gathering requirements
DESCRIPTION
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 - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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">
partylunch
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 pageVIRTUAL = text wraps automatically in Web window. Still
sent to CGI in a single linePHYSICAL=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:[email protected]" 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