Task 1.3

Blogging continues.....
My first blog of the new semester.....and this time not for SAAD but for SDAI...

You would be wondering what SDAI stands for? Its System Design And Implementation (SDAI)
From what I'm told by my lecturer..... SDAI is just the continuation of System Analysis and Design (SAAD) and looks at the design and implementation phases in more detail.
Anyways my first blog is to summarise an article titled -Growing Up: Moving from technology- Centered to Human- Centered Products for task 1.3.

Initially, I found the article to be boring and really LONG! But since it was the first task and i wanted to get started with blogging, I forced myself to go through the article several times to get the gist of it and understand what is the motive of the article. Finally i found it interesting and quite informative about the computer industry.

Basically the article outlines how the computer industry is evolving from just being technology- focused companied to customer/ human-focused companies. Before technology companies would just sell their products based on what technology they produce and hoped people would buy it. And people did buy those products. Those people who were willing to try new technology and able to purchase them were called Early adopters. However, as products matured companies suddenly found themselves in a completely different position. A mass market was created and these people were taking interest in their products and started demanding better technology and features. These people were called Late adopters. These people are considered to be conservative and pragmatic who would wait for technology/ computer companies and their respective products to establish themselves in the market before they make a purchasing decision in their favour. But they would demand for brand name, price, appearance, value, convenience, prestige, ease of use, low cost, good user experience, reliability and basically want solutions that simplify their lives and not technologies that complicate them.

Companies realized that their products needed marketing experts to persuade people that their product was unique from other company products. But at the same time this would bring internal tension and conflicts within the organization, especially between technologists/ engineers and marketers. The reason being that its hard to come up with new technologies and implement them at a faster rate and sometimes the features that customers want is either not possible or will take time to achieve or unreasonable. But Marketers don't understand technology and the engineers for their job is simply discover and meet consumer requirements.

In general, customers have greater demands and want to be shown that the product is a worthwhile investment. And unfortunately the mass market is not technically sophisticated so require services such as help desks from the organization to handle their technology/ user related queries. These services can be expensive for the organization so would need to work on the product beforehand to ensure it enhances the user experience. Thus, technology companies discovered that they not only need marketing, technology but also require user experience to meet overall customer needs.

Now its time to introduce you all to the phenomenon - "Human Centered Product Development". Human centered development means that successful products requires 3 equal partners, or 3 skill set or 3 legs of tripod: Technology, Marketing and User Experience. All three provide necessary and complementary strengths.

To explain the importance of these partners take the following scenarios: a product fails if it is easy to use and understand but has deficient technology so that it is too slow and limited in ability. Similarly if a product fails if it has wonderful technology but is too difficult to use. A Product also fails if it has wonderful technology, accomplishes wonderful things, and is easy to use but is too expensive. Hence all three partners must be in balance.

An example from the article, of companies facing similar situation, are the following:

• The Xerox Star is a product that failed despite superb user experience; it had insufficient technology and marketing.
• The Apple II and the IBM PC illustrate are products that succeeded despite limited technology and poor user experience. They had great marketing but more important they handled tasks of sufficient value that their users were willing to tolerate the deficiencies.

A lesson to learn from this article is that people (early adopters) are willing to overlook the deficiencies because of the great benefits. Superb functionality can conquer, can make for a viable business, but without full support for all three legs of the tripod, it will never stand as a business for the everyday consumer (late adopters/ mass market). So in a mature market, a human-centered development process is not only appropriate, it is required.

In conclusion, computer industry has to go through this revolution of changing times and changing behavior where old fashion techniques won't work and have to adopt new philosophies to thrive in a competitive industry and one of the solution is to embrace quickly the phenomenon of "Human centered development" which requires three different skill sets, three legs of product development: Technology, Marketing, and User Experience.

Hope everyone enjoyed my blog and don't worry there are many more to come for this semester...

Look out for it! .... :)

Week 13

Good Morning SAAD! It's Week 13.....

I am relieved that i just submitted my assignment 2 before the lecture.

Assignment 2 was quite hard as i got stuck between making a choice of which possibilities to follow especially while doing the first-cut sequence diagram and design class diagram. This was a result of the Assignment 2 specification not being very clear about what it wants and how is it suppose to be like. Anyways i did the assignment to the best of my abilities and hope i get a good grade for this assignment as well.

I am so happy that all my assignments are over and i can primarily focus on my exams.

For me Week 13 is the final week for lectures and tutorials in my SAAD journey.

Week 13 was basically about Revision and Exam tips. Our lecturer told us about the exam format and which main topics we must focus on to do well in the exams. I considered these tips as very important and my hand was quickly jotting down all the points that seemed relevant to me during the lecture.

From my understanding, the exam would have 3 sections:

Section A - MCQS (20 marks)
Section B - Short answers (40 marks)
Section C - Long Answers & Diagrams (40 marks)

After going through the topics i feel the exam is do-able.... the only worrying factor would be for me is TIME MANAGEMENT!

I need to know my stuff very well and need to time myself. I just follow one simple phrase when i do exams: "Do your best and God will do the rest"

Now moving on to the tutorial for this week......

We did the sample and past year exams in class and tried to understand the format of the exam. This exercise proved very useful as i was able to clarify some of my doubts with the tutor and know where i stand at the moment for the exams. I also figured out some of my weaknesses that i would be working on in next few days so i am better prepared for exam.

So this is my last official entry for this semester. However, I may write a new post on my feelings and experience on the exam after 15th June.

I would like to thank the unit leaders of Fit2001 for providing excellent study resources and initiating this blog facility. It helped me regularly vent my feelings and reflect back on what i have done on the subject.

A personal thanks goes to Mr. Peter O' Donnell for making me the week 8 blog of the week.... i seriously did not think my blog was that impressive to be given such a recognition. It does mean a lot to me and i am proud of it.

I would like to also thank Mr. Peter O' Donnell for some of the advices he gave regarding the assignments in my blog and for the useful responses he gave in the Discussion Forums.

Lastly a BIG thank you to my lecturer, Mr. Yeap Boon Han, and my tutor, Mr. Ramesh Kumar, for their continuous help, advice and guidance throughout the semester. Hope we meet again in some other unit because i am not graduating yet and it was lovely having both of you teaching this subject.

Another thanks to my followers for taking the time to read this blog and all of my previous blogs....

To All of my FIT2001 students......Best of Luck for Exams and Happy Holidays!

Week 12

WEEK 12 to me means the last lecture for this unit and a sad moment. After this i would be left with just one revision class and my exam before i end my journey.

It feels like it was just yesterday when i was beginning this unit and here i am at the closing stages of this unit..... I am getting sentimental now as i reflect back on the previous weeks i have gone through this unit..... but i guess that's the type of person I am.... who cherishes small memories of life...

Now moving on from my emotional moment to the actual lecture material...

Week 12 was titled - Design: System Interface

This lecture was again interesting for me because i did not see any complex diagrams.... by now my blog followers should know that i am not a big fan of diagrams.... : -)

This lecture taught us about relational databases and what technologies are there for databases. To name a few DB2, MySQL and Sybase. I was paying close attention to this because relational database was one part of assignment 2 and this is what i was looking for earlier.

Relational Model is a diagram where you convert your classes into tables and you need to identify primary keys and foreign keys. After that you need to figure out the appropriate data types and the relationships between these tables and use crow's notation. Luckily, i did database last semester so i was aware of the notation already.

Then i was taught about System interfaces. By definition, System Interface are inputs and outputs with minimal or no human interaction. Similarly system interface, system output and system controls does not require much human interaction.

Examples to help identify System Interfaces are:

1) Highly automated input devices
2) Inputs from other systems
3) Inputs from data in external databases
4) Outputs to external database
5) Outputs with minimal Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
6) Outputs with other systems
7) Real-time Connections

Another thing that caught my attention were some names of input devices that were used to avoid human entry and eliminate human errors. These input devices were:

1) Magnetic card strip readers
2) Bar-code readers
3) OCR readers and scanners
4) RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device)
5) Electronic pens & writing surfaces
6) Digitizers such as digital cameras & digital audio devices

To identify user and system inputs, Traditional Structured Models (such as DFD's & structure charts)and Object Oriented Models (such as System sequence diagrams and design class diagrams) can be used.

Output can be shown in the form of reports and there are 3 types of reports: Printed, Electronic Displays and turnaround documents. And these Reports can be formatted to avoid information overload and to ensure that the information is meaningful and presented in a professional manner with dates and page numbers.

Now a system interface needs some form of control and the types of control that system developers design and implement to protect the system and its data are: Integrity and Security

Integrity Controls are used to ensure only appropriate & correct business transaction occurs, ensure transactions are recorded & processed correctly, prevent any fraud, protect & safeguard assets such as (software, hardware and information)of organization.
Integrity control has 3 types: Input, Database and Output

Security Controls are used to protect assets of organization from all threats.

Data Security include methods such as encryption, decryption, symmetric key, asymmetric key and public key. There was also a concept of digital signatures and certificates being taught which i found quite interesting. For example, a term called Secure Hypertext Transport protocol( HTTPs )is basically what we see in the URL bar to indicate a web visitor has entered a secure website.

After this interesting lecture was another interesting tutorial....

Our Lecturer.... Mr. Yeap Boon Han made his final "Guest Appearance" in our tutorial classes by helping us with Week 12 and doing previous tutorials that were relevant to our assignment 2. He taught us about relational database models by drawing a sample diagram on the whiteboard and also told us about how to construct a design class model and how does a first-cut sequence diagram looks like. He also briefly told us about what was needed and the purpose of a user interface. And i found all these tips very useful for my assignment 2..

We were also showed how an actual system analysis and design report looks like by showing a THICK booklet of a Pharmacy System.... and it must have been close to 850 pages.

From that point I realized that a System Analyst job is no joke and involves a lot of work. Nonetheless, this experience has just made me more confident that pursuing a career in System Analysis and Design is challenging and worth it.

Now i proceed to do my remaining assignments for this week and i hope by now i have all that is required to do assignment 2... because i have not done much work on it yet.

Week 11

Good Morning Monday! Good Morning SAAD!

We are in week 11 and i just cannot believe that how quick the semester has gone by.

Although i was sleepy today some key terms were able to catch my attention. Words like affordance, visibility, human computer interaction(HCI), 8 golden rules, user interface, system interface and metaphors were more appealing and attention gaining to me than the diagrams which left my mind blank and i would stare at them being clueless and dismayed.

We did not start off with week 11 lecture since Sir, Mr. Yeap Boon Han, wanted to revise the first-cut sequence diagram, collaboration and interaction diagram so we could understand them better and how they are constructed. Understanding these diagrams now would make our life easier when doing assignment 2. Thus i paid close attention reluctantly to what the diagram was all about. After explaining those diagrams there were a few slides from week 10 were explained.

Then we started week 11 lecture titled - "Design: the user Interface"

User interface basically gives an idea about the inputs and outputs related to the system and what suitable form should the system be in to have an effective interaction with users.

There are 3 types of User Interfaces:

1) Physical aspects: touched by the user

2) Perceptual aspects: these are things that the user sees, hears or touches

3) Conceptual aspects: this is what the user knows about the system & the logical functions related to it.

There were plenty more of key terms that i do not vividly remember from this lecture at the moment but after a long while and for a change that was overdue ... this lecture was not about understanding complex diagrams ....* sigh* .....i am truly grateful for that.

Moving on to the tutorial class....

To my amazement, the tutor missed tutorial 10 that we were supposed to do this week since we did tutorial 9 last week and he was telling us to do the review questions that were related to todays lecture.... yes you guessed right we were doing Tutorial 11.

Should i call it a blessing or a curse? After doing the tutorial i was able to relate the key terms mentioned in lecture and enhance my understanding on them. On the otherhand i have to do week 10 tutorial in my own slef-study time which is being used for a hectic assignment schedule this week!

Anyways i was happy again and was able forget my assignment headache for a short while.... because at the end of the lecture we had a photo session!!!..... Yipeeeeeeeee

I was taking photos with my friends and i was at the very center next to the tutor.....

However, when i saw the actual photo i was upset because my eyes were closed.

But anyways i want to thank Mr. Ramesh for being very kind, helpful and useful for me as a facilitator throughout the duration of this subject.

And a Vote of Special Thanks to Yeap Boon Han as well for his "GUEST APPEARANCES" in some of the tutorial classes because without his help i might have not have had much progress in my assignments.

As i move towards the end of this journey, i have memories that will truly cherish my life and soemthing i can reflect back with pride and self-fulfillement.

Week 10

Wow! its a Monday morning and i just submitted my Assignment 1b in the assignment submission box. I was feeling so sleepy and tired after all the effort i put in assignment1b for the past few days.

I just realized that Fit2001 assignments can be mentally draining since a lot of thought goes into the assignment and wondered how tough the real system analyst would feel after going through all the work done in an analysis phase.

Anyways my Assignment 1b was basically a Requirement Specification Report which contained a title page, a coversheet, a table of contents, an executive summary, defining the system scope by using a context diagram, a use case diagram, a brief and detailed use case descriptions and (analysis) domain class models.

I made the report as professional as i possibly could and tried my level best to mention all user requirements and business functions in it. While doing this assignment i realized there are many ways in which things can be interpreted and it does not matter how the end result is as long as its logically possible.

For instance, when i was thinking about the problems and opportunities for the system, i was actually made to think what possibilities are there for the system in a logical and rational way.

Overall this assignment made me thoroughly understand the concept of object-oriented approaches which i could not understand it initially during tutorials and the lectures.

Now moving on to the lectures.....Week 10: Use case realization

Actually its part of the design phase where we use object-oriented design techniques to actually build a system based on the analysis phase. According to the lecture the object oriented design bridges the gap between user requirements and the programming aspects of the new system. Thus, programmers are able to understand what to program by looking at these object oriented models. During this lecture, i came across lots of diagrams that by the end of the lecture i could not make out which diagram was for which object-oriented model...hehe...:)

Maybe i was just too sleepy or i just need to go through the diagrams in own time becuase they can be confusing.

The lecturer higlighted important terms such as cohesion, coupling and use case controller as being important for exams. So i guess it was something for me to refer back later.

However there was one lecture slide that i did found really useful and thought was a good indication of what we have done so far and what are we going to do. This was a slide telling that:

Diagrams used during analysis phase: use case descriptions, use case diagram, activity diagram, domain model class diagram and system sequence diagram.

Diagrams used during design phase: design class diagram, interaction and package diagram.

This was a good overview of what all the diagrams were about. Luckily i had my printouts during the lecture or i would have missed this slide becuase apparently my lecturer moves between different slides very quickly that i sometimes lose track of which slide we are currently in.

Lecture ends and now i wait for my TUTORIAL class in a few hours........

For some reason we are behind in tutorials.... ARRGH!!

We were suppose to be doing Tutorial 10 on use case realization....but we were doing tutorial 9 on Data flow diagram....

At the end of this exercise we learnt how to identify a system boundary, divide the programming components and convert them into a system flowchart from a given system. Sadly, it took the whole tutorial time to try to understand the questions and we were not able to do the additional review questions.

Another tiring day..... and i am so not looking forward to my hectic schedule in week 9 where i have 3 assignments due in 3 consecutive days.....

Huh! .... my situation makes me remember a dialog from a movie " You can run but you can't hide"..... just reminds me that i have do my assignments somehow because i cannot stay away from them....

*Sheesh* i am so loving Monash now in my 2nd year.... ;)

Week 9

*Sigh*.... Just a few more weeks to go before i will complete this unit..... but i must admit the last hurdle is always the toughest one and i would have to deal with it to pass this unit. I just can't wait to get quickly to the end of week 12 somehow because it means no more boring lectures.... :)

Today, i was late for class and i was welcomed this morning with an array of even more complex diagrams that i have not seen before in my earlier lectures. Unfortunately the study guide 9 was a mere few pages and were not useful. Thus, i ended up reading the lecture notes and try paying more careful attention to the lecture.

Lecture 9 titled - "Structured Design" introduced me to system flowcharts and structured charts. System Flowcharts happen to be representations of various computer programs, files, databases, and associated manual processes that make up a complete system. In short, they show data movement within a system.

While Structured charts describes functions and subfunctions of each part of system and it also shows relationships between modules of a computer program. A Structured chart is developed using Transaction Analysis and Transform Analysis.

One difference between these two steps that i understood from the lecture was that:

• Transform Analysis uses Data flow diagrams (DFD) fragments for inputs, while Transaction Analysis uses system flowcharts and event tables for inputs

That was pretty much what i could grasp from the lecture for week 9.

Few hours later.......Tutorial 9 class begins.....

Tutorial 9 happened to be a continuation of week 8 tutorial because last week, learning to write the use case descriptions took up the whole class to understand so we couldn't do the Activity diagrams and sequence diagrams. So our work for tutorial 9 class was to make activity diagram and sequence diagrams. It was quite interesting and i learned the usage of different symbols used in Activity diagrams and Sequence diagrams.

So with the completion of week 9, i have learnt so far how to make context diagrams, data flow diagrams, use cases, use case descriptions, sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, event tables and class diagrams. Frankly speaking, i am still not an expert at making these diagrams but i guess the whole ideas of the tutorial was to get an idea of how to go about making the diagrams anf the tutor has been helpful in facilitating how to make these diagrams step by step.

Like I said before in my previous blogs, I would've appreciated if i had some more practice questions on these diagrams apart from the book and tutorials to master my skill at constructing these diagrams. An example has been while doing my Assignment1a and now currently while doing Assignment 1b, I have so many doubts because there are so many possibilities that i can't decide what to choose and I end up not knowing what should be done.

ARGGH!!!.....I will just have to trust my judgement, understanding and ability that what i am doing is the right way to go.

In conclusion this is what Analysis is all about challenging yourself to go deep and trust your judgement based on the knowledge and ability that you possess.

Time to work again on Assignment 1b with a new zeal and perspective. Thanks to this blog facility, i am able to reflect and revitalize myself again that i can perform well in this unit.

Week 8

Wow! this week went so fast that i did not realize it. Probably it's just that time of the semester where the workload is at its peak and we end up being SUPER BUSY!!

Despite of all the time pressure, i managed to find some time at the end of the week to reflect on what was Week 8 all about for System Analysis and Design.

Thinking back to lecture 8, we have now reached the Design Stage. We learnt about the 7 Design Phase activities:

1. Design and integrate network
2. Design the application architecture
3. Design user interface
4. Design system interfaces
5. Design and integrate the database
6. Prototype for Design Details
7. Design and integrate the system controls

An important difference i learnt was that Analysis is focussed on what the system should perform, referring to business requirements whereas Design is more towards how system will be built i.e. defining structural components. By definition, Design is actually a process in which the system components at architectural and detailed level are described, organized and structured.

Besides that the learning objectives of the lecture were about knowing different architectural designs such client-server architecture, single, clustered, multi-computer architecture and centralised and distributed architecture. Similarly, different types of computer networks such LAN, WAN and Internet , their network configuration and network design were mentioned during the lecture. As usual, another lecture that turned out to be boring for me.

Honestly, this unit is getting more complex and boring as we progress towards the end of this unit. I just see complex diagrams, topics and text nowadays in lectures and unfortunately my workload is so much that i don't have much time to go through the book for more details. The study guide again was a good friend helping me understand what is actually in the lecture slides. The lecture slides is just full of brief information and diagrams which not enough for understanding.

Anyways my prime focus is getting all remaining assignments done and thinking about the exam instead of criticizing the unit. That's why i love this blog facility, i get to vent my frustrations on this unit and reflect on my experience so far to motivate myself to improve my understanding for this unit.

Oops! i forgot to mention that my event table was approved and all main requirements were present. I just lost marks on representation and professionalism. Now i can progress with my Assignment 1b with not much changes to make so time to speed up work!

Fast Forward...... to tutorial class!

The tutorial class was all about learning to make Use Case Descriptions. Our tutor was very helpful and needs some praise for making sure we understood the whole concept step by step. It was after a long time that i actually felt i was not much lost in both classes.

A nice way to end week 8 of my System Analysis and Design (SAAD) Journey.