality software. Specifically, the SDLC methodology focuses on the following phases of software development: • Requirement analysis • Planning • Software design (i.e. architectural design) • Software development • Testing • Deployment

SDLC is a process that produces software with the highest quality and lowest cost in the shortest time possible. SDLC provides a well-structured flow of phases that help an organisation to rapidly produce thoroughly tested software that is user ready.

The SDLC involves six phases. Popular SDLC models include the waterfall model, spiral model, and Agile model.

How SDLC Works The process starts by evaluating existing systems for deficiencies. It then defines the requirements of the new system. Following on from this, it creates the software through the stages of analysis, planning, design, development, testing, and deployment. By anticipating costly mistakes like failing to ask the end-user or client for feedback, SLDC can eliminate redundant rework and after-the-fact fixes.

It’s also important to know that there is a strong focus on the testing phase. As the SDLC is a repetitive methodology, you must ensure code quality at every cycle. Some organisations pay little attention to testing, this can be a costly oversight as testing frequently throughout the process can save a lot of time spent reworking the solution. Business Requirements Analysis Every new activity, every new product, every new project in the workplace is created in response to a business need. Yet we often find ourselves in situations where, despite spending tremendous time and resources, there's a mismatch between what has been designed and what is needed.

Common occurrences where business needs are not met lead to clients complaining that the end product isn't what they wanted. It may also seem like they’ve changed their mind about the final solution halfway through a development. It may seem like a client has conflicting requirements and there are multiple stakeholders with different



needs. A focused and detailed business requirements analysis can help you avoid problems like these. This is the process of discovering, analysing, defining, and documenting the requirements that are related to a specific business objective.

This process allows you to clearly and precisely define the scope of the project, so that you can assess the timescales and resources needed to complete it.

Remember: to get what you want; you need to accurately define it – and a good business requirements analysis helps you achieve this objective. It leads you to better understand the business needs, and helps you break them down into detailed, specific requirements that everyone agrees on. What's more, it's usually much quicker and cheaper to fix a problem or misunderstanding at the analysis stage than it is when the product is almost fully developed. Top Tip: Many organisations already have established procedures and methodologies for conducting business requirements analyses, which may have been optimised specifically for that organisation or industry. If these exist, use them! However, do make sure you also consider the points below:

Talk to the students about how technology changes constantly, and the students need to be able to design systems for this. There are sources online (i.e. TechCrunch, Mashable, etc.) to keep abreast of current technological innovations, how they are changing, and how they change the environment around them.

To bring the point home, share recent examples of tech changes that have changed how we operate in the world (i.e. Cloud technologies, IoT, etc.).

When it comes to planning testing and looking at testing requirements as the project starts make sure they keep in mind the T Level specification content:

Purpose of the identified test • test data

o valid test data o invalid test data o valid extreme test data o invalid extreme test data o erroneous test data

• pre-requisite to each test • expected test results



• update the plan to include: o actual results o changes made o re-tests/regression testing following changes

The term ‘software testing’ often leads some developers to think about one type of test (such as functional testing or regression testing). However, other developers begin visualising the complex, interconnected web of test types and techniques that comprise the broad world of software testing.

Experienced developers understand that software testing isn’t a singular approach, although, in the broadest sense, it refers to a collection of tests and evaluations that aim to determine whether a software application works as it should and if it can be expected to continue working as it should in real-world use scenarios. Top Tip: Don’t treat quality assurance as the final development phase. Quality assurance is not the last link in the development process. It is one step in the ongoing process of agile software development. Testing takes place in each iteration before the development components are implemented. Accordingly, software testing needs to be integrated as a regular and ongoing element in the everyday development process and that is why it is planned in early and often, as part of the planning stage. People working together effectively People working together effectively is the foundation of any successful project. Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) recognises this and assigns clear roles and responsibilities to each person in a project, representing the business interests, the solution/technical interests, the management interests and the process interests.

Everyone involved in a DSDM project works very closely together in order to break down potential communication barriers.

The best solutions emerge from self-organising, empowered teams. However, these teams, and the people within them, must actively take on the responsibility for their empowerment within the boundaries that have been agreed. At the same time, it is important they:



• Respect each other’s knowledge, experience, skills and opinions • Take personal responsibility for their work and the dependence of the other team

members on them • Have the courage to challenge ways of working, to improve their team

collaboration and working processes

The students need to understand the key roles in the development of a project and how they stack up as well as the stages and elements in deploying a project.

A good site for helping show the key elements of the roles is here: https://www.egrovesys.com/blog/involvement-business-analyst-sdlc/ Top Tip: The students need to be comfortable with the types of roles in the Agile management toolkit. They need plenty of practice in developing the skills in this area and developing the key elements surrounding this. They need to know the roles inside out. Collaborative Technologies Back in 2012, McKinsey Global Institute reported that using social technologies within companies can improve communications and collaboration up to 25%. Nowadays, we can see the effects of that finding as 77% of companies are adopting collaboration software to a great or moderate extent.

It has become evident that companies are moving towards digital solutions that will improve collaboration. Using tools such as Planner (https://tasks.office.com/ ) can help give an organisation a better overview of what everybody is doing on a project.

https://www.egrovesys.com/blog/involvement-business-analyst-sdlc/

https://tasks.office.com/



Student Practice Activities Practice Activity 1 The students should analyse the key tools that could be used for collaboration, this could be anything from Teams, Zoom, Planner, Padlet, etc., and give the pros and cons for each one and how they are best deployed in each situation for companies and in what scenario they would be best utilised. Practice Activity 2: Students should research a project that follow the SDLC. Examples can be found here: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-managing-sdlc-8232

Students should then create a report on why and how the project was successful. Extension Activity Ask your students to carry out a research task into the different stages of the SDLC and how these stages directly affected the projects. A good research source is https://stackify.com/what-is-sdlc/ as this will help lay the groundwork for students to understand the elements of SDLC.

This activity will help your students understand the types of activities within the steps of SDLC and how these are implemented by real companies in developing software products. Practice Activity 3: Thomson Reuters offer specific guides on developing software with appropriate legal governance and meeting legal requirements. https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/

Students should review a sample of the guides and, considering the legal governance and requirements, create a 5-minute podcast on how they affect a software development project. Practice Activity 4: User Persona are representations of people who will engage with your product. While these Personas are hypothetical people, the information on the document should not be hypothetical and should try and complete a full picture of a user demographic based on facts, data and research.

Students should create several User Personas relevant for a Coffee House, this should include negative personas too.

https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-managing-sdlc-8232

https://stackify.com/what-is-sdlc/

https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/



Practice Activity 6: Use the linked SWOT analysis template to perform a full SWOT analysis on the business and identify any strategic development points or concerns for the business.

https://www.businessballs.com/strategy-innovation/swot-analysis/

Practice Activity 7 In small groups students should produce a project plan for a digital solution. We would suggest that you provide the groups with a set of parameters to work from in order to create their plan. You could allocate one element of the project plan per group then pull all the work together to review the entire plan, or for each group to create an entire project plan that are then reviewed by the class

Using any form of project planning template/tool for example: https://www.planview.com/resources/guide/agile-methodologies-a-beginners-guide/project-planning-agile/ ask each group to plan out the stages of the project in Agile.

The group should produce a project plan for a digital solution required by a client, and all current and new customers.

Their proposal should provide a rationale for the solution they are proposing and include: • Overall Business context • The functional and non-functional requirements of the solution • A full list of the problems that need to be solved to meet all requirements. • The key performance indicators (KPIs) and user acceptance criteria for the

proposed solution • A full description of the proposed solution

They should also justify how the recommended solution meets the needs of the client and users, and how potential risks will be mitigated. They should also cover how relevant regulatory guidelines and legal requirements will be met. Practice Activity 8 In small groups students should produce a set of design documents for a digital solution. We would suggest that you provide the groups with a set of parameters to work from in order to create their design documents

The design documentation must include: • Data Requirements • Interface Designs • Potential Algorithmic solutions

https://www.businessballs.com/strategy-innovation/swot-analysis/

https://www.planview.com/resources/guide/agile-methodologies-a-beginners-guide/project-planning-agile/




• Testing strategy

Before creating their documents, discuss with the group each of the above requirements.

Discuss how to define requirements and what kinds of regulatory issues this could throw up. Review the main laws (Data Protection, Computer Misuse, etc.) and how they impact on defining requirements technically.

As a group look specifically at the other elements (i.e. inclusion and diversity) and how these apply to user interfaces (UI).

Explore what kinds of testing techniques currently exist to check that both technical and non-technical requirements are met.



Software to support Task 1 https://www.planview.com/resources/guide/agile-methodologies-a-beginners-guide/project-planning-agile/

Trello: https://trello.com/en

Trello is simple visual way to manage projects. It has a clean interface split into ‘cards’ that can be moved around in order to give a clear idea of a project.

ProjectLibre: https://www.projectlibre.com/ . ProjectLibre is open source (and free) alternative to Microsoft Project. It has a simple and clean interface with advanced tools for managing a project and creating project specific documents like GANTT charts.

Scoro: https://www.scoro.com/

Track progress and share results with your team using Scoro’s automated reports and personally tailored dashboards, all in real time.



https://trello.com/en

https://www.projectlibre.com/

https://www.scoro.com/



Task 2: Developing a prototype design solution Performance Outcomes Covered PO2: Design, implement and test software Works well with these Assessment Objectives 3.2 Select and use techniques to obtain qualitative and quantitative data to be able to evaluate software solutions

6.4 Select and use deployment methods for a software project

8.2 Understand the stages involved in the software change management process

1.2 Understand the roles and responsibilities of the digital team within the software development lifecycle

1.3 Understand the key features of, and be able to select, appropriate project methodologies when developing a software solution

1.4 Understand and define the functional and non-functional requirements of a software solution

1.5 Investigate the current and potential uses of emerging technologies and how they impact on industries

7.3 Select appropriate tests and test data to test the functionality of software 6.4 Select and use deployment methods for a software project

7.1 Understand, select and apply functional, non-functional and front-end testing.

4.2 Be able to select platforms used for source code and content management.

2.2 Identify and manage risks that apply to software development

6.2 Select and use appropriate tools and features to create a user interfaces that apply user experience (UX) design principles.

8.4 Understand how to support software users



Skills to cover Deployment Methods There are a variety of techniques to deploy new applications to production, so choosing the right strategy is an important decision, weighing the options in terms of the impact of change on the system, and on the end-users: https://thenewstack.io/deployment-strategies/

To ensure a seamless rollout, you would typically consider the following: • How to minimize application downtime, if any. • How to manage and resolve incidents with minimal impact on users. • How to address failed deployments in a reliable, effective way. • How to minimize people and process errors to achieve predictable, repeatable

deployments.

The deployment pattern you choose largely depends on your business goals. For example, you might need to roll out changes without any downtime or roll out changes to an environment or a subset of users before you make a feature generally available.

Top Tip: Think about the effect it will have on users and how changes in products can impact on the reputation of a business. The students need to understand that products can make or break a company so having good deployment methods that minimise risk of upsetting users is important.

Tech Stack A Tech Stack is a set of tools that are used to construct and power an application. It consists of a combination of software applications, frameworks, and programming languages that realise some aspects of the program. Structure-wise, tech stack consists of two equal elements. One is frontend or client-side; the other is server-side or backend. Combined, they create a ‘stack’.

https://thenewstack.io/deployment-strategies/



Change Management Change management is an umbrella term that covers all types of processes implemented to prepare and support organisational change. These range from methodologies applied to resources, business processes, budget allocations and other operational aspects of a project. Change management in the context of project management often refers to a change control process when working on a project. That is, the process of change is formally introduced and approved as a change management system.

Change management isn’t solely about projects and organisations. You’re preparing, equipping and supporting team members, real people, to adopt change. This drives the organisational success of the project. Change management offers a structured method that can reign in chaos and control your project. But it takes a strong leader to manage that change. Top Tip: Get your students to think about how they manage change in their own lives and how they make decisions, from simple pro and con charts to more complex decision-making tools. Requirements Functional requirements define what a software system should do. It defines a function of a software system or its module. Functionality is measured as a set of inputs to the system under test, to the outputs from the system.

The non-functional requirements, (what a system should be) are mostly derived from functional requirements (what a system should do) based on input from the customer and other stakeholders. Non-functional requirement details are documented in the System Architecture document.

Non-functional requirements explain the quality aspects of the system to be constructed such as; performance, portability, usability, etc. Non-functional requirements, unlike functional requirements, are implemented incrementally in all systems. Select appropriate technologies for developing a project Selecting technologies fall into two major categories: the development technologies and the target deployment platform. These constrain each other. Please be aware that if they’re working for a client who has an established deployment process, or if they're planning to make a mobile app, this decision might have already been made for the developers, in which case they'll need to select from preapproved or supported technologies.



Design: The two main design approaches are drawn out by reviewing product design processes across multiple projects by various key analysis firms (Like PwC and Gartner). The ones identified are; 'inside-out approach', by which the inside design is defined before the outside design and 'outside-in approach' by which the outside design is defined before the inside design.

Software design typically has three levels of process: • Architectural Design - The architectural design is the highest abstract version of

the system. It identifies the software as a system with many components interacting with each other. At this level, the designers get the idea of proposed solution domain.

• High-level Design- The high-level design breaks the ‘single entity-multiple component’ concept of architectural design into less-abstracted view of sub-systems and modules and depicts their interaction with each other. High-level design focuses on how the system along with all its components can be implemented in forms of modules. It recognises modular structure of each sub-system and their relation and interaction between each other.

• Detailed Design- Detailed design deals with the implementation part of what is seen as a system and its sub-systems in the previous two designs. It is more detailed towards modules and their implementations. It defines logical structure of each module and their interfaces to communicate with other modules.

For more information you can use the following to showcase this: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_engineering/software_design_basics.htm Top Tip Get the students away from the screen as much as possible during the design work. You want them to draw and sketch and use ‘real elements’ as much as possible and not fall back on using computing elements to design. They need to get used to designing on paper and sketching out elements and building from there, rather than having a fixed finish in mind.

Design Thinking Approach:

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process which seeks to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. The method consists of 5 phases—Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test, and is most useful when you want to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_engineering/software_design_basics.htm



Top Tip: 5 design approaches listed on the below link are the best ways to understand what needs to be discussed with the students during the teaching for this element; https://uxplanet.org/5-design-approaches-to-start-a-new-creative-project-3b548073cb90 Risk To manage projects effectively you need to be able to recognise and manage risk. Risk is the possibility that you may not achieve your product, schedule, or resource targets because something unexpected occurs or something planned doesn’t occur. All projects have some degree of risk. Factors that increase risk are: • The longer your project lasts • The longer the time is between preparing your project plan and starting the work • The less experience you, your organisation, or your team members have with

similar projects • The newer your project’s technology is

In other words, anything that can cause you either to fall short of or to exceed your established project targets, if it occurs, is considered a risk. While some approaches for analysing and responding to both types of risks are similar.

The IEEE have some good risk profile models for software projects. They were created by collecting risk information from thousands of completed software projects, then categorising and ranking the common ones. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4625010

https://uxplanet.org/5-design-approaches-to-start-a-new-creative-project-3b548073cb90

https://uxplanet.org/5-design-approaches-to-start-a-new-creative-project-3b548073cb90

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4625010



Student Practice Activities Practice Activity 1 Deliver a podcast on the key roles within a project management process, this should be in the style of a professional podcast, and it should focus on demonstrating that the student understands the main roles, and why/how these are essential to project delivery.

Practice Activity 2 Ask your students to take on 1 role and give a description of that role and the types of activities that would be in and out of scope for the person in that role. This could be in the style of a presentation to managers or a written report.

Practice Activity 3 A company (hairdressers) is wanting to setup a web application to allow for clients to book appointments and manage their requirements. Generate the tech stack required for the project with appropriate reasoning that could be presented to the company for their decision.

Practice Activity 4 ‘Deployment of a project’ is a term commonly associated with app development and version control releases that incrementally build upon the first version of a product, designed to focus on Minimum Viable Product.

Ask your students to create a pro and con list for deploying an application update that could affect clients or users, and then share it with a partner to see what they agree and disagree on.

Practice Activity 5 A research project needs to be conducted by the students on companies that have suffered negative effects due to the release of a change or product that the user base did not like. The site https://www.cbinsights.com/research/corporate-innovation-product-fails/ shows some of the worst fails. Ask students to investigate 2-3 of them and explain what went wrong and what could have been done to mitigate the negative reactions.

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/corporate-innovation-product-fails/

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/corporate-innovation-product-fails/



Practice Activity 6 As a series of small groups ask the students to consider what they would pack for a 2-mile hike in the country on a warm day. Give them a couple of minutes to create lists on Post-it notes and review their responses as a group.

Extension: Some will suggest taking nothing, or just a bottle of water, others rain jackets, and other items. Get them to review the pros and cons of these items (I.e. they are useful if you need them, but a burden to carry). Then repeat the exercise changing some parameters such as making it a 10-mile hike, or multi day trip, in the mountains, in the Winter, etc. Now the lists get longer as people prepare for more eventualities.

Practice Activity 7 Ask the students to get in groups of 2 to prepare a Vlog on the platforms used for source code and content management, going through the pros and cons of each and how they could be used in certain situations.

Practice Activity 8 The students have been asked to design a new level for their favourite computer game. They must produce basic flowcharts for level progression (I.e. maps) and basic designs for the visual look and feel.

Extension: Ask them to explain their choices and why they have made them within the game and how it fits the aesthetics and feel of the game’s normal look and feel.

Practice Activity 9 As part of their professional development the students need to be used to presenting information, so ask them to treat this activity as a “Job Interview task”. Using the following https://innovationmanagement.se/2019/08/05/the-five-factors-that-drive-digital-innovation/ as a basis for the factors that drive change, the students need to produce a job interview task for Bean and Brew that dictate specific reasons why the company may be deciding to change, this could be as if they were interviewing for the role of Project Manager for the company.

Practice Activity 10 Using the chart at: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-trends-drive-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2020/ pick 3 new technologies that may disrupt the marketplace for companies who are looking at digital innovation and showcase how this might change the way companies operate in the digital space over the next 5 years with technological changes.

https://innovationmanagement.se/2019/08/05/the-five-factors-that-drive-digital-innovation/

https://innovationmanagement.se/2019/08/05/the-five-factors-that-drive-digital-innovation/

https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-trends-drive-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2020/

https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-trends-drive-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2020/



Software to support Task 2 Balsamiq: https://balsamiq.com/

Balsamiq is a fantastic tool for creating wireframes.

Lucidchart: https://www.lucidchart.com

Lucidchart is designed to create diagrams but its free functionality can be used to both showcase projects as well as create navigable wireframes.

Github: https://github.com/

GitHub is a development platform inspired by the way you work. From open source to business, you can host and review code, manage projects, and build software alongside 50 million developers

Pastebin: https://pastebin.pl/

Pastebin is a type of online content hosting service where users can store plain text, e.g. to source code snippets for code review via Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

https://balsamiq.com/

https://www.lucidchart.com/

https://github.com/

https://pastebin.pl/



Task 3: Gathering Feedback to Inform Future Developments

Performance Outcomes Covered PO4: Create solutions in a social and collaborative environment PO5: Discover, evaluate and apply reliable sources of knowledge

Works well with these Assessment Criteria 3.1 Understand and evaluate the reliability of different sources of knowledge 1.4 Understand and define the functional and non-functional requirements of a software solution 8.1 Understand the changing nature of digital products and the factors that drive change 5.2 Understand and be able to select appropriate technologies used in a social and collaborative environment



Skills to cover Feedback Ask the students to think about why feedback is important to the development of a product and what key insights it can give to help produce a better product.

Analytics and data provide companies with a range of insights into what their customers want from the business. However, data often is not able to explain why customers behave the way they do. For example; Why are customers using one feature three times as often as another? Why do most of the customers stop creating accounts at the last step? Or, what causes customers to use the product less frequently (and eventually stop altogether)? Customer Demographics/Segmentation Customer segmentation is the process of dividing customers into groups based on common characteristics so companies can market to each group effectively and appropriately. In business-to-business marketing, a company might segment customers according to a wide range of factors, including: • Industry • Number of employees • Products previously purchased from the company • Location, etc.

In business-to-consumer marketing, companies often segment customers according to demographics that include: • Age • Gender • Marital status • Location (urban, suburban, rural) • Life stage (children, teens, young adult, middle-aged, elderly, etc.)

Understanding the types of demographics that use your product or service is often the key to creating good questions to gather useful feedback to understand the user needs.



User Personas Personas are fictional characters designers use to reflect user types, pinpointing who they are and how they use your products/services to fulfil a need. Designers create personas from user data and demographic/segmentation data, to understand user characteristics, needs, goals, etc. and gain valuable insights into user behaviours, and ultimately understand what will make them loyal customers.

TED Video on Personas: Intro to Personas in UX Design

Top Tip: Ask the students to think about the types of people they typically meet throughout the week. Ask them to think through how we subconsciously categorise these individuals by making assumptions about them. What do we base these assumptions on (clothes, looks, body posture, accent)?

This is a good time to explore unconscious bias with the students and get them to look at their own thoughts around stereotyping people.

Getting Feedback There are various ways to gain feedback, the most used ones are: • System created Feedback • Usability Testing • Direct Interviews with users • In-App/Program User Feedback Forms • Live-Chat Feedback Question • Email Surveys for User Feedback • Incentivised Feedback • User Testing for on UX/UI

This article by the UK Government looks at how to use data to improve service delivery: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/measuring-success/using-data-to-improve-your-service-an-introduction

Creating Feedback A customer feedback form is one method of obtaining answers about a company’s product, service, and business from its users. The aim is to get a better understanding of the overall customer experience a business provides.

From a satisfaction survey to a user experience questionnaire, there are plenty of different ways to gather customer feedback, depending on what type of information a business is seeking. While many companies choose to create their own feedback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An2qbKbyY6g

https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/measuring-success/using-data-to-improve-your-service-an-introduction

https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/measuring-success/using-data-to-improve-your-service-an-introduction



form, businesses can also use ready-made online feedback questionnaires or even use social media to obtain customer feedback.

Article: https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-feedback-forms/

Surveys/Questionnaires Reviews, surveys and polls are the most broadly utilised techniques for creating engagement. The key to creating a survey is being clear about what you want to learn from your customers. The structure of a survey is almost as important as the questions asked within it.

Firstly, it is necessary to define the term questionnaire; a questionnaire is a research tool consisting of a series of questions (and other prompts) to gather information from respondents. Its output is measurable and is ideal for collecting information that is not available elsewhere.

Why use a survey/questionnaire?

Ask your students to think about why using questionnaires can be effective. Some reasons can include; • They can be disseminated to large volumes of people • They can be used to describe, compare or explain • They can cover activities and behaviours, knowledge, attitudes and preferences • They can include specific objectives, • They can consist of standardised and highly structured questions • Be used to collect quantitative data (for example, information that can be counted

or measured) • They can be used periodically to demonstrate evidence of progress or

improvements Useful Links for questionnaires: You can use tools such as Microsoft Forms (https://forms.office.com/ ) and Google Forms (https://www.google.co.uk/forms/ ) to quickly and easy create good quality questionnaires and surveys to allow users to respond efficiently. Both these tools allow quantitative and qualitative responses. They both also allow you to view and export your results easily in order to carry out deeper analysis.

https://blog.hubspot.com/service/questionnaire

https://www.typeform.com/surveys/

https://zapier.com/learn/forms-surveys/writing-effective-survey/

https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/downloads/file/3720/guidance_note_29_creating_a_questionnaire.pdf

https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-feedback-forms/

https://forms.office.com/

https://www.google.co.uk/forms/

https://blog.hubspot.com/service/questionnaire

https://www.typeform.com/surveys/

https://zapier.com/learn/forms-surveys/writing-effective-survey/





User Analytics/User Behaviour Statistics User analytics are a method for analysing the users of digital products (such as apps or software). A user analytics tool, or product analytics program, is a type of software that performs user analysis and showcases deeper insights than a typical digital product can provide alone.

A user analytics tool reveals the actions users take within a digital product. It records and displays activity that triggers and tracks user behaviour when the software is used. Teams can use this information to improve aspects such as the product’s usability, marketing strategies, retention, and customer values.

Ask your students to think about the analytics tools within YouTube or Instagram and ask them why these platforms have allowed content creators to have access to these tools.

Below is a link to a useful article on how data analytics is used in sport

https://www.eis2win.co.uk/resource/using-data-to-power-sports-performance/ Appraisals In a team, a member will be given feedback on their own progress and job performance. An appraisal is a meeting, usually held by a manager, to discuss the performance of a subordinate. They are generally carried out on a quarterly or bi-annual basis and typically review the objectives both the employee and the manager have set out and agreed.

What is the purpose of an appraisal? Appraisals are an effective way for employers to check progress, as well as allowing employees to talk about their own development.

Here are a few business reasons for carrying out an appraisal: • Achievements can be acknowledged • Employee career direction/salary will usually be reviewed • Responsibilities and objectives can be assessed and (potentially) altered • Any issues can be discussed and resolved • Areas of improvement can be pinpointed • Training and support can be arranged in line with objectives

ACAS provides an archive of useful resources for an appraisal: https://archive.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1438

https://www.eis2win.co.uk/resource/using-data-to-power-sports-performance/

https://archive.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1438



Student Practice Activities Practice Activity 1: Ask the students to pick their favourite computer game and create an article or video blog to share their experience of the game. They should focus on the UX/UI, and what the game developers could do to improve the game.

Practice Activity 2: Ask the students to create a survey on footwear (i.e. trainers) or other item of clothing. Make sure the survey has at least 10 questions asking both quantitative and qualitative questions. The survey should ultimately try and find out if the students would recommend their footwear brand to others and what they like about their shoes, trainers, boots, etc. and how they could be improved.

Practice Activity 3: Using the answers from Practice Activity 2 ask the students to analyse the data and create charts/graphs in order to create a presentation to a new footwear retailer who is considering stocking new footwear items aimed at young adults.

Once they have produced a slide deck (max 5 slides) ask them to present their findings to a group of classmates who can act as the buying managers.

Practice Activity 4: Ask the students to read the following article: https://www.appcues.com/blog/in-app-user-surveys-customer-feedback-nps-examples

Have them create a pros and cons list for each company in the article. What did they do well and what could have been done differently for their in-app feedback?

From the insights they’ve now gained ask them to produce a simple guide (leaflet or other such document) to advise an internal business department on the best way to create feedback questionnaires/surveys.

Practice Activity 5: Using the toolkit: https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html get the students to generate 3 positive and 1 negative persona for their favourite place to eat.

https://www.appcues.com/blog/in-app-user-surveys-customer-feedback-nps-examples

https://www.appcues.com/blog/in-app-user-surveys-customer-feedback-nps-examples

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html



Task 4: Evaluating feedback to inform future developments Performance Outcomes Covered PO3: Change, maintain and support software

PO5: Discover, evaluate and apply reliable sources of knowledge

Works well with these Assessment Criteria 5.1 Understand the reasons for using collaborative techniques

5.2 Understand and be able to select appropriate technologies used in a social and collaborative environment

8.3 Understand how to maintain code as part of a larger team

Skills to cover Maintenance Software Maintenance is the process of modifying a software product after it has been delivered to the customer. The main purpose of software maintenance is to modify and update software application after launch to correct faults and to improve performance.

Software Maintenance must be performed in order to: • Correct faults. • Improve the design. • Implement enhancements. • Interface with other systems. • Migrate legacy software. • Retire software.

Maintenance can be divided into the following: • Corrective maintenance: Corrective maintenance of a software product may be

essential either to rectify some bugs observed while the system is in use, or to enhance the performance of the system.

• Adaptive maintenance: This includes modifications and updates when the customers need the product to run on new platforms, on new operating systems, or when they need the product to interface with new hardware and software.



• Perfective maintenance: A software product needs maintenance to support the new features that the users want or to change different types of functionalities of the system according to the customer demands.

• Preventive maintenance: This type of maintenance includes modifications and updates to prevent future problems of the software. It goals to attend problems, which are not significant at this moment but may cause serious issues in future.

Top Tip When teaching this to the students ask them to go through the process of why maintenance is important and what negative impacts it can have if isn’t put in place.

Student Practice Activities Practice Activity 1 Ask the students to deliver a Viva on why maintenance needs to be performed on software and the consequences of what would happen if a bug, or zero-day hack isn’t fixed. Ask the students to research unpatched bugs on the internet and discuss up to 3 examples in the Viva as to why it is important. Practice Activity 2 Get the students to perform a SWOT analysis on themselves, focusing on key attributes they have and don’t have, and where they could improve their skills in order to deliver a technology project. From this they then need to create a personal action plan on how they could address these weaknesses over the coming months and years. Practice Activity 3 Using website https://codeopen.io, get the students to choose 2 examples of code that they think are interesting and fun. They then need to draw up a plan for editing that code to improve it and change it in some way, and then edit the code in line with their plan. This can then be extended with an evaluation exercise on the process, and how it went, and the final product. Practice Activity 4 As all apps have problems companies need to draw up a maintenance plan for the development of an app. Get them to look up any app on their phone, and then look at its ‘store’ entry. From this the students need to assess if the changes were major and whether they effected the running of the app, or if they were minor upgrades. Get the

https://codeopen.io/



students to evaluate the timeframes that are different between major and minor errors.

Practice Activity 5 Roadmaps are a common form of expressing where a product is going over its development cycle. Ask the students to search for roadmaps for products on the internet and then to produce a 3 minute videocast on whether this is the right approach to take with the product and what the roadmap will mean for the final product.

Practice Activity 6 Using guidance here: https://roadmunk.com/guides/what-is-a-product-roadmap/ ask the students to pick any app or game they are familiar with, and then design a roadmap to implement the features of the game/app with realistic timeframes. The roadmap needs to be presented in a simple format. This activity can be extended by getting them to promote and explain it to the other students.

https://roadmunk.com/guides/what-is-a-product-roadmap/

digital production, design and development project

Documents