Gathering Requirements

What do users want?

Information Gathering Techniques

• Surveys

• Interviews

• Focus Groups

Surveys

• Paper surveys

• Electronic surveys• E-mail

– in-text

– attachments

• Web-based– processing data

• Phone Surveys

Interviews

• Personal– Come prepared– Tape recorder– Open versus Closed questions

• Phone– Cold call– Selected users

Focus Groups

• Room setting– small versus large groups– moderator– synergy

• Electronic– Group decision support systems

• Cost prohibitive

– Platform Issues

What to Use?

• Ask some questions– Do users have e-mail addresses?– Can you meet with them personally?– Snail mail addresses only?– Does a Website exist?

• More than likely use a combination of two or more techniques.

Think About

• What techniques might you use?

• Team will be asked to provide information gathering techniques, plans and tools in reports.– Initial: tools, techniques, any preliminary

results– Final: tools, techniques, results

• Link to how the Website meets the needs

Creating Web Page Forms

Paperwork with a New Twist

What are Forms?

• On the Website– input data– guestbooks

• Behind the scenes– files– databases

Behind the Scenes

• Active Server Pages

• Common Gateway Interface Script– CGI– receives data from the Web page and then

processes the data to create information

• Server-side

Other CGI Uses

• Hit-Counters

• Server-side maps

• Message and Web Boards

• E-mail lists

• Cookies

CGI Made With. . .

• AppleScript

• C/C++

• Perl

• TCL (Tool Command Language)

• Visual Basic

• Java

• Depends on the System

Where to get them. . .

• Ask your ISP what CGIs are available

• In UNIX system, in cgi-bin directory

• We will use GForm– on homepages.wmich.edu– http://homepages.wmich.edu/documentation/gform/

• FormMail (v 1.9) at Matt's Script Archive is good as well

End-User Side

• Online Forms– input boxes for text and numbers– radio buttons (option buttons) to select a single

option– check boxes to specify an item as present or

absent– text areas for expanded input

Form Element

• Each element is a field in the form and will have a value

• Need the <form> first though

<form name="reg">Form Elements and HTML layout tags

</form>

<form>

• Can use most HTML tags in the FORM to specify layouts and presentation of material

Input Boxes

<input type="option" name="text">– button– checkbox– hidden– image– password– radio– reset– submit– text– textarea

Input Box Size and Length

• Some input boxes (like text) allow you to set their size

<input size="value"> (in characters)

• Can also limit the amount of text entered– <input maxlength=“value”> (in characters)

<input size="9" maxlength="9">

Value Property

• Can set a default with " "– <input value=" ">

– <input value="United States">

United States

Selection Lists

• Used to allow a user to view a list and select one or a multiple number of items

• How many pizzas versus choosing the toppings on a pizza

• Similar to list tags <ul> and <ol>

Selecting One Item

<select name="numberofpizzas">

<option>1

<option>2

<option>3

</select>

Multiple Items

<select multiple name="toppings">

<option value="1">mushrooms

<option value="2">olives

<option value="3">green peppers

<option value="4" selected>anchovies

</select>• The VALUE and the SELECTED are optional and

can be used with both types of lists

Selection List Appearance

• <select size="value">– show more or less of the list– by default shows one item in a drop-down box

<select multiple name="toppings" size="3">

RADIO

<input type="radio" name="text" value="value">

<input type="radio" name="whypizza" value="party">

<input type="radio" name="whypizza" value="lunch">

party

lunch

Why Pizza

CHECKBOXES

<input type="checkbox" name="text"><input type="checkbox" name="hungry"

value="yes">

Set a default

<input type="checkbox" name="hungry" value="yes" checked>

TEXTAREA

<textarea rows="value" cols="value"

name="text">

default text

</textarea>

* Close out the TEXTAREA tag

TEXTAREA Example

<textarea rows="3" name="comments">Enter Comments</textarea>

COLS or ROWS optional -- can choose default

WRAP Property

<textarea rows="value" cols="value"

name="text" wrap="option">default text</textarea>

OFF = all text in a single line scrolling off the page

VIRTUAL = text wraps automatically in Web window. Still sent to CGI in a single line

PHYSICAL=text wraps automatically in Web window. Line wrap info sent to CGI as well

FORM Buttons

• Need to have a means for users to perform actions

<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Send Information">

<input type="reset" name="Reset" value="Clear Information">

<input type="button">

PROPERTIES

• How the form is handled.– ACTION– METHOD– ENCTYPE

Properties (cont.)

<form action="url">Location of CGI script

<form method="type">Get versus Post

– Get attaches information to the end of the URL specified in the ACTION area (e.g. server-side maps)

– Post is the preferred method -- use it with Gform– Post sends the form information as a separate data

stream/file

ENCTYPE

• Various options like multiple form data, etc.

• Default value is text -- what GForm uses

MAILTO

• Can also have the form data sent to an e-mail address instead of a file or a database

<form action="mailto:rea@unix.cc.wmich.edu" method="post">

Most Important

• Go through the Chapter 6 tutorial

• Go through the GForm instructions and tutorial (link on Resource Site)

• Try linking your Gform and making it work– Take my example and modify it on your site

• Ask Questions