Projects from CS-255 System Analysis and Design.
Briefly summarize the DriverPass project. Who was the client? What type of system did they want you to design?
The client for DriverPass was the owner of the company. He wanted a system designed for aiding students in passing their driving test. He wanted to accomplish this through online practice tests and on-the-road driving training.
For this project, I feel like I did well with designing my diagrams. They provided the needed steps to complete a process, without going overboard with too much detail.
If you could choose one part of your work on these documents to revise, what would you pick? How would you improve it?
In some cases, with my documentation, I was too concise. I would jump right into the details, often forgetting to provide any introduction or conclusion for the document.
How did you interpret the user’s needs and implement them into your system design? Why is it so important to consider the user’s needs when designing?
I used the client’s answers from the interview transcript as the basis for all requirements for the system. The client clearly stated what most of the needs for the system were. Those needs could be directly translated into requirements for the system. It’s important to consider the user’s needs when designing the system because they are the ones that are going to be using the system. If you make it too complicated or unintuitive or doesn’t do what they need it to do, they are not going to use it. That’s why it’s vital to include the user’s needs in the design process.
How do you approach designing software? What techniques or strategies would you use in the future to analyze and design a system?
I approach software design as a series of steps to be completed. Each part of the design is broken down into separate tasks that I can complete and check off. This provides a systematic approach to ensure that all criteria are met, and the design is completed. Until presented with a process that works better for me, I will continue to use this same process in the future.