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Final Year Project Mid-Project Report

1. gt iss S O 5 YN Fig 5 14 Design four 77 This design is different to all the designs considered so far with the main navigation along the top of the screen and additional links on the left The logo is located underneath the club name This design would also adapt to the screen size of the user Design Five Club Name Main content BUI9JX9 0 SYUTT g g lay on A gt iss S KD n O gt Bottom navigation Fig 5 15 Design five The graphic on this design means that the dimensions are fixed and will appear the same size regardless of screen size This design boasts a bottom navigation common on many sites that will hold links to pages such as About Us and Contact Us The main navigation is separated from the external links and given more emphasis by blending into the graphic 78 Page Designs The following page designs are for those pages that utilise the database to store the content of a page These pages fulfil the following generic requirements listed in chapter 4 1 The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events 2 The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for a VARIETY of teams 3 The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details 5 The ability to publish match reports optional 8 The ability to store and maintain photographs from social events tour and
2. 4 9 Publishing job descriptions of each committee member would also be beneficial 4 10 It would be good to have a photo gallery with different categories All members should be able to upload their photos Under advice Clare and Linzi both agreed it would be a good idea to ensure that a committee member approved these photos before they are published on the live site 4 11 It would be good to have a page about existing members This would include a paragraph about them 4 12 When asked about storing player statistics the Netball club said they wouldn t use such a facility Any other business 4 1 The netball team would be interested in considering the possibility of using my application Date and chair of next meeting 5 1 No official meeting is planned at this time 63 MEETING WITH LEEDS UNIVERSITY MENS TENNIS CLUB Date 22 February 2006 Start time 4pm Location University Union Arc End time 4 30pm conference room Chair Gary Ingham Secretary Gary Ingham Present Alex Collingwood Copies to Apologies 5 Welcome and apologies 1 4 welcomed Alex to the meeting and thanked him for his time to support this project 6 General 4 13 The Tennis club would be interested in a web site A member has previously tried to implement a website but it never took off because due to poor design 4 14 They have a large member s base of 50 70 people but only 2 teams consisting of 15 20 members 4 15 The main reason for
3. Contact Us 3rd Team gt gt Fig 6 5 Screen shot of the squad selections page Implementation of the Site Administration interface Figure 6 6 shows a screen shot of the administration interface As intended icons are used to support links and make it clear to the user what function will be performed by clicking on the link In case the icons are unclear to some users the icons are supported by alt text which appears when the mouse is positioned above the icon 87 Site Administration Setting up the website gt Set up club details Editing page content gt Homepage Dr gt News 3 Bg gt Player profiles DW gt Fixtures ist team 2nd team 3rd team 4th team AAAA AA aAA Archive fixtures gt Match D gt Squad Selections Dr ist team 2nd team 3rd team 4th team A BD A A gt Match Reports A D q b Player statisics D gt League tables D gt Gallery gt Upload a picture b Forum D gt Tour D gt Latest Headline A Right Hand Side Navigation gt External Links E i Bottom Navigation b About us b How to find us b Contact us Help Administration tasks y D Control Registration Requests m Cancel Membership a Manage members contact list Manage third party contact list b Add contact b Edit contact b Delete contact View email list Manage kit selection D gt view orders 88 Administrati
4. Important notices are added to the news table through the use of the form in fig and this data displayed on the news asp page BACK 90 Fig 6 7 Club details form Add a news article Title Content Submit Reset BACK Fig 6 8 The add news article form The code to perform this operation is detailed above The news asp page then displays each record in the database using the code also detailed above Figure 6 9 shows a screen shot of this display leeds University Football Club gt Home External Links gt News Latest News gt Player Profiles This page is intended to keep you up to date with all the events and important issues gt Fixtures going on within the football club gt Match gt League Tables There is going to be an old boys game for the 3rd year footballers and leavers on gt Gallery Saturday 6th May the day of the football ball The old boys team id going to be gt Forum captained by Hughes and the uni team by Nicko Everyone is encouraged to come and watch It promises to be a good day gt Tour gt Kit Posted 20 04 2006 12 50 14 Latest News Easter Over 16 4 2006 About Us How to find us Leeds nion leeds ac uk Contact Us niversity Fig 6 9 A screen shot of the bulletin board page Requirement 2 The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for a VARIETY of teams The fixt
5. Team Progress Squad v BOLDMERE Come and support Tigton for what promises to be a spectacular end to a romt season D ZIN web teams co uk gt Tipton 2005 06 9 Site Map site map season summary fixtures club details contact info y Pictures SEASON SUMMARY TO DATE Fantasy A Reports Current League Position Updates Search a Discussions Current League Form Page 1s too Games p Help long Site Links Tipton Town Forum Tony Kempster Midland Alliance Latest News Item Cup Final Poster 16 Apr 06 Last Fixture 2 1 vs Causeway Utd 4 17 Apr 06 Biggest Yictory 4 0 vs Willenhall Town H 8 Aug 05 Current Top Scorer Scott Voice 11 goals Current Best Player Tim Johnson 6 64 10 from 44 games Most Player of the Matches Tim Johnson 5 Alvechurch Boldmere St 69 Appendix G Design Form design The following forms are necessary to achieve the generic requirements listed in chapter 4 A description of the purpose of each form including the tables that will be affected by its use and the requirement each helps realize accompanies each diagram Registration form Title Firstname Surname Nickname DOB Mobile Eau gt vonie A oS Username gt Password C Confirm Fig5 2 Registration form This form will be used to allow players to register as members of the website The form will populate t
6. The The sports ball was a wicked night 5197806236 Your e mail a pal Comments k Post your comments si 97806236 n a Your name 197806236 5197806236 Search by picture name Created with the free software ASP Simple Online Photo Album Fig 6 16 Photo Gallery The administrator uploads the photos to the server and the gallery displays them as thumb nails The user is able to click on these thumb nails to view a larger picture of the photo and to attach comments Requirement 9 The ability for members only to discuss topics of interest 96 The design and layout of the discussion forum is also different to that of the web interface Again the reason for this change is that the script to implement this feature was freely obtained from 24 To access this forum the user must navigate through the discussion forum homepage The implemented forum appears as in figure 6 17 Web Wiz Guide y a ga Active Topics Bmembertist Calendar Piscarca O jueto aad Web Wiz Forums r Sy rogin Web Wiz Guide Web Wiz Guide Free web master community software Online resource site for ASP and web inc Forum Guestbook Mailinglist design with free software and tools Ads by Web Wiz Guide The time now is 2 41am A A L You last visited 27 Apr 2006 at 6 01am Quick Login I Sol MEA Topics post fee past General Banta forum 26 Apr 2006 at 4 20pm BA Banta By luumafe EJ Past member
7. 2 6 3 5 Evaluation of database technologies oooocooccccnccnccnccnncnconccnnonncnnoos 11 2 6 4 Leeds University IT Resources o oooocccccncccconconcnnconconcnccnncnncnn co nccnncnncnnnes 11 2 6 3 Chosen technolo sites dit cia le Ts ida sas 12 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3 1 Methodology comparisons 0oooconccnccnccnconconconncnnoncnncnncn nn cnet ne enenae sees ene eneeaenes 13 3 1 1 Information Systems Development Life Cycle cece e eee eee eee 13 3 1 2 Rapid Application Development RAD cece eeece scene eee neta enee tae eaes 14 3 1 3 Evolutionary Development 0 cece cece e cence ence nee e eee e nena eee ene eneenens 15 ILLA Prototype 3 0co sti sadly O TIE E da 15 3 1 5 Structures System Analysis and Design SSADM cee eee eee eee ee enee 16 3 2 Chosen Methodology si s iiiorssosteied airline 17 CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS Al Introduction vcs sessheh tee sie eels A oe et ees 18 4 2 Why do systems fail osinn sass eeeteeesee a id 18 4 3 EXisting USer practices 1 A A A a RA Mee hee Ue Bien 18 4 4 User Requirements aoaaa e a A Os eee ARA de wee 20 441 LUUMAPEst iii 20 4 4 2 Leeds University Men s Tennis Club ooooococccccccnconcnccnncnncnnconconncnccnncnoss 21 4 4 3 Leeds University Netball Club 2 0 0 0 0c cece eee ee ne ene ene eneeneeneeeaenas 21 4 4 4 Generic list of user requirements ccc cece cece cence eee ee ence nee ne ee ene cece
8. They can however lack control as the software may override a user s intended design 5 6 2 6 Research available technologies 2 6 1 Web Server technologies There are two main types of web servers commonly used by web hosts These are Apache web servers running on UNIX and IIS web servers running on Windows Each web server will differ in the scripting technologies it supports so both servers must be compared to determine which platform the proposed CMS is going to run on The most popular web server on the internet today is Apache It has been the most popular since April 1996 and according to a Netcraft survey 7 carried out in November 2005 more than 70 of the websites on the internet are using Apache making it more widely used than all other web servers combined Apache HTTP Server is a project of Apache Software Foundation and is always being actively developed in that those who use this software can contribute back to it in the form of enhancements and bug fixes Furthermore Apache is faster and more stable than many other web servers It can also run on Windows NT 9x Netware 5 x and above OS 2 and most versions of UNIX Apache supports PHP Pre Hypertext Processor Perl and JavaScript languages which are examined later in the report thus allowing access to databases such as MySQL and MS SQL Server It does not however support ASP Active Server pages Apache s popularity and widespread use alone make it an
9. a web site would be to improve communications with its members They are constantly gaining new members throughout the season making it difficult to keep in contact with them all It would be good to notify them of training times 4 16 The web site must be simple to use and update 4 17 Alex said it didn t matter if the web site is part of the union or separate but expressed that it would be good if it was recognised as part of the union 5 Web site requirements 5 1 The club want to be able to notify members of training times and cancellations 5 2 The application needs to store fixtures and results including previous years 5 3 It needs to store profiles of the committee members and 1 and 2 team members 15 20 5 4 It would be good to be able to publish match reports viewable by all web site visitors 5 5 A photo gallery is compulsory to publish photographs of matches and social events A member should be able to upload there own photographs suggested members being able to upload photographs but that the administrator must approve which photos go on the live site Alex agreed this would be the best option 5 6 The application should store the league tables as well as tournament tables held 3 or 4 times a year 64 5 7 Adiscussion forum would be useful and should be available to all club members 5 8 It would be advantageous for members to order training kit online Being able to pay online would also be good told
10. administration interface External Contact List Name Organisation Tel Email Address Description Gary Ingham 07793005812 gary_ingham Ohotmail com Web owner BACK Fig 6 24 Table to show contact details for third parties Implementing security To prevent unauthorised access to the discussion forum kit ordering facility and site administration the user must supply a username and password The login page for each of these facilities is as in figure 6 25 The username and password entered into the form are then queried against the security table to check leeds University Football Club gt Home External Links SNAR Home gt Kit login gt Player Profiles To order kit you must be a member of the club If you are a member please enter your username and password below gt NUL gt Fixtures gt Match gt League Tables coupes gt Gallery Password gt Forum Continue Reset Latest News Website launch date 16 4 2006 eeds ac uk Contact Us About Us How nd us Leeds University Union Fig 6 25 Login form that they are authorised This is done using the following query 102 Select FROM players p security s WHERE s user_id amp username AND s password amp password amp AND s security_id p player_id If the query does not return any records the user can not proceed to the next level and is presented with a fai
11. allowing the user to be involved throughout the development 6 3 1 4 Prototyping There are two types of prototyping methodologies These are throw away prototyping and evolutionary prototyping Coad and Yourdan 1991 in 15 suggest prototyping should be used for all object orientated projects but prototyping is now being used in more than just object orientated projects Its use is especially growing in web development Prototyping involves the user more than the Waterfall model and like Evolutionary Development and RAD allows for changes in requirements thus reducing the projects risk of failure With prototyping 15 there is no clear stage of establishing user requirements Instead a prototype is produced for the user to comment on and then either enhanced to form the final system evolutionary prototyping or thrown away after the user requirements have been identified It is also important to note that it may take a number of prototypes until the user and developer agree on a set of requirements thus running the risk that an agreement may never be reached Development time can also be wasted by implementing things that the user later decides is not appropriate The advantages of this methodology however are vast Apart from the user being involved more throughout the development than in the Waterfall model it also enables them to establish exactly what is technologically feasible by experimenting with the prototype and talk
12. and the main navigation of the web site located on the left of the screen as advised by my chosen usability framework Advantages of this interface include e Quick and simple to implement using a table based layout e The layout will allow for the dimensions of the interface to adapt to the screen size of the user thus the web site will appear consistent to all users e Clear navigation Disadvantages e Plain and boring e Unlikely to impress the user Design Two 75 ye A gt AQ Main content Website navigation Fig 5 12 Interface design two Again the logo is situated in the top left hand corner adjacent to the title located centre The title banner is then separated by an arced graphic to add more shape to the design Immediately beneath this graphic or buttons that link to external web sites e g sponsors Advantages of this interface include e Clear navigation e Aesthetically pleasing Disadvantages e External links given more emphasis than main navigation e Graphic means the layout dimensions must be a fixed size 76 Design Three Links e g About Us Contact Us Main content Website navigation syu eux Jouueg oseuly Fig 5 13 Design three Similar to design two but with the external links located to the right hand side of the main content Again the main navigation is located to the left Design Four Main navigation Main content D lay on Ne
13. any other details you wish 34 Edit the referees details by adding The user can successfully add As expected Needs to refresh Make the page his email address the email address refresh after update Joebloggs hotmail com 35 Delete the referee The referees details are As expected Needs to refresh Make the page permanently deleted and his refresh after update details are no longer available 36 View club members email A list of email addresses is As expected None addresses available 37 Add a new item of training kit to The user selects the correct As expected Needs to refresh Make the page the kit selection Add a Blue Nike rain jacket menu option and successfully adds the kit to item 6 refresh after update 110 Web Interface Test Plan Test Task Expected result Result User comments Corrective action no 1 Spend a couple of minutes User builds a mental structure On the fixtures page aloss None needed The browsing the website to familiarise yourself of the web site Allows me to check for recognition and recall should be represented as the score should be separate by instead of a full stop Squad selections page clear fixtures form accepts 1 2 so it is easily changed 2 From homepage locate the 3 2 mouse clicks maximum 3 As expected Used None team fixtures links in main navigation 3 Locate the 1 team fi
14. application so the test can be deemed successful In conclusion converging both testing techniques worked extremely well as both gained useful results that were similar thus making them more reliable and trustworthy 8 8 User evaluation The user testing carried out in the testing stage of the development life cycle aimed to evaluate the user s acceptance of the application as well as its success in meeting the user requirements Three different types of user were involved in this process to gain a full representation of how the application is perceived The users included a member of LUUMAFC who will use the web site to gain information a committee member of LUUMAFC who will be the future administrator of the application and in control of the content and maintenance of the application and a committee member from Leeds University Men s Tennis Club All users were encouraged to express their opinions on all aspects of the application throughout the testing and asked to comment on the functionality and usability as a whole at the end Involving 3 different users during the testing phase was beneficial as it provided a more conclusive set of results The first user was in positive acceptance of the application He expressed that the overall design was good and it was very easy to use The only improvement suggested was to give the squad selections page more emphasis in the main navigation because it was a main feature 45 The user who te
15. board The user is able to add edit and delete articles published on this page through the online site administration interface For details on how this was implemented refer to appendix H User testing also showed that the users involved were very impressed with the bulletin board and believed it would be extremely useful The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for 4 teams This was achieved as the user is able to add edit and delete fixtures for each team in the club At the end if the season the user is able to store the seasons results by selecting the archive results option in the online administration 40 The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details This was achieved by requiring club members to register with the web site Their details are stored and their profiles minus contact details are displayed on the player profiles page The ability to publish squad selections in advance of matches This was achieved using a WYSIWYG text editor to enable the user to change the layout and content of the page easily A separate page is designed for each team in the club Appendix H discusses in more detail how the text editor works The results of the user testing in appendix I showed that these pages successfully met the requirement but emphasised that the squad selection pages needed to be given more emphasis in the navigation The ability to view current and past l
16. building better databases www webtechniques com archives 2001 09 jepson 6 Decemeber 2005 Avison David Shah Hanifa 1997 Information System Development life cycle in The Information Systems Development Life Cycle A first course in Information Systems pp 67 87 McGraw Hill Avison David Fitzgerald Guy 2002 Methodologies in Information Systems Development Methodology Techniques and Tools 3rd ed pp 347 433 McGraw Hill www esportsdesk com 08 March 2006 Connolly T Begg C 2005 Database Systems A Practical Approach to Design Implementation and Management 4td ed Addison Wesley 50 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Ozkarahan Esen Database Management Concepts Designs and Practice pp 114 116 Lynch Horton 2004 Web Style Guide 2 ed http www webstyleguide com page dimensions html 14th April 2006 Holzschlag Molly E 1998 Layout Technology in Web by Design the complete guide pp 375 395 Sybex Flanders Vincent Websites that suck www webpagesthatsuck com mysterymeatnavigation html 14th April 2006 Web Wiz Guide Web Wiz Rich text Editor http www webwizguide info asp default asp 12th March 2006 The ASP Resource Index www aspin com 30 April 2006 Web Wiz Guide Forums www webwizguide info web_wiz_forums default asp 29th April 2006 51 Appendix A User Reflections The problem to be solved in this project was ideal for me I am a
17. checklist provides a good checklist to consult at all stages in the development of my application The full checklist can be found in appendix C 2 3 2 Framework 2 Usability gurus and authors Brink Gergle and Wood 3 highlight 10 web guidelines which consist of general purpose principles for a quick review of a website These guidelines can be found in appendix D These guidelines are however vague and in order to use them efficiently you need to be familiar with detailed guidelines first They provide a detailed checklist of general usability issues usually used in the evaluation of a system This checklist checks for very specific usability aspects and requires a yes or no answer This checklist can be found in appendix D 2 3 3 Chosen usability framework In conclusion I have decided to utilise both checklists in this project I will use framework 1 to guide my design and implementation of the application because it is detailed and gives precise information on what a usable web site should and should not include I will also use framework 2 as an evaluation checklist to carry out a usability inspection of my application in the testing phase 2 4 User Interfaces A user interface guides how a user interacts with a system It should hide the complexities of the system allowing the user to operate the system easily and efficiently An interface for a web application works in exactly the same way Molly E Holzchlag 5 classifies 5 featur
18. competitive matches News Latest News Date pub Date pub Fixtures Fixtures Location Location vs Competition Result Score The content of the latest news page will be provided by a database lookup from the News table The news articles will be displayed with the most recently published at the top of the page For usability purposes the page will display no more than 10 articles on a single page Fig 5 16 Design of the bulletin board The fixtures table will be laid out in a table with each row of the table provided by a database lookup The rows read from the database will be ordered by date in ascending order Fig 5 17 Design of fixtures page 79 Match reports Match Reports Date Vs Opponent Score Title Author Summary Link full document Date Vs Opponent Score Title Author Summary Link full document Player profiles Player Profiles ABCDEF XYZ Gallery Title Name Nickname Position Comments Title Name Nickname Position Comments Page 1 2 3 Gallery Recently added Recently added View full The content on this page will be provided by a database lookup from the Matchreports table Those records entered into the table using the Match reports form will be displayed in this format Fig 5 18 Design of match reports page The content on this page will be provided by a database lookup to the Playe
19. designed and flawed Prototyping and JAD workshops can also be used in conjunction with RAD methodology to speed up the process of requirements gathering 3 1 3 Evolutionary Development Evolutionary development methodology is another incremental approach The delivery of the system 1s split up into a number of iterations carried out one after another Each iteration contains a requirements analysis and design and implementation stage Although the first iteration will only include a small section of the requirements this approach enables lessons to be learnt from each iteration and rectified in the next iteration thus improving the system as the development continues Evolutionary development is especially good for projects where user requirements are difficult to find out in advance or are likely to change throughout the development process The requirements stage in each iteration allows these requirement changes to be addressed and implemented In this sense it is similar to Prototyping allowing the user to monitor the development and have input throughout the development thus ensuring they are happy with the system produced The disadvantages of this approach include not being able to meet the full user requirements early on and the difficulty in managing and controlling each iteration and the different stages associated with each This methodology can also be used in conjunction with the prototyping protocol discussed later by
20. ed 22 4 5 Alternatives and competition cece cece cece eee AEE NA Sa a EAEn a deae 23 45 1 Esportsdes k COM serere yes ea anced kai ee Bonen ae dee de ANE Sa ANANE ARARE 23 4 5 2 Web teaims co uk ni a ea Meee ide pis 23 ASI CONCISO A A en E 24 CHAPTER 5 DESIGN Sel Introductio ch A a Sine eee eae ee 25 Dds DIA Lage a ee ede bia a Sie AA A AS ee a eee 25 3 2 1 Database Schema iieiveusscbeigidteaceybistdetsssewehadgeusavbasied sarecbidinataaseweled des 25 5 2 2 Entity Relational Diagram 0c cece cece nce e eee n ence eee ene ene ene ene ee 26 5 2 3 Integrity Constraints poto tia rinda ip 27 5 24 Normalisation esea es eetan AA ee aes 27 5 3 MAINTENANCE r EE E EREE a E e eiat 27 5 3 1 Formdesisii seci aeara AA A A AA 27 A PRESENtatiON cri id lod dies 28 S41 Web Interface it A cede A A a 28 5 4 2 Administration Interface oseni scssi ienis enini iE EE E EE EE 29 A 30 DAA A O E ON 31 5 4 3 E TN 31 CHAPTER 6 IMPLEMENTATION 6 14 Intro du CIO rra us ong aaa naa do crac 32 02 DAVIS E A A A A a RR 32 6 221 Tal E A ha A A S 32 02 2 A A A rotebes 32 0 3 Web Imteriace cin oe aA eaen E OER Sodas een ide etek id E a 33 A RN 33 6 3 2 Navigation E eh ede aa eo eae sad Gene ee aioe eR te 33 6 3 3 Colours and graphics 0 0 0 0 cece n ence nee ne ence eee nae E eeee ene E ai is 34 03d E eiiscebladestiocthailetsnshiabiedlapsc iid woes beembeidcansoetbldadeninebed Mode apheadent 34 6 4 Administ
21. extremely attractive option as it 1s Important that my web application contain as fewer constraints as possible 2 6 2 Client side and server side technologies 2 6 2 1 Pre Hypertext Processor PHP PHP is a free server side scripting language that can run in both Apache and ISS web servers The problem is not all web hosts currently provide support for it on their servers but are doing so in increasing numbers Free web space providers in particular are unlikely to provide this support 8 PHP is very useful for adding interactive features to a web application and has built in facilities within the language making it extremely compatible with many types of database including MySQL MS SQL Dbase and Oracle Its enormous compatibility with databases therefore makes PHP a prime candidate to be used in my web application Although it is not a general purpose language like Java 7 or Perl PHP is said to be relatively easy to learn because it resembles the language C 9 to which I have prior knowledge which may aid development PHP is used within HTML and because it is processed on the server side rather than the client side the PHP code is hidden from the client and cannot be viewed by viewing the source code of the web page Delving deeper into PHP we can see why some organisations prefer alternative technologies Improperly validating variables can create security vulnerabilities which can be exploited by dishonest customer
22. help make the application generic to all sports by allowing the name of the club and web site to be changed More details on these tables are available in appendix H Each table in the database contains a primary key field which uniquely identifies each record in the table This field is of type autonumber and increments by 1 each time a new record is added to the database Most tables also include a foreign key allowing a relationship between two tables to be formed 6 2 2 Text files A WYSIWYG text editor is used to control the content of many of the web pages including the homepage squad selections player statistics tour discussion forum homepage about us and the how to find us page The text editor was freely obtained online from Web Wiz Guide 19 The text editor converts the contents of the editor to html and writes this to a text file The web page subsequently reads the contents of this text file to provide the display on a page A detailed explanation including code snippets of this implementation is contained in appendix H 32 6 3 Web Interface As stated in chapters 2 and 5 good usability is critical to a successful solution to my end users problem The design chosen in section 5 4 1 was implemented because of its clear layout and navigation structure The final interface can be viewed in figure 6 1 Lecds University Football Club gt Home MENO Links gt News gt BUSA gt Player Profil
23. history E g On team members and SUCCESSES 14 The ability to publish job descriptions of committee members Fig 5 22 Table to show additional pages that will be implemented 81 Navigation Left Navigation gt Home gt News gt Fixtures amp Results gt 1 team gt 2 team gt additional teams optional gt Match gt Squad selections gt Match reports optional gt Player statistics optional gt League Tables gt Player Profiles gt Gallery gt Matches gt Social gt Tour optional gt Discussion Forum gt Tour optional gt Kit Order optional Bottom Navigation About Us How to find us Leeds University Contact Us Site Admin Fig 5 23 Design of bottom navigation bar 82 Appendix H Implementation Database Implementation Tables not included in the design phase Page name Purpose Admin_ security Holds the username and password to access the site administration facility Temp_players Holds the details submitted via the registration form until the user is approved or disapproved Temp_security Holds the security details of any user requesting membership of the web site These details are held until registration is approved or disapproved Club_ details Holds the name of the club Fig 6 1 Tables not included in design Implementation of the WYSIWYG text editor The primary reason for the inclusion of a What You See Is Wh
24. interface design This design in figure 5 15 is relatively simple with clear navigation on the left right and bottom that should enhance usability and consistency and in doing so conform to Thomason s web site usability checklist 2 The main navigation on the left is separated from external links and given more emphasis by blending into the graphic A bottom navigation is common on many web sites and will hold links such as About Us and Contact Us The limitation of this design however is that the presence of the graphic stretching across the entire screen consequently means the dimensions of the web site will be fixed and so will appear small on larger screen displays The main content section of each web page will be determined by either database lookups or by the use of WYSIWYG text editors operated by the user A detailed design of those pages required to meet the generic set of user requirements are contained in appendix G 5 4 2 Administration Interface The administration interface is only intended for a limited number of users in control of the content on the web site The design therefore needs more emphasis on practicality than appearance The proposed interface is a simple column structure that clearly defines the different tasks available to the user See figure 5 16 29 Site Administration Design pages Other tasks e Link e Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Fig 5 16 Site administrati
25. keep track of the progress of the club and the upcoming events Forgotten your password m This website is currently under construction and all areas should be fully available Latest News soon Want to change your password Easter Over To change your details click here Latest headline edited by text editor 16 4 2006 About Us find us Leeds University Union leeds ac uk Contact Us Site admin Fig 6 2 Screen shot of the final interface Table based layout The layout of the interface was constructed using table tags in html Figure 6 3 shows a graphical representation of how these tables were implemented Sub Table 2 Sub Table 4 Sub Table 5 Fig 6 3 Shows the table based layout of the interface 85 J suo ratte 3 Implementation of the navigation The code snippet below shows the code used to organise the left navigation This code is contained in the file navigation asp lt TABLE WIDTH 125 BORDER 0 CELLPADDING 0 CELLSPACING 0 HEIGHT 367 gt lt TR gt lt TD height 2 width 149 gt lt IMG SRC images navspacer2 g1f WIDTH 147 HEIGHT 2 ALT gt lt TD gt lt TD ROWSPAN 10 width 8 height 54 gt lt IMG SRC images spacer gif WIDTH 8 HEIGHT 8 ALT gt lt TD gt lt TR gt lt TR gt lt TD height 22 width 149 gt lt a onmouseover imagel src images home_button2sel gif onmouseout imagel src images home_button2 gif href index asp gt l
26. links that underline when a mouse hovers over them To be consistent all links on the site will follow this style 30 5 4 4 Colours The use of colours on a website is very important Holschlag 5 states that colours have a potent psychological impact e g red for love passion heat and flame green for fertility nature and earth and blue for truth nature and peace It is also well documented that high contrast is very important for web usability such that dark colours should be used against light colours and visa versa In accordance with my chosen usability framework the colours must primarily reflect the club colours of my end user Leeds University Men s Association Football Club These colours must also be from the web safe 216 RGB colour palette The colours I have therefore chosen to use consistently throughout the application are dark green hexadecimal 018424 RGB 1 132 36 light green 3FBE46 RGB 1 132 36 white RGB 255 255 255 and grey EAEAEA RGB 234 234 234 5 4 5 Graphics Graphics can help the user to understand what a link or button does but it is important that the use or function of the graphic is abundantly obvious to the user and consistently used throughout the application If a user needs to hover over the graphic to see what it does then it is not worth including Author web designer and usability analyst Vincent Flanders 21 describes navigation systems where it is inordinately difficult for users t
27. search engines W Does the site work with user s browser RA Does the site work with user s hardware platform O Does the site work on high and low resolution monitors X Are nonstandard plug ins required Are they necessary or useful mp 114
28. testing at the bottom of the match ordering by date 108 Central Lancashire on the 14 October 2006 The content is up to you Match report added successfully Link to document does not work reports page The date should place it at the top 19 Edit the text of this match report Details changed As expected Unclear if updated Make the page refresh after update 20 Delete this match report Report is permanently As expected Needs to go back to Revise code to deleted selection of match redirect to this page reports to delete after deletion and refresh 21 Design the player statistics page User will hopefully create a As expected None from scratch to hold the players table name number of assists and number of goals scored 22 Edit the tour page to include a sub Correct heading applied Searched through colours User needs to be title Highlights from 2006 The and font size informed of each title must be the same font style as heading style other sub titles on the page Perhaps user manual or note above text editor 23 Edit the latest new headline to say User selects correct link and As expected None This web site is currently being adds the text testing 24 Add a link to the BBC web site that The user selects the correct As expected None will appear in the right hand menu option and adds a navigation on the web site view the hyperli
29. the season ACTION Main requirement 3 10 The option of including a player statistics section Providing it is not to difficult and time consuming to maintain ACTION Not compulsory 3 11 It would be compulsory to provide links to BUSA and NUL league organisers ACTION Main requirement 3 12 The web site should publish directions to the clubs facilities to be viewed by other universities ACTION Main requirement 3 13 Providing a page to supply information about tour is needed ACTION Main requirement Any other business 4 1 The committee members were happy to be involved in the testing stage of the application and expressed their willingness to help at any stage 4 2 promised to show the committee the application regularly throughout the development and inform them of any problems may have in meeting their requirements Date and chair of next meeting 5 1 No official meeting is planned at this time 61 MEETING WITH LEEDS UNIVERSITY MENS TENNIS CLUB Date 24 February 2006 Start time 4pm Location University Union Arc End time 4 45pm conference room Chair Gary Ingham Secretary Gary Ingham Present Clare Cochrane Copies to Linzi McMaster Apologies 3 Welcome and apologies 1 3 welcomed all members to the meeting and thanked them for their time and support of this project 4 General 3 14 The club have never considered a web site The main reason being that they didn t know how to build one 3 15
30. 006 A University of Sheffield 1st_ NUL D 2 2 Websi 1 02 2006 A University of Chester 1st BUSA E 1 0 rig eh 4 02 2006 A University of Liverpool ist NUL wW 1 0 aunch date A Fi P 8 02 2006 H prerpogl Hope University BUSA w 3 1 16 4 2006 11 02 2006 A Keele University 1st NUL D 3 3 15 02 2006 H paersty of Manchester NUL w 21 1 03 2006 H De Montford University 1st BUSA CUP Si 14 09 2006 H Keele NUL W 2 1 2nd Team gt gt About Us How to find us Leeds University Union leeds ac uk Contact Us Fig 6 11 Screen shot of the fixtures page Requirement 3 The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details The profile of a player is added to the temp_ players table when they register with the web site This is done using the registration form below 92 Lecds University Football Club gt Home External Links gt News Registration gt Busa You must enter a title website gt Fixtures Title gt Player Profiles gt NUL gt Match j website First Name gt League Tables Surname au gt Gallery Nickname Date of Birth e g dd mm yyyy Email Mobile Position e g Midfield gt Forum Website Comments launch date 16 4 2006 Please choose a username and password Username Password Confirm password Register Reset About Us How to find us Leeds University Union leeds ac uk Contact Us Fig 6 12 A scree
31. A Content Management System to support small sports clubs Gary Ingham BSc Computing Industry Session 2005 2006 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and the appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others I understand that failure to attribute material which is obtained from another source may be considered as plagiarism Signature of student SUMMARY The aim of this project was to produce an interactive web application that could be used by Leeds University Union Men s Association Football Club LUUMAFC to help with the management of the club and dissemination of information to its members Usability was a central focus of the project as the application needed to be easy to set up and maintain by users with little or no technical expertise Background reading into the technologies available and what makes a web application easy to use early in the project identified the need to utilise an MS SQL database and online administration facility to maintain the content Research into different development methodologies also identified the Information Systems Development Life Cycle as the most suitable development model to follow throughout the development User involvement throughout the development process was a priority so they were highly involved in the requirements analysis and user evaluation stages After the implementation a detailed evaluation was conducted using u
32. Alex this may be out of the project scope 5 9 When prompted Alex expressed the need for links to league and tournament organisers He also stated that these may change throughout the year so it must be possible to change these 5 10 When asked for any extra extensions Alex suggested a video gallery to play clips of matches Any other business 4 1 Alex expressed his desire to use my application at the end of development should it meet the requirements 4 2 Alex was also happy to assist in the testing phase Date and chair of next meeting 5 1 No official meeting is planned at this time 65 Netball Requirements Those functions or operations required by the Netball Club include aN NM Ah nn The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for 4 teams The ability to store current and passed league tables The ability to publish squad selections in advance of matches The ability to link to the kit supplier The ability to store contact lists for all members The ability for all members to upload and store photographs The ability to store club history E g On team members and successes The ability to publish tour information The ability to publish job descriptions of committee members 11 A discussion forum 12 The ability to store contact lists for third parties E g Printing companies matc
33. Compatibility 7 Simplicity 8 9 Error handling 10 Respect for the user A detailed general purpose checklist can be seen in appendix I 59 Appendix E Requirements Gathering MEETING WITH LEEDS UNIVERSITY MENS ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL CLUB Date Location Chair Present 27 J anuary 2006 Start time 3pm University Union Arc Endtime 3 45pm conference room Gary Ingham Secretary Gary Ingham Shaun Cooke Copies to Chris Nunn Nick O Donoghue Apologies Thomas Gregson Martin Cocoron 1 Welc 1 1 1 2 ome and apologies welcomed all members to the meeting and thanked them for their support of this project LUUMAFC committee members Thomas Gregson and Martin Corcoron sent their apologies 2 General 2 1 2 2 223 LUUMAFC are an independent club affiliated with the University and consists of 4 teams It has its own brand logo and its club colours are green and white The club do not currently possess a web site but it has been on the agenda for 2 years The main reason the web site has so far not been implemented is due to a lack of skills The main reason for a website is to communicate with the clubs 70 members 3 Web site requirements 3 1 3 2 3 3 3 4 The committee need to notify members of important announcements i e social events training schedules general notices These notices need to be viewable by all members and supporters ACTION Main requirement Curr
34. RIOD BREAK 54 Appendix C Larisa Thomason s Website Usability Checklist 1 Design a clear and simple navigation system According to Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen a good navigation system should answer three questions 1 Where am I 2 Where have I been 3 Where can I go Your site s navigation system will answer all three questions if you re careful to include these basic elements Keep it consistent The navigation system should be in the same place on every page and have the same format Visitors will get confused and frustrated if links appear and disappear unpredictably Consider using Server Side Includes for your main navigation system to make certain the navigation system stays consistent Use appropriate text inside links Don t make your visitors guess where a link is going to take them Visitors should be able to anticipate a link s destination by reading the text in the link or on the navigation button This isn t the time to be cute or obscure visitors don t have the time or patience for it If there s any question about a link s destination clarify the issue with a TITLE attribute that explains exactly where the link goes Use CSS to emphasize text links Some designers dislike underlined text links inside page content although visitors expect to be able to click on underlined text If you decide to remove this important visual navigation clue style your links with CSS to replace underlin
35. The main reason to use a website would be to communicate with club members 3 16 The club has 4 teams 4 Web site requirements 4 1 4 2 4 3 4 4 4 5 4 6 4 7 A website would need to publish latest notices such as social events and squad lists suggested a separate section for squad lists which they agreed would be ideal They would like the application to allow for past members to stay in touch Possibly a discussion forum open to present and previous members An application would need to store fixtures for 4 teams in 2 different leagues Busa and NUL League tables must also be stored Clare pointed out that the tables they refer to are on the BUSA website and are kept up to date When prompted Clare expressed that the club have never written match reports but that if it is easy to use they may start to do so Club members order there training kit individually so the application would require only a link to the kit manufacturers web site It would be extremely useful to use the web site to generate a contact list i e mobile number email and student number This would allow the committee to keep in contact with all members These details must not be available for all to see 62 4 4 8 Aswell asa contact list for members it would be good to store contact lists for third parties such as suppliers and t shirt printers This would help pass on information to new committee members at the end of each season
36. The objectives for this project are 1 Research the problem with the problem owner Research existing internet technologies available Research and choose a development methodology to follow Establish a list of user requirements for LUUMAFC s Research the need for a web application amongst other types of small sports clubs DY A Design a web application to incorporate the requirements of the user 1 7 To implement the web application design for LUUMAFC 8 Evaluate the application in terms of usability and meeting the user requirements 1 4 Minimum Requirements The following set of minimum requirements for this project are 1 To produce a research chapter on existing solutions and technologies Produce a report on the user requirements of LUUMAFC Establish a generic list of requirements that satisfy all types of sports Develop a web application for LUUMAFC that uses a database to manage content E E cS A report of the usability testing of the application carried out by a committee member of LUUMAFC Further research and work to be carried out on this project time permitting may include 1 Incorporate the list of generic requirements into the web application produced for LUUMAFC to make it customisable and appropriate for the needs of all types of sports clubs 2 Produce a user manual to support the use of the application 1 5 Deliverables The deliverables to be produced for this project include 1 A web applicatio
37. Time management and schedule oooooocccccnccnccnccnconccnccnncnncnncnncnnonnonnoos 46 8 11 Possible Improvements rre nite e ea ER a a o AETR EEEa EEE 47 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION vi 9 1 Evaluation of entire project ooooocccnccnccnccnconcnnconconnonncncn non E a E 49 REFERENCES A SA 50 Appendix A User Reflections ooooooonncnnncnnnncnnccnnnncconccconoconcconnnconnc cono cnnc nono cono nc cn ncnnnno 52 Appendix B Project Schedule 0 cece cee cc ence ence ne eee ene eea eens enaeeaeens 53 Appendix C Larisa Thomason s Website Usability Checklist 55 Appendix D General Purpose Usability Checklist oooooooccccncccnccccccncooo 59 Appendix E Requirements Gathering ooooooccccccccconconccnnconccnncnnccnncnnnnos 60 Appendix F Alternatives and Competition oooooccccccccconccnccncconconccnncnnnons 67 Appendix GD eats tec encancdoe scat aaasdaee ee abe as side teyuiaes eee yhieus see uainahs 70 Appendix H Implementation 0 cece cence ccc e eee ee eee eae ene seas en eees 83 Appendix I Testing co ccic cscs ocak cynic dave dada in igha tat cg rain area bade yet ov ones 104 vil CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 Problem Definition Information management and dissemination is an important issue for all businesses and organisations alike The World Wide Web has revolutionised how information is managed and distr
38. act details are sufficient In addition to the requirements already identified the following functions are desirable 1 The ability to publish club history E g On team members and successes 2 The ability to publish job descriptions of committee members 21 3 The ability to store contact lists for third parties E g Printing companies match officials tour organisers etc 4 4 4 Generic list of user requirements To meet the requirements of all clubs the proposed web application should incorporate the CSFs of all sports teams without supplying my client with facilities that will not be utilised and become superfluous A generic list of 15 requirements is identified as 1 The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events 2 The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for a VARIETY of teams The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details The ability to publish a NUMBER of squad selections in advance of matches The ability to publish match reports optional The ability to view current and past league tables The ability to publicise tour information optional SND YH KW The ability to store and maintain photographs from social events tour and competitive matches 9 The ability for members only to discuss topics of interest 10 The ability for members only to order training kit optional 11 The ability to publish direc
39. age of the Waterfall development methodology and as the model suggests 14 this section must be completed before commencing the design of the content Management System CMS This section will examine existing user practices to gain vital understanding of the business processes before undertaking a full requirements analysis that aims to define the systems functional architecture in terms of the operations or events that must be performed in order to achieve the project aim Also in this section existing alternative systems will be analysed and their limitations taken into consideration during design and implementation 4 2 Why do systems fail System development projects can fail for numerous reasons A common cause of failure is a lack of resources allocated to researching and understanding the problem Understanding the problem should include sufficient liaising with users and stakeholders of the system but often IT developers neglect this vital communication thus fail to accurately understand the business needs of the stakeholder and inaccurately define project objectives User involvement throughout the requirements design and implementation stage is therefore essential 4 3 Existing user practices This section analyses the existing practices utilised to carry out the main tasks of running the football club and highlights how a CMS could significantly aid and improve on these methods The following processes were identified from the inte
40. all types of sports so it was decided that a table created in the text editor would be the best solution The ability to publish match reports for 4 teams This was achieved by allowing the user to add edit and delete match reports The user can upload a full report and write a summary of this report User comments during the testing process showed that they were very happy with how this facility works 8 4 Meeting minimum requirements All five minimum requirements specified in section 1 4 of this report have been successfully met To produce a research chapter on existing solutions and technologies Chapter 2 of this report analyses two existing solutions available to solve the user s problem It also researches web server database and sever side technologies that could have been used to create a solution to the problem 42 A report on the user requirements The Waterfall methodology followed for the development of this application required the user requirements to be gathered in the analysis phase These requirements are detailed in chapter 4 of this report Establish a generic list of user requirements Requirements of other sports teams that shared LUUMAFC s problem were also gathered during the analysis phase A list of 15 requirements were generated from the requirements of each club that were deemed crucial to the success of an application that could be used by all sports clubs These requirements are detailed in chapt
41. antage of MS SQL is that it is not open source and expensive to purchase 2 6 3 5 Evaluation of database technologies Although Access provides useful graphical interfaces for the non technical user it is hoped a web application can be produced that does not require the user to modify the database directly in anyway The design should ensure the database is modified through an online interface only MS SQL Sever would be a useful DBMS for this solution because it is good at handling multiple database requests by multiple uses which could only enhance the performance of the application The main drawback of MS SQL is its cost and because of my problem owner s small financial budget it is an unlikely solution PostgreSQL and MySQL are the most viable solutions as they are both freely available and platform independent 2 6 4 Leeds University IT Resources An email enquiry to Leeds University Unions web master revealed that the central web server where LUU societies have web space supports PHP but currently has no database connectors It is unrealistic therefore to be able to implement this change on the union web server resulting in the most viable option of hosting a website externally to the university My course department however is able to provide me with the temporary resources to implement an application on either an IIS or Apache web server and in any language using a MySQL MS Server or Access databases The department ar
42. at You Get text editor to control the content of this web application is to create an application that is easy to setup and maintain by the average computer user A WYSIWYG text editor fulfils this objective by automatically generating the html for the text typed into the editor by the user Code can then be written to save the contents of the editor to a text file This is done by In aboutustexteditor asp In the text editor file we include the following code to post the contents of the text editor to the asp page we want to display the content lt Posts the contents of the text editor to the asp page as a string gt Dim strFormName myForm lt form name myForm method post action aboutus asp gt lt input type submit name Submit value Confirm changes onclick window close gt In aboutus asp In this page we read in the data posted from the text editor and write it to a text file E g aboutus txt 83 lt Reads in data posted from the editor gt Dim strEditorContent Holds the content from the editors text area strEditorContent Request Form textarea Tf there is nothing to preview then say so If strEditorContent OR IsNull strEditorContent OR InStr 1 strEditorContent lt br gt 1 1 AND Len strEditorContent 8 Then strEditorContent lt br gt lt br gt lt div align strTxtTherelsNothingToShow amp lt div gt lt br gt lt br gt we center
43. atibility and ease of use but providing care is taken during implementation to address PHPs security flaws its cross platform compatibility give it a competitive advantage over ASP 2 6 3 Database technologies 2 6 3 1 MySQL databases MySQL is a free open source software widely available and with good technical support It is compatible with many Operating Systems including Windows Linux and Mac and can be used with both Apache and Windows web servers It can also handle large amounts of data and provides security through user authorisation and access privileges MySQL merges perfectly with PHP Perl and ASP making it ideal for managing the content of a web application These server side scripts can therefore be used to interact with a MySQL database to retrieve and add information to a database Furthermore MySQL is a database to which I have had some experience using in both DB21 and DB31 computing modules This experience could prove vital during the development stage 2 6 3 2 Microsoft Access databases Microsoft Access is a very popular data management application It is not open source but is available through the Microsoft Office software package which is now fairly standard on all PC s running a Windows Operating System Mac and Linux operating systems will not however have access to Microsoft Access LUUMAFC would therefore only be able to use an IIS server and windows operating system to host and edit a website MySQL on the
44. ch reports form leeds University Football Club gt Home External Links Sens Match gt Match reports gt Player Profiles Match Reports gt Fixtures gt Match 25 02 2006 Unfinished Business gt Squad selections Fixture 2 Vs Leeds Met gt Match reports Author Big Mac Summary layer statis j on laser stateis It was mid October when Leeds Uni 2 s turned up on a cold Saturday afternoon at gt League Tables Becketts Park ready and prepared to face the Met 3 s Unfortunately the referee gt Gallery wasn t as efficient and so this the NUL Cup Semi Final was to be the grudge match This game meant more than most derby games and on the day was decided by gt Forum resilience and composure something Leeds University pride their teams on gt Tour gt Kit Full report E 19 03 2006 NUL Cup Triumph Fixture 2 Vs Durham 2nd Author Big Mac Latest News Summary E This game played at Bradford City Park Football Club was a game that represented Website more than just a cup final It was a chance to rectify the mistakes we made earlier in launch date the season and get Leeds University silverware for a season that deserves winners medals Leeds travelled to Durham earlier in the season for an NUL match and walked 16 4 2006 away 5 1 winners and therefore instilled the belief in the players that we had every chance of winning Durham however Full report E 15 10 2005 Atremedous start to the season Fixture 3 Vs L
45. cklist Architecture and Navigation E Does the structure fit the purpose Y Is the navigation scheme clear 5 Where are you O How do you find what you want SZ Is there a reasonable number of navbar choices Y Are navbar choices logically ordered W Do link names match page names amp Are links clearly marked ls there a clearly marked link back to the home page Is there an option to search for information KI Is there a site map SY Does every page make it clear which web site you re in Y Does the user have control over navigation Layout and Design K Does page size exceed window size Is layout consistent between pages 2 Is there a clear focal point on each page EY Does the layout work visually Y Is alignment used effectively Is grouping used effectively Y Is there good contrast amp Is the layout cluttered W ls it aesthetically pleasing Content 7 Is the text clear and concise mls text organized in small chunks a Are there spelling or grammar errors A Do pages include introductory text Y Do multimedia components support the task Are units of measure clear and unambiguous for international use Date and time ion numbers amp Address and postal codes Forms and Interaction Y Do forms support the task Do dialogues follow a logical progression r Is it clear where to go next Y Are dialogue methods concise and consistent W Are form elements used properly g Are elements
46. d refresh after update 12 Edit a registered members profile User clicks on correct link As expected Changed the None Profile altered successfully text to caps in all fields 13 Add a 3rd team fixture for Saturday Fixture added successfully Hovered mouse over edit None 14 October 2006 against Central but didn t click Read alt Lancashire in the NUL league text and then clicked on Leave the result and score blank correct link Fixture added successfully 14 Add the result as a 3 0 win Result and score added Tried adding 3 0 but sidn t Ensure mouse work Fault was actually cursor starts at 1 that there was white space character in text after W box Or for a quick fix allow for 2 characters Edit the date of this fixture Date successfully changed The date changed to Look at code and fixture appear in 01 01 1990 appropriate place of fixture table 15 Add the same fixture to the 1 Fixture added As expected None team 2 team and 4 team 16 Edit the 2 team squad selection Correct link clicked Users As expected None page by adding your name as a name added to 2 team squad player selection page 17 Edit the 4 team squad selection list User clicks on hyperlink item As expected None by adding a link to the league tables and enters a link that works pages 18 Add a new match report to the web NB Document uploading As expected but appeared Check code for site The match can be against absent at time of
47. d to the system very quickly until the end of the timebox is reached which cannot be extended nor additional resources allocated The first timebox will therefore implement all the high level user requirements first to ensure the main functionality of the system is implemented The second and third timeboxes will then proceed to implement lower and more detailed user requirements To achieve this quick development commercial code is utilised where applicable thus providing well tested solutions to the system requirements The user also has the added advantage of working with the system at the end of each timebox allowing them to specify any changes they may want RAD s approach enables any change in user requirements to be included in the system because the full system is not implemented straight away A late requirement can then be included in the next timebox Like the Waterfall model RAD s design also prevents project overruns through the implementation of timeboxes that can not be extended This however results in the loss of functionality because if there is not enough time to implement all the user requirements the least important functionality yet to be implemented is discarded David Avison amp Guy Fitzgerald 15 refer to this as the Pareto principle or 80 20 rule 14 Although delivery of the main functionality is quick and often meets the bulk of the user requirements the system produced is often missing functionality poorly
48. ding deliverables required at each stage SSADM focuses greatly on the analysis and design of the system placing greater emphasis on user requirements and involvement logical system specification and technical system options This methodology provides a very thorough examination of the design and is best suited to large scale system development projects requiring heavy documentation therefore is unsuitable for the purposes of this project 16 3 2 Chosen Methodology Through analysis of the researched methodologies it has become apparent that either Prototyping or the Waterfall model with iterative feedback is best suited for the development While prototyping will help me to produce a solution quickly and involve the user during the physical development of the CMS the Waterfall Model clearly sets out a stage to establish user requirements which I believe will be critical to the success of my project For this reason the Waterfall model with iterative feedback will be used to structure the development of the CMS Iterative feedback will allow for stages of the development to be returned to should a change in user requirements be needed The development will also try to exploit the advantages of prototyping by integrating it within the implementation stage of the Waterfall model to receive feedback from the user on the design and main functionality of the system 17 CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS 4 1 Introduction Analysis forms the second st
49. do until objRS EOF gt lt tr gt lt form method post action updatekitselection asp gt lt for each x in objRS Fields if lcase x name kit_id then gt lt td width 10 gt lt input type submit name kit_id value lt x value gt gt lt td gt lt else gt lt td gt lt font face Verdana Arial size 2 gt lt Response Write x value gt lt td gt lt end if next o gt lt form gt lt objRS MoveNext gt lt tr gt lt loop adoconn close 98 gt lt table gt To order kit from this selection a registered member of the web site must first login in order to use the kit ordering form in figure 6 19 This ensures kit orders can only be placed by registered members of this site Also to ensure this form cannot be reached by typing in the exact URL the page checks for a session id using the following code lt If Session Valid lt gt True Then Response Redirect kitorder asp End if P gt leeds University Football Club gt Home External Links Kit Order Form gt News gt Player Profiles gt Fixtures To place an order please read the description of items available and enter the size and quantity of orders gt Match gt League Tables Item 1 White match shorts 5 00 item 2 White match socks 5 00 item 3 Blue Nike training t shirt 10 00 item 4 Blue Nike training jumper 15 00 aes Item 5 Blue Nike tracksuit bottoms 10 00
50. e believed it would be good to have a separate page to write training schedules down 104 Set up and maintenance testing This was carried out by Alex Collingwood the Leeds University Men s Tennis club captain The testing process found the following problems Problems Corrective Action Clicking Back on some administration functions did not re open the administration page Check all administration scripts correctly set the session id Records should be refreshed after being updated by the forms Add code to each update facility to automatically refresh page When you click in a text field on a form the cursor doesn t start at the left Revise code A username should be allowed to be longer than 16 to allow for email addresses to be used Edit properties of temp_security and security table On the fixtures page the date and results format need specifying somewhere on the Include an example next to the text field on the form Extent the Score field to 20 form Also the results should be a drop down characters box The score field also needs to allow for data larger than 10 characters long E g 6 0 6 0 6 0 From kit page when you click forgotten Correct hyperlink password the link does not lead to a page A member s username and password did not work to enter the kit form Revise code Alex commented that e It would be good
51. e unwilling however to continue to host my application after completion 11 2 6 5 Chosen technologies ASP was chosen over PHP as the scripting language for this development because it does not suffer from security weaknesses and is language independent which enabled the use of VB script to which I am a familiar It was hoped that this would aid the learning of ASP and assist development The use of ASP meant an IIS sever was required for development A MySQL database was also chosen because of its compatibility with ISS servers and because it is freely available making it ideal for LUUMAFC who operate on a small budget MySQL was chosen over postgreSQL because of previous experience in using it 12 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3 1 Methodology comparisons Sha Avison 14 describes a methodology as a collection of procedures techniques tools and documentation aids which will help systems developers in their effort to produce a new information system Before the introduction of software development methodologies systems were often poorly designed and inappropriate to the users needs as greater emphasis was always placed on programming Without any clear structure it was also difficult to estimate project completion dates and software development projects almost always overran Although still an issue today it is less of a problem than before the introduction of methodologies Methodologies provide a more systematic approach to
52. e you want it to link to Name e g Sports URL e g http www sports com Add Link Reset BACK Fig 6 21 Add external link form The details entered in this form are added to the external links table and a database lookup provides the content for the right hand side navigation fig 6 22 100 External Links Fig 6 22 Right hand side navigation It is also possible to delete these links from the administration interface Requirement 13 The ability to publish club history E g On team members and successes This requirement is met through the About us page The administrator controls the content of this page through the text editor Requirement 14 The ability to publish job descriptions of committee members I judged it unnecessary to provide a separate page to fulfil this requirement as I this could also be fulfilled through the About us page Requirement 15 The ability to store contact lists for third parties E g Printing companies match Officials tour organisers etc Contact details for organisations and other third parties are stored in the contact list table These details can be added through the use of the add contact form in figure 6 23 Add Contact Name PO Organisation FO Tel IA Email o Address o TTS CT Description PO Add contact Reset BACK 101 Fig 6 23 Add contact form Once successfully added they can be viewed on the
53. eague tables This requirement has only partially been achieved It was determined too difficult to acquire the results of all fixtures in the league so it was decided to link to the league organisers web site to view these tables The ability to publicise tour information This was achieved through the implementation of a tour page The user is able to control the content on this page using the WYSIWYG text editor The ability to store and maintain photographs from social events tour and competitive matches This was achieved by implementing a photo gallery that allows the administrator to create categories and display photographs in each category The user is also allowed to interact with the gallery by porting comments to the photographs The ability for members only to discuss topics of interest This has been achieved through the implementation of a discussion forum Members of the club can register with this forum and post their thoughts and opinions The site administrator is also given complete control over the forum Unfortunately this facility was not implemented at the time of testing so no user evaluation of this function was carried out The ability for members only to order training kit This facility has been achieved through the inclusion of an online order form To ensure this form is available to members only they are required to login in order to access the form The orders made through this form are saved in the da
54. ed the usability evaluation checklist 8 to determine how usable the system was The checklist proved a very useful tool to assess the usability of the application as it was easy to use adequately detailed and tested all aspects of usability The drawback of this tool however was that it did not provide a quantitative evaluation of the application That is to say there was no way of knowing if the results constituted a pass or a fail This testing approach would have been more effective if the checklist was accompanied by a rating system The user testing was separated into 3 distinct parts usability of the web interface the usability and functionality of the administration interface and how easy the application is to set up and maintain In the first two parts the users were provided with specific tasks to perform whereas the user involved the third test was told only to try and set up the website The tasks outlined in appendix I for each user proved to be a valuable tool for testing as they ensured all aspects of the application were sufficiently tested Furthermore the tasks aided the users understanding of how the application worked and helped them to learn how to use each function The third user test required the user to setup and add content to the application unaided and without any guidelines to follow This test was designed to see if it could be widely adopted and setup by any sports team The user was able to successfully setup up the
55. eeds Met Author Gary O Summary The 3rd team got off to the best possible start to the season beating the close rivals in a thrilling game that saw 8 smashing goals Full report e Fig 6 15 Match reports page Requirement 6 The ability to view current and past league tables To achieve this requirement the page gives a description of the leagues participated in and links to the tables on the league organiser s web site 95 Requirement 7 The ability to publicise tour information optional The administrator is able to control the content of the tour page using the text editor Again the layout is entirely the administrator s choice Requirement 8 The ability to store and maintain photographs from social events tour and competitive matches The design and layout of the photo gallery is different to the layout and design of other pages This is because the script to implement the photo gallery was freely obtained from 23 Figure 6 16 shows how the photo gallery looks G vi Fc T Image G 10 most recent comments gallery home gallery script homepage a Callela 2006 o Footballers ball 2006 t sports ball 2006 8 imgs 119 Kb Copyright note All photographs within th law Iv n Loire all rights reserved Imag Sports ball 2006 from the author Gary 0 on 01 05 2006 00 25 05 said ae E ected under International rights of reproduction loaded For the pur g only
56. ent through the application The user was also encouraged to comment on any design or functionality issues that arose User testing of the presentation interface showed that the usability of the web site is good with the user showing good memory and recall of the site structure by correctly navigating to each page via the shortest route possible Testing also highlighted errors in the registration process which are easily rectified and expressed the need to give the squad selections page its own section and link in the main navigation A detailed test plan with results and comments made by the user are contained in appendix I Here I also propose corrective action to be taken for each problem that occurred 7 3 2 Administration interface The potential administrator for LUUMAFC Adam McKenzie was supplied with a similar but more extensive and lengthy set of activities to perform These activities covered the entire range of administration functions available to the application user User testing of the administration interface showed similar results to that of the presentation interface It highlighted the same functionality problems with the registration process and was also easy to use The user found that the layout and use of graphics on the administration interface was an aid to understanding administration tasks Overall the design of the interface was concluded as ok with plenty of room for improvement but also that the desi
57. ently squad selections are published on notice boards in university prior to matches These must be available online ACTION Main requirement Fixtures and results for all teams must be available It would be good to store past results as well ACTION Present fixtures compulsory Past results strongly advised League tables currently stored on league organiser s site They should be available on this application explained that it would be difficult to maintain bearing in mind the difficulty to find out all the match results from other universities The best option would be to link to the organisers site ACTION Separate page but link to external web site 60 3 5 The committee want to publish photographs of matches social events and tour ACTION Main requirement 3 6 It would be useful if club members place a training kit order with the kit secretary online An email order to the secretary would be sufficient This is to be available to club members only This suggests web site registration necessary ACTION Main requirement 3 7 Possibly the ability to publish match reports Committee members disagreed on the importance of this facility 3 8 Provide a discussion forum This is to be available to members only ACTION Main requirement 3 9 It would be good to have a profiles page of all the club members The details to be shown include Name Nickname Dob Position Additional comments These would be added once at the beginning of
58. er For this reason user testing is still critical to a successful testing conclusion The usability inspection returned mostly positive results It showed that the layout and design meet all of the usability guidelines in the checklist and that the navigation in the application is good The application also successfully met all of the HCI Human Computer Interaction guidelines in the checklist The use of colour and content were also determined to be good The inspection did however highlight a weakness in error tolerance Users in the site administration need to be warned of risky or costly actions before they proceed and need a source of help in the event of errors occurring The full results of the usability inspection are contained in appendix I 7 3 User testing 37 User testing aims to identify extremely specific problems and involves observing users performing specific activities in order to identify what problems they have as they use the application The user testing in this project will focus on three main areas testing of the presentation interface by a potential user of the web site testing of the administration interface by the potential site administrator of LUUMAFC and a full test of setting up and maintaining the application carried out by a member of a separate sports club 7 3 1 Presentation interface The user was supplied with specific activities to perform and observations made on the users reactions and movem
59. er 4 Develop a web application for LUUMAFC that uses a database to manage content As covered in this chapter the application successfully meets the user requirements of LUUMAFC thus can be considered successful A report of the usability testing of the application by a committee member of LUUMAFC Thomason s 2 usability checklist was used to guide the design and implementation of the application Testing of how successful the usability was was conducting using 2 methods a usability inspection and user testing Brink Gergle and Woods 3 usability evaluation checklist was used for the usability inspection and the user testing was carried out by two committee members of LUUMAFC and one from Leeds University Men s Tennis Club A report on this process is in chapter 7 8 5 Usability The usability evaluation checklist 3 used in the usability inspection looked at nine areas of usability architecture and navigation layout and design content forms and interaction graphics colour typography error tolerance and platform and implementation The results of this checklist highlighted both strengths and weaknesses in usability The application scored perfect results in the layout and design and forms and interaction sections and almost full results in the architecture and navigation section The use of colour and content were also concluded to be good The results of these sections alone suggest that the application is easy to use bu
60. es gt NUL gt Fixtures gt Match gt League Tables gt Gallery gt Forum Register LUUMAFC gt Tour To become a i f P PER member register Welcome to the website of Leeds University Union Mens Association Football Club On here our website you can keep track of the progress of the club and the upcoming events Forgotten your password E This website is currently under construction and all areas should be fully available Latest News soon Want to change your password Easter Over To change your details click here 16 4 2006 About Us ow to find us Leeds University Union leeds ac uk Contact Us Site admin Fig 6 2 A screen shot of the final web interface 6 3 1 Layout The layout of the interface was constructed using a series of tables in html A graphical representation of how these tables are organised can be seen in figure 6 3 in appendix H Code snippets to show how these tables were implemented are also detailed here 6 3 2 Navigation The main navigation on the left is constructed using a table Each section of the site is represented by a green rollover button that changes to dark green when the mouse hovers over it Details on the full implementation of the left navigation including code snippets can be viewed in appendix H The bottom navigation bar contains text links to the pages About us How to find us and Contact us To emphasise these text links in accordance with Tho
61. es of Interface Design These are metaphor clarity consistency orientation and navigation Metaphor refers to the symbolic representation of areas of your site e g using familiar images for entry points exits and windows in an environment Clarity demands that every asset on your website should have a reason for being there and that this reason should be apparent to the user E g images and buttons should perform their perceived purpose The third feature to consider is consistency which states that the use 5 of metaphors and navigation aids be uniformly used Orientation means the user must know exactly where he or she is at every step of using your application Aids to ensure this include titles headers and footers etc The final feature highlighted by Molly E Holzchlag 5 is the importance of good navigation which can coincide with layout design issues 2 5 Ease of Maintenance Web sites have traditionally required the expertise of web designers for managing the content but no more Web content is increasingly becoming more dynamic and database driven allowing content changes to be made by simply changing the information in text files or databases and the changes immediately becoming evident in the web pages A term frequently used to refer to systems that make managing content easier is a Content Management Systems 2 5 1 Content Management Systems CMS Russell Nakano 6 refers to a CMS as a discipline that managers t
62. ester 2 than semester 1 I also designed a gap in the development of this project over the Christmas period to revise for 5 examinations at the beginning of January Work then recommenced after these examinations A Gantt chart of this final schedule and the initial schedule are available in appendix B 1 7 Relevance to degree programme Within BSc Computing Industry I have studied three database modules including Database Principles and Practice and most recently Advanced Databases DB11 DB21 DB31 Creating a web application with content management functionality should enable me to utilise these skills by applying a database behind my web application Development methodologies and requirements gathering have also been studied in various Information System modules including IN11 IN21 IN23 as well as a Software Project Management module SE22 My programming skills in java and HMTL have also been aptly tested in many modules including Object Orientated Programming SE21 and Human Computer Interaction S113 and will be further put to the test in this project In particular my year in Industry saw me maintain and create new static web pages for a large national website This project would not only utilise the skills learnt from this placement but expand this knowledge to include interactive features CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND READING 2 1 Introduction This chapter will report on the background reading carried ou
63. evelopment stages were broken up into clearly defined tasks making them easy to manage and predict This is evident from the few schedule changes that were necessary The decision to include iterative feedback proved vital in the development process Although there was no user requirement changes during the development process iterative feedback enabled stages to be revisited should there be the need to This was the case between the implementation and testing stages Due to difficulties in implementing the discussion forum and photo gallery with the development resources available in the School of Computing a management decision was necessary to undertake the testing stage without these two facilities in place to prevent the project over running The Waterfall model states that should iterative feedback be included management decisions would be necessary to decide when a stage is complete 14 This is also evident here Finally the user s acceptance of the final application in the testing phase can suggest that the Waterfall model included an acceptable amount of user interaction during the development cycle 8 7 Effectiveness of testing The testing process involved both a user inspection and user testing of the application to evaluate if it meets the system requirements and solves the problem It was also designed to identify any errors along the way so that corrective action could be taken to solve them 44 The usability inspection utilis
64. form will assist in achieving requirement number 10 The ability for members only to order training kit optional Match reports Dae _____ Tite 2 Summary Author J Upload 7 Fig 5 6 Add match reports form This form is to be used by the site administrator Clicking the Add command button will add the form data including the name of the uploaded document to the Matchreports table This facility will support generic requirement number 5 The ability to publish match reports optional 12 Fixtures Please enter the number of fixtures Team Location Opponent Competition Result Score Fig 5 7 Add fixtures form The site administrator will be asked for the number of fixtures he she wishes to enter in the database and that number of rows will be displayed on the next form The data entered in this form will be stored in the Fixtures table A similar form will also be required to amend the details of any fixture For this form the user will be asked to select the fixture they wish to change This supports the delivery of generic requirement number 2 The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for a VARIETY of teams External Links Fig 5 8 Add external links form The site administrator will use this form to add links to external web sites The data will be stored in the external_links table This will achieve requirement 12 The ability to l
65. g stage by 4 weeks To allow for these changes to take effect without causing the development to over run requirements gathering was allocated only 2 weeks instead of the initial 3 and the design stage was put back one week The final change was to extend the design and implementation stages by 1 week Upon reflection the schedule was not strictly followed as little reference was made to the schedule throughout the development process and tasks did not always begin and end when the schedule suggested The Waterfall methodology however did ensure that the tasks were carried out in the order planned and that each task was completed before the next task begun with exception to the instances where tasks were aloud to overlap 8 11 Possible improvements The evaluation of the application against the user requirements showed all of them were met but it doesn t mean to say that improvements are not possible The requirements analysis also identified 15 requirements common to different sports teams suffering from the same problem as LUUMAFC It was beyond the scope of this project to produce an application for all types of sports but nevertheless the final application achieved all of the requirements to some degree and was accepted by Leeds University Men s Tennis Club User testing identified a number of new features that could be implemented to improve the application and make it more appealing to all sports teams These include enabling the use
66. gn of this interface was not a key determinant in the success of the application The user believed the application was on track to fulfil all the agreed needs of LUUMAFC 38 The full results of these tests are contained in appendix I Again corrective action is given to solve these problems 7 3 3 Set up and maintenance The Leeds University Tennis Club captain Alex Collingwood was more than willing to take part in the testing process in the pursuit of an application that would fulfil the needs of the tennis club Alex was supplied the application template with no content in place and asked to create a website for the tennis club unaided This testing process aimed to find out if the application successfully delivers on the generic user requirements and on how easy the application is to set up and maintain I observed Alex s actions and asked him to express his opinions and thoughts on the application The main findings are summarised below and the full test results are available in the appendix I The testing found that the application is fairly easy to use and that it would only get easier when the user becomes more familiar with the site The problems identified in the other testing processes also reoccurred These include problems with registering member security details navigating back to the administration page from some forms did not always work and pages did not automatically refresh after records were updated Testing also f
67. grouped properly Are there clear Submit buttons Graphics en image quality adequate Do the images include alternate text Do the images include size information O Do the images use a consistent light source O Are images stored for maximum compression mis mouse over feedback provided Is it useful O Are animations useful Are there too many Are they properly compressed Color fe the choice of colors appropriate for site Are too many colors used W Are colors used consistently K Are graphics colors dithered O Do color choices work in grayscale Typography Is the text legible Ws the font size large enough W Is the font color appropriate and is there sufficient contrast Sl Js the text formatted for 10 to 12 words per line Are there sufficient margins Y Are typefaces used properly and consistently Error Tolerance amp Do users need to remember items across pages or sessions Are confirmations provided before risky or costly actions amp Are risky or costly actions reversible EZ Are entry errors caught locally 2 Do error pages provide useful information XX Do search error pages provide search broadening tips amp Is help available X Is help task oriented t Is help contextual Platform and Implementation YA Is load time fast enough Does it load in 3 to 15 seconds 1 Do all the links work Are there broken images Y Are Pages written to be found by
68. gt amp Else lt Write the contents of the text editor to aboutus txt gt MyFile Server MapPath textfiles aboutus txt Set FSO Server CreateObject Scripting FileSystemObject Set TSO FSO OpenTextFile MyFile 2 Create TSO write strEditorContent amp vberlf The next thing we do is read in the contents of the text file to provide the content for the page We do this using lt Read the contents of a text file gt strFileName Server MapPath textfiles aboutus txt Instantiate the FileSystemObject Set objFSO Server CreateObject Scripting FileSystemObject Use Opentextfile Method to Open the text File Set TS objFSO OpenTextFile strFileName ForReading Create If Not TS AtEndOfStream Then Do While Not TS AtendOfStream strLine TS ReadLine Read one line at a time Response Write strLine Display that line Loop End If Implementation of the web interface Below is a screen shot of the final interface It is consistent across all pages of the site 84 Lecds University Football Club gt Home MENO Links gt News gt BUSA gt Player Profiles gt NUL gt Fixtures gt Match gt League Tab Displays next gt Gallery fixture for AAA each team Links to other web sites gt Tour LUUMAFC To become a i A o member register Welcome to the website of Leeds University Union Mens Association Football Club On here our website you can
69. gt Kit item 6 Blue Nike Rain Jacket 25 y Item 7 item 2 item 9 Latest News Item 10 gt LUU gt Gallery gt Forum Website launch date Size Quantity tema PI tema PI tema PI tema PI wemssfo E tema foi Item 7 16 4 2006 Item 8 Item 9 Item 10 Submit Cancel Fig 6 19 Kit ordering form The information entered in this form is added to the kit_order table and can be viewed in the site administration section 99 Kit Orders Name Item Size Quantity Gary Ingham White match shorts medium 1 Gary Ingham White match socks medium 1 Gary Ingham Blue Nike training t shirt large 2 Gary Ingham Blue Nike training jumper medium 1 BACK Fig 6 20 Kit orders Requirement 11 The ability to publish directions to training ground facilities This requirement is fulfilled through the How to find us page Again the layout and content of this page is controlled using the text editor Requirement 12 The ability to link to a VARIETY of third parties e g sponsors league organisers kit manufacturers The site administrator is able to add links to external web sites in the right hand side navigation of each web page This is achieved by entering the link details in the following form Add External Link To add a link choose the name you wish the link to appear as and enter the URL of the pag
70. h officials tour organisers etc The functions desired by the Netball team but not essential include 13 The ability to publish match reports 14 A subsection for recreational netball to publish general notices 15 To store the contact details of recreational members 66 Appendix F Alternatives and competition Esportsdesk www esportsdesk com This is the interface for esportsdesk It shows the difficulty in accessing individual club web sites Difficult to navigate to a sports clubs mini site WHATWEDO KIDS FREE Since 1997 we have ar iS gt Gettickets amp info been providing free Promotion gle ournament N cl sports t e d organizations wi aa links for the the most advanced gaue ague online administration company ti rnament aa tools available THAT gt Find Your Site Free Websites i j y Our websites are available to any youth na amateur or recreational sports organization and include player statistics schedules standings online registration and more suilding Single Team Single Leaque Single Tournament Multi Tearn Association Multi Leaque Association Multi Division Tournament ing Opportunities Online Registration g lt Register ON line not IN line Fundraising Opportunities esportsdesk com now proudly offers the ability to collect registration fees online Using our online registration system is a huge time saver for league administrati
71. hat allows other contact methods 5 Test the site on real users Remember that you re the designer so of course you effortlessly use the navigation system love the content and understand the value proposition But now it s time to get user feedback before your online users start sending it in Usability testing helps you replicate the experience of the average Web site user and correct problems before online visitors find them It also gives you valuable answers to other questions Do visitors enjoy using the site If so they ll stay longer and read more content Do they understand the purpose of the site If not there s no compelling reason to return Is there any incentive to return after the first visit Your site should try to be the ultimate authority on the Web for your topic A site with depth and breadth encourages visitors to bookmark it and refer friends interested in the same topic Can they recover from errors Usability testing is the best way to test how well your site search site map forms and custom error pages function They should all work together to guide a visitor through the site and help him get where he s going Frustrated visitors aren t likely to return ever 58 Appendix D 10 Web Guidelines from Usability for the web designing websites that work Consistency and contrast 1 Content and scope 2 Speed 3 Navigation 4 Appropriateness of task 5 Visual design 6
72. he Players table with the members personal details and the Security table with the members username and password This form will be used by all users Together this form and the Players table will aid the successful delivery of generic requirement number 3 The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details 70 News form Fig 5 3 Add new form This form populates the News table and is for use by site administrators only It will assist in achieving generic requirement number 1 The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events Kit selection Description Fig 5 4 Kit selection form This form will populate the Kit_selection table and will be used by site administrators to determine the choice of kit available to all members 71 Kit ordering Quantity Description Description Description You are about to order Description Description size quantity Description size quantity Description size quantity Description size quantity Description size quantity Description Description Description size quantity Please confirm Confirm Revise Fig 5 5 Kit order form This facility is for members only so will require members to login in order to access this form The form will take the player_id of the member and store the form details in the Kit_order table The member must first confirm these order details This
73. he proposed database structure are related together through the use of primary keys and foreign keys emphasised in the database schema Each table in that database includes a primary key to uniquely identify each record in the database This is necessary as records can have the same value for fields such as Name The primary key in each table in this database design is a numeric ID field of type autonumber to ensure no record has the same identifier In order to form a relationship between two tables the joining tables must also contain the primary key of the table it is forming a relationship with This key is usually referred to as a foreign key Using primary and foreign keys in this way will enforce referential integrity by ensuring no record can be added to a table unless the foreign key in that relation points to a valid record in the other relation 17 5 2 4 Normalisation Normalisation is used to define the structural properties of relations In 3NF a new relation should be created for each functional dependency in the database to avoid duplication and redundancy of data 18 A functional dependency describes the relationship between attributes 17 That is to say that if the same field was stored in two tables we might forget to update the data in both tables Esen Ozkaran 18 states that normalisation should be a reversible process to maintain consistency so that if you return to the original form of the database you can do
74. he timely accurate collaborative iterative and reproducible development of a web property CMS allow anybody within an organisation to update web pages without any prior technical expertise which is an ideal solution to my users problem CMS is therefore described as a templating system with the design layout set and the content provided by database lookups Updating content stored in a database therefore automatically changes the content on the web page without affecting the design layout of the web page The simplest method to update content in the database is through the use of forms which can be made available in the browser thus allowing the site owner to make small or large changes quickly through an online interface This removes the need for web page editor packages and removes the need for any hard coding by the user The proposed web application will therefore utilise an online interface to allow the site owner to maintain the website The term Content Management System or CMS may be used to refer to this application in the rest of the report 2 5 2 WYSIWYG Editors What You See Is What You Get editors allow you to design pages without knowing html They allow you to layout text images and tables etc as you would in any word processing software and the html is generated for you The advantage of these editors is that the learning curve is low as what you see is what you get making their usability consistent to all users
75. ibuted by providing an online portal to share information All large organisations are or have already taken advantage of this but 1t is often the case that many small organisations lack the finances and technical expertise to explore this avenue of communication and information management Small sports clubs are such organisations that lack the necessary resources to establish and maintain a web presence Leeds University Union Men s Association Football Club LUUMAFC is just one organisation that currently has no web presence but would relish the opportunity to disseminate information to its 70 members and supporters on line Unfortunately its members currently lack the technical skills to create their own web application Communication between the club and its members is currently a difficult task with each member having to be contacted individually It is therefore believed that a web application would improve the communication process and enable the club to carry out other administrative tasks interactively online 1 2 Project Aim The aim of this project is to research the potential need for a web application amongst a wider range of small sports clubs and to produce an interactive web application for LUUMAFC to help with the day to day running of the club and dissemination of information to its members This website must be easy to setup customisable and easily maintained by the average computer user 1 3 Project Objectives
76. id int auto team_id int 4 date datetime location char 1 opponent char 30 competition char 10 result char 1 score vchar 10 e Kit_selection kit_id int auto description char 50 cost char 8 e Kit_order order_id int auto kit_id int 4 quantity int 4 size char 20 player_id int 4 e External_links link_id int auto name char 20 url char 80 e Contactlist contact_id int auto name char 40 organisation char 40 telephone text 16 email char 30 address1 char 30 address2 char 30 address char 30 description char 40 25 e Matchreports report_id int auto title char 50 summary char 1000 author char 30 team_id int 4 date datetime document_name char 30 e Security security_id int auto user_id char 16 password char 10 player_id int 4 The primary keys in the schemas above are in italics and the foreign keys underlined 5 2 2 Entity Relational Diagram An entity relationship diagram helps illustrate the conceptual design of the database showing high level abstractions relationships and cardinalities between each relation Each entity in the database should also have a unique identifier to identify specific instances of each entity In the example of the Players table this could be a PlayerID property that is unique to each player This will help when using SQL to query the database An ER diagram also helps to model the relationship between each entity There are three types of rela
77. ide a website for tennis they attempted to develop an independent website When asked how much the tennis team used this website Alex admitted that it was never actually used the reason for this being poor functionality Again this highlights the possibility of a wider potential 2 3 Usability Jakob Neilsen 1 an expert in web usability defines usability as a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use The word usability also refers to methods for improving ease of use during the design process The importance of usability should not be underestimated in what is becoming an increasingly competitive business environment If a user can not effectively operate your website they will simply stop using it There are many usability frameworks and guidelines available today but the two I will discuss are a Web Site Usability Checklist 2 and a general purpose checklist 3 2 3 1 Framework 1 The first framework to consider is a web site usability checklist created by Larisa Thomason 2 which is based in many parts on usability guru Jakob Nielsen s work 4 The checklist highlights 5 important components of a usable web site design a clear and simple navigation system keep content clear and simple support your brand provide for visitor feedback and test the site on real users This checklist is clear and simple yet gives precise details on what a usable web site should and should not include Overall this
78. ing with another consistent visual technique like a background color different font or text color that indicates a hyperlink Always include text links You can create some great looking menus using JavaScript or other scripting language but never rely completely on a dynamic menu system Some users may have problems using a mouse to navigate through the menu and others may be listening to the page using a screen reader Every page should have basic text links that link to all major sections of the site Add a text based site map Large or complex sites should always have a text based site map in addition to text links Every page should contain a text link to the site map Lost visitors will use it to find their way while search engines spiders will have reliable access to all your pages Include a home page link inside your main navigation system Visitors may enter your site via an internal page but hopefully they ll want to head for the home page next Site logo links to home page Most sites include their logo somewhere at the top of every page generally in the top left hand corner Visitors expect this logo to be a link to your site s home page They ll often go there before looking for the home link in the navigation system Include a site search box A robust site search feature helps visitors quickly locate the information they want Make the search box prominent and be sure that it searches all of your s
79. ing with the developer Quite often managers can have an idea in their head of a system that is often unfeasible and as a result is unhappy with the final system Prototyping will solve this by identifying any problems in the design early in the development process while it can still be changed Prototyping is also especially good for systems with a small number of users and short project duration making it a very feasible methodology to follow in my project Although Prototyping has many advantages these do not come without there drawbacks Because there are no clearly defined stages management and control of the development process is made more difficult and as stated 1t could take some time for the user and developer to agree on a set of requirements At what point would you need to say enough is enough and implement the system Prototyping also requires a good commitment from the users of the systems in order to be successful Without 1t most of the advantages of Prototyping will not be exploited Furthermore testing of the system developed through prototyping is made increasingly difficult by the absence of a detailed specification of requirements 3 1 5 Structured Systems Analysis and Design SSADM SSADM is a highly structured framework that covers all aspects of the Waterfall model with the exception of implementation and maintenance It too is split up into series of stages each with a clearly defined set of rules and guidelines inclu
80. ink to a VARIETY of third parties e g sponsors league organisers kit manufacturers Teams 73 Requirements analysis showed that sports clubs have varying numbers of teams so it is important to store each team in the database Fig 5 9 Forms to add team names The only detail required in the Teams table is the team name as the team ID is automatically generated It may also be necessary to provide the user with a mechanism for editing this name or deleting teams from the Team table Contact details Name Organisation Telephone Email Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 PEEL lt Add Contact Fig 5 10 Contacts form This form will be used by the site administrator to store contact details of third parties and organisations e g sponsors suppliers and match officials etc The details stored in the contact_list table are likely to be viewable only by the site administrator A similarly structured form is all so necessary to allow the site administrator to amend these details This form helps achieve requirement number 15 The ability to store contact lists for third parties E g Printing companies match officials tour organisers etc 74 Interface design Design One Main content SOUS VUIO XO 0 SUT g g lay oN re gt iss KD n O gt Fig 5 11 Interface design one The logo is located in the top left hand corner adjacent to the title
81. ite and only your site We ve run across far too many Web sites that include a Search the Web search box on their home page The result Visitors hardly get to the site before the search function sends them to another site Keep the content clear and simple You may attract visitors with an eye catching design but content is what keeps them at the site and encourages them to return Content is also the best way to boost your site in search engine rankings Always keep search engines in mind when you write content but remember that your ultimate audience is human visitors Present your content with humans in mind Don t save the best for last Place your most important content high on the page Think of a newspaper the top story is always prominently displayed above the fold Check your page display at in a number of different screen resolutions to make sure that your most important content is visible when the page loads Make page content easy to scan You ll spend hours maybe days writing your page content and it s really annoying to think that visitors may read less than half of it Format your content so that it s easy to scan Emphasize important points or product characteristics with a combination of header tags bold type color or lists Avoid using text inside images whenever possible Text in images is invisible to search engine spiders and to visitors who may have images turned off in their browsers or who
82. keen sportsman and enjoy web development so from the very start of the project I was excited to begin the development of a solution Looking back on the entire project I am reasonably happy with the quality of this report but feel the Content Management System CMS produced had not fulfilled my own expectations I believe if more time was available I could significantly improve both the functionality and design of the application and plan do so upon completion of this project I feel my personal time management throughout this project was good as I put in more than the recommended 400 hours work and allocated sufficient time to each section of this report Having said this I was poor at following a schedule and did not always perform sections in a logical order This was especially evident between the design and implementation sections as some aspects of the functionality had not been fully designed before an attempt was made to implement them Because of this some aspects of the functionality took longer to implement than probably would have had the design been in place This was a waste of valuable time I have taken a tremendous personal gain from this project by learning new skills that will help me in industry I have learnt an entire new language ASP from scratch and expanded my web development knowledge by learning how to add interactive features to a website I also gained valuable knowledge of using a MS SQL server to drive the content
83. l custom error page that helps visitors if they should click on a broken internal link or type a URL incorrectly The custom error page should reflect the site s overall color type and layout structure as much as possible and provide useful links to help visitors find what they re looking for Create a good tagline and use it on every page A good tagline clearly and concisely explains your value proposition or what makes your site stand out from competing sites It should be memorable and reinforce your brand in one quick phrase 4 Provide for visitor feedback Forms are critical to the success of ecommerce sites Without forms you can t have a shopping cart But any site usually needs at least one form to allow for user feedback A form helps you hide from email spiders and also helps you control how user feedback is formatted and sent 37 Keep feedback forms short and clearly note which information is required to successfully submit the form Take care to design accessible forms that all visitors can use Remember your international users and don t require information they may not have like area codes or ZIP codes Present complete contact information including your business phone number and postal address A street address is preferred but you may want to use a PO box if yours is a home based business Visitors will probably prefer to contact you using email or a form but they feel more comfortable with a site t
84. led login message 103 Appendix I Testing User testing of the presentation interface This was carried out by LUUMAFC committee member Shaun Cooke Shaun s comments on the interface include On the design e The overall design is good e The Kit button in the main navigation appears to have a different font On usability e Squad selection pages are too hidden He believes the Match section is probably the correct section for 1t but still feels 1t should be emphasised more e Impressed by the league tables page Links to the tables were extremely quick On the functionality e Apart from the Kit ordering section everything seems to work as 1t should be expected e Believes the News page will be extremely useful User testing of the administration interface This was carried out by LUUMAFC potential web site administrator Adam McKenzie Adam s comments on the system include On the design e The main thing is it works so the design doesn t matter too much but generally it is ok On usability e The list structure made it easy to determine each administrative task e Adam thought the graphics were clear and that if you didn t know what each graphic was for the alt text helped you determine this On the functionality e He thought the functionality was great and believes the application will be a great success after the registration is fixed and the discussion forum and gallery have been implemented e H
85. lysed above but it is important to ensure a development incorporates not just the current practices but any desired or future expansion of the clubs needs To collect these requirements meetings were held with my client LUUMAFC and other prospective clients with potentially similar problems It is important at this stage not only to determine and understand the functions an IT system must fulfil but to establish exactly which functions will determine whether the system is successful These functions can be known as Key Performance Indicators KPIs or Critical Success Factors CSFs 4 4 1 LUUMAFC Requirements The CSFs identified for the LUUMAFC include The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for 4 teams The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details KRW N gt The ability to publish squad selections in advance of matches 20 The ability to view current and past league tables The ability to publicise tour information The ability to store and maintain photographs from social events tour and competitive matches 8 The ability for members only to discuss topics of interest 9 The ability for members only to order training kit 10 The ability to link to sponsors and league organisers 11 The ability to publish directions to training ground facilities Other functions identified b
86. mason s usability checklist 2 I use CSS to 33 underline the links when a user hovers the mouse over them Further details on the use of CSS are reported in section 6 3 5 The right hand side navigation contains links to external web sites and is controlled by the web site administrator from the administration interface To ensure these links are consistent CSS is again used The links are dark green on a light grey background and are emphasised in red when the mouse hovers over the link All hyperlinks that appear in the main content follow this style As discussed in section 5 4 3 a user must be able to answer the questions Where am 1 Where have I been Where can I go To ensure this is possible a trace of the users movements to a given page are displayed in the top left of the main content section 6 3 3 Colours and graphics The intended four colours determined in the design phase section 5 4 4 were used in the implementation of the web interface These colours have been carefully used to ensure good contrast throughout the web site This is in accordance with Thomason s usability checklist 2 The club name is written in white text on a dark green background and the main navigation is a lighter shade of green Light grey is used as the background colour for the right hand side navigation with dark green links Black text is used on a white background to provide the main content while page headers can be in either shade of green A vi
87. mplemented interface is only a 2 column structure The original design proposed a column each for set up tasks page editing and administrative tasks In reality there are few set up tasks to perform so it seemed a waste of page space to allocate an entire column to this section The setup tasks are therefore displayed at the top of the screen and the page editing and administration tasks split into 2 columns beneath Figure 6 6 in appendix H shows a screen shot of the final administration interface 6 4 2 Navigation and graphics Links to each facility on the administration interface consist of textual links supported by graphics with alt text The graphics used are clear and the function they perform obvious to the administrator 6 4 3 Functionality The functions available to the user are those that help meet the generic requirements identified in section 4 5 5 and help solve the problem described in section 1 1 A detailed explanation of each of these features and how they work is contained in appendix H 6 5 Security Security is always an issue where sensitive information is stored In this application three aspects of security were considered security of the data stored in the database access to the online administration facility and access to restricted areas of the web site intended for members only To ensure security of data in the database the database is protected by a username and password to 35 prevent unauthorised use
88. ms across the world but predominantly American sports teams Esportsdesk com offer one free website package and a number of packages they charge for In summary esportsdesk com fulfil the majority of the generic requirements identified including support for multiple teams notice boards storing current and past results player profiles player statistics multiple photo albums links local sponsorship ad server and a method for player discussions However even though the majority of generic requirements are fulfilled there are some superseding factors that make esportsdesk com unsuitable as a solution 1 The user is not free to add new pages to the website hence a number of requirements can not be fulfilled publish squad selections tour information directions order training kit A lot of unnecessary facilities to over complicate things No control over the presentation Cluttered by unrelated sponsorship ads Does not conform to Thomason s 2 checklist aA PF Ye An application owned by another organisation is not personal enough and doesn t reflect the identity of the football club 6 As the website is a mini site of this large site navigating to the site is more difficult and the URL not specific to the client To support my argument screen shots of the web interface for this product are contained in appendix F 4 5 2 www web teams co uk Web teams co uk is similar web based company based in the UK that offers fo
89. n for LUUMAFC 2 Final year project report 1 6 Project Schedule Dates Task Milestones 10 10 05 21 10 05 Identify Minimum Aims and Submit 21 10 05 Requirements 22 10 05 27 11 05 Background Reading Background Reading Summary chapter 22 10 05 27 11 05 Research existing solutions Summary chapter 14 11 05 27 11 05 Methodologies Methodologies chapter 28 11 05 09 12 05 Mid project report Submit 09 12 05 10 12 05 22 01 06 Christmas break and exam period 23 01 06 05 02 06 Requirements Analysis Report 30 01 06 05 03 06 Design of solution Design chapter 20 02 06 09 04 06 Implementation of solution Implementation chapter 2 06 03 06 19 03 06 Progress meeting Submit 17 03 06 10 04 06 16 04 06 User testing of solution User testing chapter 03 04 06 30 04 06 Evaluation Evaluation chapter Collate and write the report Submit 03 05 06 Fig 1 0 A table outlining the project schedule and milestones The above table shows the final project schedule It splits the project up into a series of tasks and specifies time periods for each task to commence and finish Great consideration was given to other course commitments such as coursework and examinations when deciding upon time frames for these tasks For instance I decided that I would spend more time in semester 2 on the design and implementation of the web application due to fewer course commitments in sem
90. n shot of the registration page The web site administrator must then approve or disapprove the registration request If the registration is approved the data in the temp_players table is moved to the players table using the following code Takes a hidden id to identify the record to be approved temp_id Request Form hidden_temp_id Open query string to move date to players table objRS Open INSERT INTO players title firstname surname nickname dob email mobile position_played comments SELECT title firstname surname nickname dob email mobile position_played comments FROM temp_players WHERE temp_id amp temp_id amp adoConn Query string to move security details from temp_security objRS1 Open INSERT INTO security user_id password SELECT user_id password FROM temp_security WHERE temp_id amp temp_id amp adoConn If the member is disapproved the details are deleted from the temp_players and temp_security table Requirement 4 The ability to publish a NUMBER of squad selections in advance of matches The layout and content of the squad selections pages are determined solely by the administrator using the WYSIWYG editor Details on how the text editor is implemented are discussed above The 93 content of this text editor is displayed on one of the four squad selections pages created A squad page was created for each team in the club Below is an example of how a squad selection page may l
91. navigation The user testing also highlighted small changes such as giving the squad selections page its own section in the navigation which was carried out after the testing 48 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION 9 1 Evaluation of entire project The aim of this project was to research the potential needs of a web application amongst small sports teams and to develop a Content Management System CMS for LUUMAFC to help disseminate information to its members and improve other business processes The development focused primarily on the usability of such an application under strict usability guidelines 9 and the functionality needs of the user It was recognised early in the project that a usable solution must utilise a database to drive the content of the application and that this must be updated through an online administration facility The CMS produced successfully met the usability and functional requirements of the user and gained their acceptance The roll out of this application onto the World Wide Web shows the project was successful The user testing and evaluation of the application did however highlight room for improvements and expansion Although all the user requirements were successfully met the application is not yet completely generic to all sports as the user is still restricted to what functions they can perform The application could therefore be developed further to include additional functionality and allow the user greater co
92. nk that works web interface if necessary 25 Delete this external link The link is permanently As expected Refresh needed Make the page deleted refresh after update 26 Edit the About Us page Page successfully edited As expected None 27 Try editing the How to find us Page successfully edited As expected None page 28 Two members are waiting to be User selects correct menu As expected None approved for the web site View the option details of these potential members 29 Approve John Thompson John Thompson is registered Appears as if approved A Revise code for 109 and his details disappear off check of database shows approving screen His profile is added to security details not registration profiles page successfully approved requests 30 Disapprove Joe Bloggs Joe Bloggs details disappear As expected None His profile is not added to the profiles page 31 View John Thompson s email User selects correct link John As expected None address Thompson email address is viewable on this page 32 Cancel John Thompson s John s details are deleted As expected Needs to refresh Make the page membership permanently His profile no refresh after update longer appears on the profiles page 33 Add a referees contact details The The details are stored in the As expected None referees name is Joe Bloggs his database telephone number is 07795671234 Assume
93. nt firstly how the system will integrate the generic Critical Success Factors CSFs referred to in the previous section while abiding by Larisa Thomason s 2 Web site usability checklist investigated in section 2 3 1 The design will ensure the application is easy to use and maintain by the average computer user 5 2 Data The data to be stored in this application will be stored in a MySQL database because it is freely available compatible with ISS web servers and my chosen language ASP To determine the structure of the database it was essential to first define the data stores necessary to fulfil the generic requirements This required the creation of table schemas to outline the information to be stored An Entity Relational Diagram could then be used to represent the overall structure of the database The database also reflects the normalisation issues referred to in more detail later 5 2 1 Database Schema The functionality and content of this application will be controlled by the database so it is advantageous to ensure the tables are created correctly The database schema will be as follows e Players player_id int auto title char 4 firstname char 20 surname char 20 nickname char 20 dob datetime email char 30 mobile number 16 position char 20 comments char 200 e Team team_id int auto name char 20 e News news_id int auto title char 50 news char 500 date_published datetime e Fixtures fixture_
94. nt is critical to the success of the system 13 The drawback of this development model includes changes in user requirements The 6 distinct stages make the model inflexible to incorporate a change in user requirements throughout the development process This may then mean that by the end of the development the system no longer has any real use to the user An adaptation to this model that includes the opportunity to return to the previous stage in order to review the work carried out can overcome this problem This is known as a Waterfall model with iterative feedback This model allows the developer to revisit the design stage or requirements stage and incorporate any user requirement changes that may occur during development It can however make it more difficult to predict the project schedule and there will be no clear end to each stage Therefore management decisions will be required to decide when no more iteration s are allowed 3 1 2 Rapid Application Development Rapid Application Development or RAD proposes to do exactly as the title suggests This methodology was designed to solve long development problems and changing user requirements It proposes to do this through an incremental approach known as timeboxing The system is divided up into a number of components or timeboxes that are developed separately Timeboxes basically specify a development start time and end time Within each of these timeboxes functionality is adde
95. ntrol 49 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 References Nielsen Jakob 2003 Usability 101 An Introduction to Usability http www useit com alertbox 20030825 html 3rd February 2006 Thomason Larisa 2004 Web Site Usability Checklist http www netmechanic com news vol7 design_no4 htm 18th April 2006 Brink Tom Gergle Darren Wood Scott 2002 Usability Evaluation in Usability for the web designing websites that work pp 405 441 Nielsen J 1999 Site Design in Designing Web Usability Ist ed pp 188 193 Holzschlag Molly E 1998 The Art if Interface in Web by Design the complete guide pp 77 83 Sybex Nakano Russell 2002 Web Content Management a collaborative approach Addison Wesley Netcraft 2005 November Web Server Survey 2005 http news neteraft com archives 2005 11 07 november 2005_web_server_survey html 5 December 2005 Maxfield Wade 2001 MySQL and PHP from Scratch Heng SL Christopher 2000 www javascriptkit com howto phpcgi shtml 2nd December 2005 Jones Russel A 2000 Behind the Scenes How Active Server Pages Work in Mastering Active Server Pages 3 pp 4 32 Sybex Colburn Rafe 2003 Sams Teach Yourself CGI in 24 Hours Dubois Paul 2003 Migrating from Microsoft Access to MySQL version 1 01 http www kitebird com articles access migrate html 6th December 2005 Jepson B PostgreSQL vs MySQL
96. o discern the destinations of navigational hyperlinks as Mystery Meat Navigation MMN Any graphics I will therefore use will be chosen carefully and supported by alt text 31 CHAPTER 6 IMPLEMENTATION 6 1 Introduction The implementation phase of the project is the development of the designs produced during the design phase documented in section 5 above Through a series of screen shots code snippets and descriptions this section will show how the generic requirements of the application have been met and where necessary the differences between the proposed designs and actual implementation 6 2 Data stores 6 2 1 Tables Perhaps the biggest and most important change is the database employed During the implementation phase difficulties in connecting to a MySQL database were encountered The main cause of this problem was a missing ASP component installed on the universities IIS server The solution to this problem was to use a MS SQL Server There were 14 tables implemented in the final application 4 more than anticipated in the design section These tables include admin_security temp_security temp_players and club_details The main rationale for implementing the temp_security and temp_players tables is to enable the user to manage who can be a member of the web site The details sent via the registration form are therefore stored in these tables until the person is approved or disapproved The club_details table was constructed to
97. o fails to offer members the opportunity to discuss topics of interest The usability of esportsdesk com was found to be poor The user was unable to control the colour or layout of pages pages were cluttered with unrelated sponsorship ads and navigation was extremely poor In comparison web teams co uk was very easy to use but its design was very bland In their favour though it does allow the user to easily personalise the colour of their mini site to reflect its brand something not achieved in this web application Overall the functional advantages and proven usability of this CMS in the testing stage suggest it is a much more attractive and capable solution to the users problem than these alternatives 8 10 Time management and schedule The Waterfall methodology adopted in this project helped to manage the schedule of the project by splitting the development process up into 6 discrete stages A schedule was then devised to manage 46 each stage of the development This initial schedule proved to be too ambitious in the first 10 weeks of the project as at the mid project report stage requirements gathering had not begun as planned due to an over run in the background reading It was therefore necessary to make changes to the initial schedule for the mid project report The initial schedule can be seen in appendix B The final schedule allocates an extension of 2 weeks for the background reading and delays the requirements gatherin
98. o page needs to change was made automatically refresh after update 4 Rename one of the teams Team name successfully Failed to enter Best team Extend number of changed in the club characters for the team name 5 Reduce the number of teams in the In setup club details the user Tried delete the team ID It None club to 3 selects ID 4 and deletes the said record changed but name nothing was done 6 Add another team to the web site The user adds a new team to As expected Again unclear if Make the page ID 4 it s updated It says refresh after update updated but when go back to club setup page old value still there 7 Add a sentence to the homepage User clicks on correct graphic As expected None saying This website is in its testing link and successfully adds the phase text 8 Re edit the homepage and format User encounters no errors As expected None the text however you like The changes are made successfully 9 Add a news article to say that the User clicks correct link As expected None website is currently in its testing Article is added with no phase errors 10 Edit the text of this news article in User clicks on edit graphic As expected Impressed by the some way Article changed News facility Both design and for value it adds to system 11 Delete the news article Article is permanently As expected Needs to refresh Make the page delete
99. of a web application and how to roll out a web application onto the World Wide Web If I was to attempt this project again I would try to follow a schedule more closely and complete all the background research before the half way mark to allow more time for development and the report write up I would also ensure a detailed design of the proposed application was complete before commencing development My research showed that the main reason projects failed was because programmers were too quick to commence programming yet I did the same thing in this project I was just lucky it didn t have a negative impact 52 Appendix B Final Project Schedule H Oct 05 Feb 06 D 04 Dec 11 Dec 29 Jan 07 May Week endin Task Identify Minimum Aim and Requirements Background Reading Saas Research existing solutions Requirements Analysis Methodologies Mid project report Implementation of solution Progress Meeting User testing of solution Evaluation Design of solution Collate and write the report CHRISTMAS EXAM PERIOD BREAK Initial Project Schedule E Oct 05 Feb 06 D Week endin 04 Dec 11 Dec 29 Jan 07 May Task Identify Minimum Aim and Requirements Background Reading Research existing solutions Requirements Analysis Methodologies Mid project report Design of solution Implementation of solution Progress Meeting User testing of solution Evaluation Collate and write the report CHRISTMAS EXAM PE
100. on as well as for participants MORE Custom Websites If your sports organization is ready to have their own unique custom designed website at your own domain name and you are willing to pay for it one of our private label E Sa PEA CEA Below is a screen shot of the homepage for a sports club registered with esportsdesk The page is bland and cluttered with sponsorship unrelated to the club The page lacks identity with the club name the only asset on the page to show that this is the homepage of the Greater Manchester In line Hockey league 67 URL does not represent clubs identity Address http www esportsdesk com leaques front_pageesd cfm leaqueID 97 4 amp clientID 476 Main navigation small IMPORTANT NOTICES Saturday Division 1 April 19 2006 5 E TEAM GP W L T PTS There are no notices at this Bewdley Ro o 000 0 Blackheath o0 000 o KIDDERMINSTER AND DISTRICT FOOTBALL Castle mn 000101070 LEAGUE HEADLINES Clee Hill o 000 o a Dudley Woo o 000 o Got the inside scoop Fancy yourself a journalist Foley 6666 e Click here and submit a story of your own Jacksons o ooo o Kinver Res o ood o Lock o 0000 o m Parkdale R o ood o esportsdeskcom j Quarry Ban o 000 o Copyright 1993 2006 Recreation Sports Management Inc All rights Reserved Rising Sun o E READ OUR PRIVACY POLICY RARE oa Springvale o ood o Tenbury Un o ooo o luttered C T
101. on facilities This section of the report gives a detailed explanation of those facilities made available to the user that help meet the generic requirements identified in section 4 5 5 Supported by screen shots and code snippets it details how these facilities work and how they are implemented A major part of all the facilities is adding data to a table and reading records from a table so we will first cover examples of the code used to do this Adding form data to a table Below in an example of the code required to add form data to a table lt Add a new record objRS AddNew objRS Fields title Request Form title objRS Fields news Request Form content objRS Fields date_published Value Now Write the updated fields objRS Update P gt Displaying records from a table An example of the code used to display the contents of a table is given below lt objRS Open SELECT FROM news ORDER BY news_id DESC adoConn do until objRS eof Create a table and loop through the records in the table Response Write lt table align center width 100 border 0 cellpadding 2 gt lt tr gt lt td bgcolor 3FBE46 gt lt font color ffffff face Verdana size 2 gt lt b gt Response Write objRS title Response Write lt b gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td background images pixi_grey gif gt lt font face Verdana size 2 gt Response Write objRS news Response Write l
102. on interface design 5 4 3 Navigation Thomason s usability checklist 2 in accordance with Nielsen 1 research suggest that a user must know where they are at all times in the application and be able to answer the questions Where am I Where have I been Where can I go To achieve this Thomason 2 states that navigation must be consistent and that text links should always be appropriate and emphasised using CSS The main navigation should also avoid dynamic menu systems created using flash and javascript etc Nielsen 4 also states that the content should account for at least 80 percent navigation should be kept below 20 The main navigation on the left and detailed in appendix G will contain links to the pages that accomplish all of the primary generic requirements 1 10 in the list allowing users to access all main areas of the site with no more than 2 mouse clicks The user will have the option to include some of these links or discard them depending on their requirements The left navigation will consist of rollover buttons marked by plain text to emphasise when a link is selected The bottom navigation bar below will be organised horizontally and appear underlined when the mouse hovers over the link The right hand side navigation will contain links to external websites The user will be given control over these links and a database lookup will provide the display in the right navigation section These will be text
103. ook Lecds University Football Club gt Home External Links Match gt Squad selections gt 2nd Team gt News gt BUSA gt Player Profiles 2nd Team Squad gt NUL gt Fixtures gt Match Home vs Manchester 2nds gt Squad selections rente Meet O Weetwood 0 1pm gt Player statistics Harry gt League Tables Mason Cooke gt Gallery Newstead gt Forum stu Palmer gt Tour Cover Subs 2 50 Reiss Clean Shorts and Socks DJ Rommerdahl Boardman Big Mac Thompson Grego Latest News Pest Website da Lads this is a big game so let s be prepared 16 4 2006 lt lt 1st Team 3rd Team gt gt Fig 6 13 Screen shot of a squad selections page Requirement 5 The ability to publish match reports optional The user is able to add edit and delete match reports through the online administration To add a match report the user must fill in a summary of the report and upload the full word document using the form in figure 6 14 The contents of this form are then stored in the match reports table and the matchreports asp page displays the contents of this table on the interface in figure 6 15 94 Add match report Date of match po siz Team Po 8 0 1 2 3 4 Opposition ft i 7 Competition LO O _ 4 Title Ft Summary Ea Author Document Browse Upload Submit Reset BACK Fig 6 14 Add mat
104. orm to Thomason s usability checklist 2 Molly E Holzchlag 20 describes 4 ways to layout a web page using standard HTML table based layout frame based layout and Cascading Stylesheets CSS HTML is most commonly used to structure text and language while table based layouts provide a more accessible and flexible formatting option than frame based layouts CSS are commonly used for design elements but can incur difficulties with browser compatibilities therefore usually good for positioning and font styles Another design factor requiring consideration is page dimensions Computer screens are typically smaller than most opened books or magazines A common mistake in web design is spreading the width of page graphics beyond the area most viewers can see on their screens According to Web Style Guide 2 edition 19 the safe area for web page graphics is determined by two factors the minimum screen size in common use and the width of paper used to print web pages The most common display today is an 800 x 600 pixel screen The web interface chosen below will be built to these dimensions using tables for layout html for structuring language and CSS to control the positioning and text style of assets on each page A full collection of the designs considered are contained in appendix G 28 Club Name Main content BUI9JX9 0 SYUTT g g las oQ e gt 3S S KD N O gt Bottom navigation Fig 5 15 Web
105. otball teams a chance to create their own free website This website is less sophisticated than esportsdesk com and is sport specific but still fails to fulfil many of LUUMAFC requirements It fails to deliver the ability for 23 members to discuss topics publish squad selections tour information store multiple photo albums store past results and place kit orders In addition the design of the facilities offered leaves a lot to be desired It also suffers from the same disadvantages as esportsdesk com 1 The user is not free to add new pages 2 No control over presentation 3 It does not reflect the individual identity of the sports team Does not conform to Thomason s 2 checklist 4 The URL is not fully representative of the particular sports team To support my argument screen shots of the web interface for this product are also contained in appendix F 4 5 3 Conclusion It is apparent that solutions to help propagate information for sports clubs do exist but also that these solutions are not appropriate to all types of sports clubs The aim of this project to produce A web application to support small sports teams in particular LUUMAFC and other university sports clubs 1s therefore justified 24 CHAPTER 5 DESIGN 5 1 Introduction Design is the next step in the Waterfall model 14 and can only take place after the requirements of the application have been gathered accurately This section will docume
106. other hand integrates easily with Apache and other web servers using a large number of languages including PHP ASP Perl and Java Access s web capabilities are also limited over the web with MySQL proving much more accessible Access is however advantageous to the non technical user providing GUI s and menus so that the user can interact easily without knowing Visual Basic It also allows the user to create a series of forms to act as an interface and employ queries to interact with the database making it easier to use than MySQL and making it ideal for small database applications Access itself can also be used as an interface to access information on other databases such as MySQL This could prove useful for a non technical user unfamiliar with SQL wanting to access information directly from a database 12 10 2 6 3 3 PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is an open source platform independent database management system similar to MySQL but less widely used It is designed for large databases and includes more advanced features than MySQL such as the use of triggers 13 The disadvantage of postgreSQL is that it is slower than MySQL to perform queries 2 6 3 4 MS SQL Server MS SQL server is a platform dependant database management system that runs only on ISS servers It is designed for large databases and handles multiple users and database queries extremely well It is also easily maintained through the Enterprise Manager GUI The disadv
107. ound that certain field properties of the security table and fixtures table needed altering to allow more characters to be entered A major suggestion for improving the application was that the user should have the ability to change the colour scheme of the web site It is imperative that the user is able to do this if the application is to be widely adopted by different sports clubs 7 4 Conclusion The usability inspection and user testing performed all returned similar results suggesting the results obtained can be trusted and corrective action should be taken to remedy the problems identified It can also be concluded from the user testing that most of the generic requirements have been met The one requirement not fulfilled is the ability for facilities to be optional which would give the user control over which pages are online and offline Also although not part of the generic requirements the user needs to be able to change the colour scheme of the application The fact that each user would choose to use this application suggests that the application is an adequate solution for different types of sports clubs and has gone some way to being generic It is evident however that improvement is necessary to make it completely generic 39 CHAPTER 8 EVALUATION 8 1 Introduction This chapter is an evaluation of the solution to determine if 1t is successful It discusses the success of the solution in meeting the user requirements and
108. out in the client s browser All major browsers like IE Mozilla Firefox Netscape and Opera will sufficiently be able to process these scripts with out the need for a JavaScript application JavaScript is also able to detect which browser the user is using and load a page designed particularly for that browser This is beneficial as it will ensure all LUUMAFC s members and supporters view the best possible version of the website From a development point of view JavaScript is a language I have no experience of using It does however encompass a similar syntax to that of Java and C for which I do have some experience and should therefore speed up the learning process JavaScript s main draw back is that it requires an API Application Programming Interface to connect java programmes to a database which could cause implementation problems further down the line It is also true that JavaScript is in decline and being replaced by languages such as Coldfusion PHP and Perl etc 2 6 2 5 Evaluation of client and server side technologies JavaScript s difficulties with database connectivity rule it out of contention leaving Perl PHP and ASP as the remaining possibilities While I possess no prior knowledge of either technology I believe PHP and ASP to be used more commonly for this type of application and subsequently have chosen 9 not to use Perl as my scripting language Both PHP and ASP seem indivisible in terms of database comp
109. problems with this mechanism are delays in collecting completed forms misplaced forms and no official record of all kit orders is retained A facility to place these orders online would speed up the process and make it easier for both members and the committee 19 Promoting sponsors The club receive sponsorship every year from local organisations To promote these organisations the sponsors logos are printed on the training kit and match kit A web application would further increase the exposure for these organisations and perhaps encourage more sponsorship for the club Publish match reports Match reports are a rare commodity for the club but occasionally reports are published in the Leeds Student newspaper The problem however is that the newspaper is unable to publish all match reports for all teams A web application would provide an online portal for all members and supporters to follow the team s progress Publish directions Directions to the universities sports facilities are published on the league organisers website These directions however are not very detailed A web application would allow for the club to publish its own directions for all visiting teams to view and download 4 4 User Requirements A detailed study of the needs of the user is critical to the success of any development project Understanding the business processes is essential to acquiring these needs Many of the existing processes have been ana
110. r to control the colour of the web interface in order to reflect their identity allowing them to choose if a page is online or offline and allowing them to create new pages through the administration facility It is not just new features that can make improvements but also changes to existing features and functions implemented The player statistics page could be improved by utilising the database to store the data rather than a text file This feature was implemented in this way due to time constraints and difficulties in designing a data store that could be used by all types of sports The implementations of the discussion forum and photo gallery were also quick solutions due to a lack of time and do not reflect the design of the rest of the site It would be an improvement if theses features were developed as part of the web application rather than external features linked through the web interface 47 An improvement to the functionality would include allowing the user to delete multiple records at once as currently the user must select individual records and delete them separately The authorised user could also be allowed to upload their photos directly to the photo gallery or have them approved by the site administrator The design could be improved by including small amounts of flash graphics such as the latest headline scrolling across the top of the page rather than displaying it static in the latest headline box underneath the main
111. ration Interface crs sses aep aE haber a a ESE DAE cda epale 35 6A ka O el a ETRE 35 6 4 2 Navigation and graphics sssssesesssssessssssrrreressrrerrresrerereresrreeerseererres 35 6 4 3 Functionality aeaa A ARA RA E 35 625 SECUTI ets R ahh tae Midis clan a ieee Dak Uda EAEE dd A a a A gtk 35 6 6 User Mandala eae de et A aed eee ren ts 36 6 7 Role out onto WWW oc ccs necece cece abe bas obes A ede abet eee 36 CHAPTER 7 TESTING Pils Introduction arteria Pecera 37 1 2 Usability species 37 Tey User Vestine oi as 37 dido Presentation Interact tes bed sbeebs aes 38 7 3 2 Administration Interface 2 2 iene a eE eee edensesestonsdoeetebetueebneereccens 38 23 3 Set Up and maintenance recinto ei aaa 39 TA Conclusion 2 A A A a ee 39 CHAPTER 8 EVALUATION 1 IntroduchON 2isaes inaa sauwbliddyseaneniedsapsegedinadunusabobewtasanhs 40 8 2 Evaluation Criteria so evicescedasnieunedeagedse arpa 40 8 3 Meeting user requirements is ecrire eee a cee EREE EAE EES ERA PO ENA TEER A AAt 40 8 4 Meeting minimum requirements sesssssrreesesssrrrssrerrrerrsrsrrrrerrrssrrrrrseerrree 42 8 3 USD E A A A Ad 43 8 6 Effectiveness of methodology nissene a a a n E i a a es 44 827 Effectiveness of testing eoero roe oeie ia ei ire ee 44 8 8 User Evaluation ities gece tisha enh eE EEEE EEEE a EE E i a 45 8 9 Comparison of alternative solutions sssessessssrrresrsserrrrrrrrrrrrererrerrrreeressrer 46 8 10
112. rrsseerrrererrssrereees 3 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND READING 21 SIMtrOGUCtON emi id didas 4 2 2 Research existing products eono ai eE i a E AE E E EEE EA E E a AE 4 2 3 Usable EEN EEE E EE i ae tees 4 231s Framework I uesbuidsdsspitl told ota tadas 5 2 32 Framework 2 oema oe ana EE a EEE shed tadaneat AE TAE ARR R 5 2 3 3 Chosen usability framework oooooococcoccncnnconconconnonccnncnncnncnnonnonncnncnacnnes 5 2 4 User Interfaces nn A A AAA AA AE 5 2 5 Ease Of maintenance seriosi t e i EEE Wd eae ae Sk oe se ed Phan Shae E EEEREN 6 2 5 1 Content Management Systems CMS 0c cece sees cece eee ee eee eneeneeneenaes 6 23 23 WYSIWYG Editors cnr ose atk eae iii 6 2 6 Research available technologies cece cece cece cence ne ene ence neces nets ene eee ene ene eae 7 2 6 1 Web Server technologies cece eee e ce ee cece cence ene eneeeeneeneeeaetaeeaene ened 7 2 6 2 Client side and server side technologies 00s cesceeceee eee eeeeeeneeeenees 7 2 6 2 1 PHP citar did 7 2 6 2 2 ASPE AAA ba 8 2 6 2 3 Perl ices E A 8 2 6 2 4 JavaScripts AR A 9 2 6 2 5 Evaluation of client side and server side technologies oooooccoccocc o 9 2 6 3 Database technologies sin piri pgn inii E aA den E EET in 10 2 6 3 1 MYSQL riren AO E ERRE eee 10 2 6 3 2 Microsoft A C ESS oreeson noe oniri eeni a AE EOE are yhes 10 2 6 3 3 POSTES ri En A A ANE EETA E AA 11 2 6 3 4 MISIVA PAA TS A EE aE eae 11
113. rs from accessing the information held in the tables To prevent unauthorised users from accessing restricted pages the user will be required to enter log in details before the page can be displayed The same method is applied to the site administration facility Appendix H discusses in more detail how security was implemented 6 6 User manual A user manual was written after completion of the testing phase to help support the use of the administration facility This manual is made available online at www leedsunisports co uk usermanual htm 6 7 Role out onto the WWW Rolling out the application from its development environment to the World Wide Web proved to be a tricky process Searching for a cheap and affordable hosting company that met the hosting needs of the application was more difficult than anticipated While cheap hosting packages for a MySQL database were plentiful cheap support for MS SQL databases were few and far between Nevertheless cheap hosting was found for 30 with Fast trak net Setup with Fast trak however failed as support requests were ignored I was subsequently forced to go elsewhere and received a package with unlimited database support for 66 per annum After buying the domain name www leedsunisports co uk the website was launched on the 1 May 2006 36 CHAPTER 7 TESTING 7 1 Introduction The Waterfall methodology 14 discussed in section 3 1 1 states that the testing phase must commence only
114. rs table The records will be ordered alphabetically by name and store no more than 20 profiles per page The web user will be provided with the facility to search through the profiles alphabetically or by visiting each page in turn Fig 5 19 Design of profiles page The photo gallery page will consist of those photos most recently added in each category with a link to a full archive of picture thumbnails Fig 5 20 Design of photo gallery 80 Log in A member must enter is or her details in order to access the Members Log In f kit ordering form and discussion forum A database look Please enter your username and up will verify the details entered by the member password eee A Password HA Fig 5 21 Login form Additional pages are required to meet the remaining generic list of requirements but I will give the site administrator complete control over the layout of the content on these pages To achieve this I will provide the user with a WYSIWYG editor Below I have listed the page needed and the requirement it fulfils Page Requirement met Squad selections 4 The ability to publish a NUMBER of squad selections in advance of matches Tables 6 The ability to view current and past league tables Tour 7 The ability to publicise tour information optional How to find us 11 The ability to publish directions to training ground facilities About us 13 The ability to publish club
115. rview conducted 27 January 2006 The minutes for this meeting can be found in appendix E To make club announcements Club notices are generally communicated to the club members via text message on a notice board situated in university or at team training sessions and games by team captains Problems encountered through this approach include informing those absent from training and matches text messaging is a costly process inability to check the notice board and difficulty in informing members of any changes An online bulletin board facility will not only be free but is more accessible for all members with internet access 18 Publicise fixtures and results A fixture list is attached to the notice board and a copy sent to members via email but it is up to individual members to keep their own record of results The problems with this approach are that members often misplace the fixture list and subsequently are unaware of upcoming fixtures and who the opposition is This leads to problems of players being unavailable for selection due to confusion over the fixtures Confusion is increased further by fixture changes which are not properly documented An online fixtures and results facility will provide one accurate copy of the fixtures that can be altered when needed as well as record the results It will remove the need for paper copies to be supplied and emails being sent Publish squad selections Squad selections are currently p
116. s Keep in touch Ea Keep in touch What s Going On Forum Statistics Our users have posted 1 Posts in 1 Topics in 2 Forum s Last Post 26 Apr 2006 at 4 20pm By luumafe We have 3 Forum Members The Newest Forum Member is garyo Active Users E In total there are 1 Active Users online 1 Guest s and O Member s 4 Open Forum no new posts Pa Read Only no new replies amp Password Required Open Forum new posts amp Read Only new posts No Access Fig 6 17 Discussion forum Requirement 10 The ability for members only to order training kit optional Information on kit items available is stored in the kit_selection table The administrator is and edit kit information in this table through the kit selection form below 97 able to add Update kit selection To edit an item of kit click on the kit ID in the left hand column KIT_ID DESCRIPTION COST al white match shorts 5 00 2 white match socks 5 00 al Blue Nike training t shirt 10 00 al Blue Nike training jumper 15 00 s Blue Nike tracksuit bottoms 10 00 El Blue Nike Rain Jacket 25 E mW El m BACK Fig 6 18 Kit selection form The following code is used to produce this selection form lt table border 1 width 60 gt lt tr gt lt for each x in objRS Fields response write lt th gt lt font face Verdana Arial size 2 gt amp ucase x name amp lt th gt next gt lt tr gt lt
117. s to bypass security and authorisation checks This is often due to poor programming and would need researching further should this technology be used 2 6 2 2 Active Server Pages ASP ASP s are web pages that combine HTML and server side scripts Like PHP the server scripts are processed on the web server before being sent to the client s browser thus only allowing the client to see the HTML code ASP lets you use the power of the web server to process user requests and provide dynamic individualised content based on logic file and database data 10 Unlike PHP ASP is not platform independent requiring a Microsoft Information Server or Personal Web Server to run on and therefore is not supported by Apache It is however language independent supporting the use of any scripting language that is compatible with the Microsoft Scripting Hosts requirements including the use of multiple languages on a single page E g VB script JavaScript and PerlScript ASP makes creating dynamic pages easier by providing access to a set of components known as ActiveX Data Objects ADOs which allow easy connections to text files and databases to manipulate and display information on a web page These components make ASP extremely compatible with any databases that run on Microsoft Operating Systems Furthermore ASPs are browser independent making them accessible on all browsers 2 6 2 3 Perl Perl stands for Practical Extraction and Reporting Language I
118. ser inspections and user testing techniques to evaluate the success of the system Finally to support the Content Management System CMS produced a user manual was created to assist the user 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would firstly like to thank my Supervisor Kevin McEvoy for his time commitments and guidance throughout this project The guidance was extremely valuable and has had a significant impact on the quality of this report Secondly I would like to thank my Assessor Pat Hill for her productive feedback from the mid project report The feedback really opened my eyes to the extensive work required to achieve a good mark and motivated me to put more time and effort into this project I would also like to thank the users involved throughout the development for their participation and the enthusiasm they showed for this project A final thank you goes to the technical support staff at the School of Computing who were always receptive to my problems and offered their technical expertise to help solve them 111 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Tal Problem Definition dd a ia il ea 1 1 2 Project ATM ii A A a E a 1 1 3 Project Objective Seni o oni EEEE Ai 1 1 4 Minimum Requirements ooooccccncconconccnnonnonncnnonnnncnnro nro A a VOEE een ens 2 1 5 Deliverables oinin e aner a ED it A ee E e Oas 2 1 6 Project Schedule IS A A E AA a eae 2 1 7 Relevance to Degree Programme ssssessesssssrerirsserrrrerrrserr
119. so without losing or altering any data 5 3 Maintenance 5 3 1 Form Design Online forms will act as the data entry interface that will allow web site users and site administrators to add and amend data stored in the database As discussed in depth in chapter two forms provide an easy way for site administrators to update the database by hiding the complicated coding and 2T removing the need for any prior or special knowledge from the user By providing the user with an easy mechanism to manage the database the user is able to effortlessly control the content of the web application To avoid any unnecessary complication of these forms they will be grey clearly structured and contain no graphics This conforms to the usability principles highlighted in 2 Appendix G contains a complete design of each form stating which generic requirement it fulfils which type of user will operate the form and which tables in the database will be affected The requirements not achieved through the use of tables and forms will utilise a WYSIWYG editor discussed in detail in chapter 2 This editor will be gained from an online source and will be fully referenced in the implementation chapter 5 4 Presentation 5 4 1 Web Interface The five features of interface design identified by Molly E Holzchlag 5 discussed in the research section have all been considered in the design of a web interface for the proposed application The design will also conf
120. software development clearly defining tasks and giving greater management control to avoid cost and schedule overruns 14 It is therefore essential that my project follow a methodology and this section will review a number of methodologies available 3 1 1 Information System Development Life Cycle Otherwise known as the Waterfall model this methodology divides the development into 6 discrete stages that cover every process required to develop a computer system This enables management to take greater control over the process at each stage It will also enable management to make more accurate predictions of project schedules thus preventing project delays and cost overruns The six stages of development include feasibility study systems analysis system design implementation test and review and maintenance Each stage is distinctly defined with a set of sub tasks and processes ensuring that all aspects of development are covered A stage must therefore be completed fully before moving onto the next stage Le no two stages can run asynchronously The advantage of using this model is that the user is clearly involved in the development The user is involved at both the Systems Investigation and Implementation stages At the Systems Investigation stage the user is involved to establish the user requirements and needs of the system and again at the Implementation stage for user testing and entering data As previously highlighted user involveme
121. sted the functionality of the administration facility was highly positive about the functions available and how easy they were to use On the design of the administration interface he believed it left a lot to be desired but expressed that this didn t have a damaging influence over how he perceived the application as a whole Overall the user was happy to acknowledge that the application was usable The third user supported the comments of both users with similar comments thus the application can be deemed to have successfully gained the acceptance of all the users 8 9 Comparison of alternative solutions Two online solutions were discussed and analysed in section 4 5 of this report These solutions include esportsdesk com and web teams co uk Esportsdesk com is an American based website that caters for all types of sports whereas web teams co uk provides for football teams only To evaluate the success of this application we can compare the functional and usability differences of these alternative solutions with the application and against the user requirements in section 4 4 1 Functionally the application is superior to both alternatives meeting all the requirements of the user Those requirements not fulfilled by both alternatives include publishing squad selections publishing tour information ordering training kit publishing directions to training ground facilities and the ability to link to third party websites Esportsdesk als
122. sual representation of the use of these colours can be seen in figure 6 2 above The only graphics used on the web interface include the rollover buttons for the main navigation the light green arc to separate the title from the content and the clubs logo 6 3 4 CSS A Cascading Style Sheet is used to control the font style colour size and positioning of text on a page This file is called global css and enables the appearance and layout of all pages on the web to be changed by changing just this file thus ensuring a consistent layout throughout The CSS syntax is made up of three parts a selector a property and a value E g selector property value There are two different types of selector you can use to select the text you want to style the class selector or id selector I use the class selector The example code snippet below shows how the CSS has been implemented to control the layout and style of the bottom navigation bar baseline font family Verdana Arial Helvetica sans serif color FFFFFF font size 12px text decoration none 34 a baseline hover color FFFFFF text decoration underline The html code of a web page must also reference this class using the following code lt p align center gt lt a href aboutus asp class baseline gt About Us lt a gt 6 4 Administration Interface 6 4 1 Layout The final layout differs to the proposed design Instead of a 3 column structure the i
123. t td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td align right gt lt i gt Posted amp nbsp amp nbsp Response Write ob RS date_published Response Write lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt lt br gt objRS movenext loop 89 gt Setting up the club name and team names To enable the application to be used by different sports clubs the user is able to customize the club name and team names The user does this through the administration interface using the form in figure 6 7 The user selects the name they want to change and re enters a new value These changes are immediately evident on the web interface Club Name To change the club name click on the club ID in the left hand column CLUB_ID CLUB_NAME i Leeds University Football Club To change a team name please click on the team ID in the left hand column To add additional teams to your website click on a team ID with no details Note the maximum number of teams allowed is 4 If you wish to remove a team from your website click on the team ID delete the name and press the space bar twice Then click Update Record Team Profiles TEAM_ID NAME al ist Team 2 2nd Team al 3rd Team al 4th Team Implementing the generic requirements Requirement 1 The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events This requirement is fulfilled through a bulletin board facility solely designed and developed by myself
124. t img name imagel src images home_button2 gif border 0 width 147 height 22 align top gt lt a gt lt TD gt lt TR gt lt TABLE gt A server side includes is then used to include this file in each web page lt include file navigation asp gt Home News Player Profiles Fixtures Match League Tables Gallery Forum Tour Kit gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt Fig 6 4 Screen shot of the main navigation A path of the pages visited is displayed in the top left of the main content section on all pages to show the user where they are in the application This conforms to Thomason s 2 usability checklist 86 gt Home gt News gt Player Profiles gt Fixtures gt Match gt Squad selections gt Match reports gt Player statistics gt League Tables gt Gallery gt Forum gt Tour gt Kit Latest News Website launch date 16 4 2006 Lecds University Football Club Match gt Squad selections gt 2nd 2nd Team Squad Path of pages visited Home vs Manchester 2nds Meet Weetwood 1pm External Links Harry Mason Cooke Newstead Rommerdahl Boardman Big Mac Thompson Grego Pest Subs 2 50 Clean Shorts and Socks Lads this is a big game so let s be prepared lt lt ist Team About Us How to find us Leeds University Union leeds ac uk
125. t is an open source server side scripting language commonly used for creating CGI scripts to process data from HTML forms on a website One factor that led to Perl s popularity was the availability of libraries that made it easy to write CGI programs Colburn 11 It differs from PHP and ASP in that its code is not embedded within HTML and instead of being downloaded by the browser resides purely on the server side Perl was first created by Larry King for programming with the UNIX operating system but due to its power of handling large amounts of text and its use in CGI scripting it is now used for database administration Perl recently starting using a DBI Database Interface module to simplify the process of connecting and interacting with databases While Perl is widely used I possess no knowledge of the language and although it resembles the C language to which I have prior knowledge development would prove very difficult should this language be used 2 6 2 4 JavaScript JavaScript is the most popular client side scripting language and like all scripting languages can be embedded within HTML It is an object orientated programming language that is freely available and can be used to add interactivity to web pages It is open source and a cross platform system supported by both Windows and Linux servers thus making it a realistic choice for my project Rather than the script being processed on the server all processing is carried
126. t there were weaknesses that questioned this The main weakness was error tolerance It emerged from the evaluation checklist 3 that this was extremely poor Users were not warned of risky or costly actions before they proceeded and could not reverse these actions if a mistake was made This is a major concern and a very damaging finding to this evaluation 43 User testing supported the findings of the layout design and navigation architecture of the application with all three users involved in the testing finding it easy to use In light of all these results the usability of the application can be concluded as good but with room for improvement on error handling 8 6 Effectiveness of methodology The methodology followed to develop a solution to the problem identified was the Waterfall model with iterative feedback This was also to be combined with prototyping to gain the users thoughts on the progress of the development early in the production process The Waterfall model with iterative feedback was chosen for its advantages in providing greater management control of the development process and making it easier to predict and manage project schedules It also encouraged greater user involvement than other methodologies and allowed stages of the development to be returned to should there be any change in user requirements The Waterfall model proved to be the correct development approach Time management was made easy by the model as d
127. t to find a solution to the user s problem It investigates the user s problem in greater depth and researches what constitutes a usable web application It also researches the web server database and server side technologies that may need to be utilised to devise an appropriate solution to the problem It discusses advantages and disadvantages of each technology to solving the problem and presents justification for the chosen technologies 2 2 Research existing products Through searching the Leeds University Union website it is apparent that there is currently no online resource available for the men s football club to utilise Web pages do however exist for other sports clubs but these are limited to just one introductory web page addressed solely at those students interested in joining They do not act as a resource for the clubs to disseminate their own information or allow club members to interact with the site This seems to highlight the possibility of a common need amongst many sports clubs in the university and perhaps even more widely spread amongst local Saturday and Sunday league teams This is clearly an area of research that needs delving into further if I have time within this project In the meantime more research needs to be carried out on which clubs actually have a web application and what functionality these applications have An interview with the tennis captain Alex Collingwood revealed because the university do not prov
128. tabase and a display of these orders can be viewed from the site administration interface The user is also able to control the kit selection available to the user through 41 this facility While the functionality of this process is effective the design of the kit order form and the order report produced have ample room for improvement The ability to link to sponsors and league organisers This requirement has been achieved by allowing the user to add and delete links to other web sites in the right hand side navigation of the web interface Appendix H discusses how this is implemented User testing of this function showed it to work perfectly every time The ability to publish directions to training ground facilities This has been achieved through the inclusion of a How to find us page This page can be accessed from the bottom navigation bar The user is again able to control the content of this page using the text editor The two non essential requirements identified include The ability to store and maintain a list of player statistics including goals scored assists bookings and man of the match awards This requirement was achieved by providing the user with a player statistics page that could be edited using the text editor This implementation is not ideal as a good statistics page would utilise a database to store the data It was however impossible to design a statistics table in the database that could be used by
129. tions to training ground facilities 12 The ability to link to a VARIETY of third parties e g sponsors league organisers kit manufacturers 13 The ability to publish club history E g On team members and successes 14 The ability to publish job descriptions of committee members 15 The ability to store contact lists for third parties E g Printing companies match officials tour organisers etc While a set of generic requirements has been established it is abundantly clear that in order to account for the differences in number of teams and the requirements of different clubs the web application needs to allow for certain facilities to be optional One such facility is the ability to publish match reports These facilities could either be specified upon the initial set up or be maintainable at all times 22 4 5 Alternatives and competition A number of websites currently exist for sports teams to register and create their own site Some charge for the privilege but some offer free hosting These websites allow teams to create a website within their organisations domain 4 5 1 www esportsdesk com Recreation Sports Management Inc RSM an American based company formed in 1997 founded esportsdesk com to allow managers and league administrators to convey important information quickly and easily It boasts to be the worldwide leader in the online administration of amateur sport 16 hosting websites for many sports tea
130. tionship that can be modelled one to one 1 1 one to many 1 M or many to many N M A 1 1 relationship is where one instance of an entity relates to exactly one instance of another entity A 1 M relationship means an instance of one entity can relate to multiple instances of another entity A N M relationship means multiple instance of one entity can relate to multiple instances of another entity An explanation of the ER diagram below explains the relationships between each entity in more detail oo 1 M Kit selection External links Fig 5 1 Entity Relationship Diagram to show proposed database structure The diagram in figure 5 1 shows the 10 tables represented in the database schema in section 5 2 1 Three of these tables are not related to each other and the others are related to one or more tables The team table is related to the fixtures and match reports table by a 1 M relationship as one team may have several fixtures and several match reports The players tables is in a 1 M relationship with the kit order table as a player can make many orders The players table is also in a 1 1 relationship with the security table because a player can have only one username and password and a username and password can only belong to one player The kit order table is in a 1 M relationship with the kit selection table because one kit order will contain many kit items 5 2 3 Integrity Constraints The tables in t
131. to be able to freely change the colour of the site Tennis colours are red blue and white e Changing page content is extremely easy e The news facility is very straight forward and useful e The fixtures facility will be very useful as the additional team spaces can be used for tournaments e The match report and player statistics facilities are good e It will be easier to use once you get the hang of it and know your way around better 105 e Being able to approve and disapprove members will be a useful facility if the errors are fixed e The title font is not very good It would be good if this could be changed e The tennis team are sure to use the application if these problems are solved 106 Site Administration Test Plan Test Task Expected result Result User comments Corrective action no 1 From the home page log in using The user encounters an error As expected None luumafc and footy as the message password 2 Log in using luumafc and The user is presented with the As expected None football administration interface 3 Change the name of the club Click in setup club details Attempted to change the Confused if it had Make setup link and change club name title on the homepage After been updated or more obvious successfully instruction successfully not Include setup changed but when click instructions The back it appeared as if n
132. ublished on the notice board in university Team captains publish the lists as early as possible on the day before a match but find it difficult to do this at consistent times The accessibility of the notice board to all members on the day before a match is also a problem An online list would allow members to view squad selections from anywhere and remove the need for text messaging between team captains and their players League tables The league organisers publish all results and current league tables on their own website but these are often poorly maintained and inaccurate With no other way of finding out the results of other league matches implementing a solution to this could prove difficult Furthermore no records of past years are kept In theory providing all results are known a simple database will allow for the implementation of such a facility Publicise tour information Currently information regarding a tour is disseminated via word of mouth This information usually consists of the destination tour dates prices and deadline for payments A web application would support more information such as photographs and resort information It would also enable links to tour operator s websites Order training kit The current mechanism for ordering kit is a paper based system The committee distribute forms to all members and collect in the completed forms and payments before placing a bulk order with the kit manufacturer The
133. ures for each team are entered separately in the following form 91 Add 1st team fixture Date Location Opponent Competition Result Score CA OO A Submit Reset BACK Fig 6 10 Add fixtures form Data from this form is added to the fixtures table and displayed on the fixtures asp page Lecds University Football Club gt Home External Links gt News ist Team gt BUSA gt Player Profiles Eve Date Y Opposition Competition Result Score NUL 5 02 2005 H University of Bradford 2st_ NUL wW 4 2 st Team F aa Leeds Metropolitan 15 10 2005 A University 1st NUL We 4 1 end Test University of Central SPES 19 10 2005 A r Ancashire ist BUSA D 3 3 22 10 2005 H University of Salford NUL wW 1 0 th Team St Martins College NaN 26 10 2005 H Ancaster rst BUSA wW 3 1 University of Central gt League Tables 29 10 2005 A nenita ist NUL D 0 0 gt Gallery 2 11 2005 A University of Liverpool 1st BUSA wW 2 1 9 11 2005 H University of Chester 1st BUSA D 0 0 A rorum 12 11 2005 A University of Durham ist_ NUL L 2 1 gt Tour 16 11 2005 A Liverpool Hope University BUSA Ww 6 1 University of Central gt Kit 23 11 2005 H Lancashire 1st BUSA W 2 1 St Martins College 30 11 2005 A Lancaster 1st BUSA D 0 0 3 12 2005 H University of York 1st NUL W 41 7 12 2005 H University of Liverpool 1st BUSA Ww 2 0 Latest News 28 01 2
134. usability targets It also evaluates the methodology and testing methods used in the development process Finally the chapter goes onto evaluate the solution against alternative solutions 8 2 Evaluation criteria The second usability framework 3 discussed in section 2 3 2 provides a detailed checklist to evaluate the usability of the application This checklist was used in the testing phase to carry out a usability inspection the results of which will be used to evaluate the usability of the application As well as evaluating the usability of the application it is necessary to evaluate the applications success in terms of meeting the user requirements This will be done using the test results and by a comparison of the requirements identified in section 4 4 1 A comparison of the application against the alternative solutions analysed in section 4 5 will also be made to help determine if the application is successful 8 3 Meeting user requirements LUUMAKFCs requirements of the web application were agreed early in the information system development life cycle The requirements gathering phase identified 11 functional requirements or CSFs Critical Success Factors that needed to be incorporated in a web application for it to be successful in solving their problem There were also two non essential requirements desired The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events This was achieved through the online bulletin
135. use assistive technologies like screen readers 56 Add ALT and TITLE attributes to all images Each image should have a descriptive ALT attribute and TITLE attribute associated with it particularly images that are also links to other pages That way they can quickly jump to the page they re interested in without having to wait for the entire page to load Contrast contrast contrast Be careful with background images and colors because they can obscure the text content on the page Make sure you have a good reason to deviate from the successful dark text on a light background model Visitors can t buy your products if they can t read the content 3 Support your brand A good brand creates or reinforces a user s impression of the site When your site is strongly branded that means that visitors will think of you first when they go shopping for your product or service Branding on a Web site takes time effort and close attention to page design and layout Keep colors and typefaces consistent Visitors should never click on an internal link in your site and wonder if they ve left your Web site Choose your colors and fonts carefully and use them consistently throughout the site Keep page layout consistent Use a Web site template to enforce a uniform page structure Visitors should be able to predict the location of important page elements after visiting just one page in your site Custom error page Create a usefu
136. ut not critical to the success of the system include 12 The ability to store and maintain a list of player statistics including goals scored assists bookings and man of the match awards 13 The ability to publish match reports for 4 teams 4 4 2 Men s Tennis Club Requirements In addition to LUUMAFC requirements the tennis club view the ability to publish match reports as a necessity They do not however require tour information to be published and they only have two teams compared to four football teams Additional features the club would like to see but that are not essential are the ability to securely pay for kit orders and the ability to publish video clips Full documentation from the meeting with the Tennis club captain can be found in appendix E 4 4 3 Netball Club Requirements The Netball Club also relate to the problems encountered by LUUMAFC but have never considered utilising a website to help overcome these problems The prime reason identified for this is the lack of technical skills to build a website A full list of critical requirements can be found in appendix E In summary Netball has 4 teams with additional members who form a recreational netball society There requirements differ to that of the tennis club and football club in that they do not essentially require the ability to order training kit online instead just require a link to the kit manufacturers website nor the ability to store player profiles as cont
137. when the implementation phase is complete However the iterative approach adopted in this project allows for stages to be returned to Due to technical difficulties in implementing two requirements at this stage discussion forum and photo gallery testing commenced in the absence of these two facilities As highlighted by the methodology in chapter 3 user involvement is critical to any successful project development and this includes the testing phase Testing is ultimately an investigation into the correctness of a system in order to evaluate it It aims to find all the errors and examine if the project aim and system specifications have been successfully delivered Authors and usability experts Tom Brink Darren Gergle and Scott Wood 3 state that there are three types of usability testing usability inspections group walkthroughs and user testing I will converge the usability inspection and user testing techniques to reinforce the results returned 7 2 Usability inspection A usability inspection is an evaluation based on general design principles or a specific list of guidelines and is usually carried out by the interface designer or developer The guidelines used for the inspection are the general purpose usability checklist 3 in appendix D discussed in more detail in section 2 3 2 The disadvantage of this approach is that it does not involve the user so it is unclear if a problem identified by the developer constitutes a problem for the us
138. wo Gates o ood o Goals Soccer Centres Saturday Division 2 Floodlit 5 a side Centres Leagues friendlies tournaments GP w EF PTS waw goalsfootball co uk with sponsorship El Jockey e Shop Great value equipment for hockey All brands Our price cant be beat Saturday Premier wen fieldho ckeyuk co uk TEAM GaP W L T PTS Professional Loadbalancer Broughton o ood o for all types of servers based on the PacketPro Linux Chaddesley 0 0000 o appliance X mmm onstore eu com Crea ee o Cookley So 0 0000 o Gilmour Sports Hockey Cradi All hockey supplies low prices and next day delivery radiey He o 000 o ww gilmoursports com Furnace Sp o ood o Kinver o ooo o Norton Cel o0 000 o Web teams co uk www web teams co uk Below is a screen shot of one football clubs homepage The usability of this page is poor with the main navigation too small and the page content too long This is common on all pages 68 ho web teams co uk TIP C n p to vien Tipton Town F C 2005 06 SEARCH MOM fco Main navigation Home Tipton Town F C Season 2005 06 News Harvey World Travel Midland Football Division Alliance News Items Isall Senior Ci 7 small Results has os Tipton News Monday 15th May 7 30 PM 17 Apr 2006 Causeway Utd League Results saison pcs Besot Sto 1 Tipton Town F C 2 Results Grid League Table TIPTON Player Stats Goal Stats TOWN League Stats
139. xtures User clicks on link in left As expected User None navigation 1 click or follows uses link in left link at bottom of 3 team navigation fixtures page 2 clicks 4 Locate 3 team league tables 2 mouse clicks to external site As expected None page Click on BUSA and NUL links 5 Locate 2 team squad selection The user should get there in 3 As expected Squad selection pages are Add rollover button page mouse clicks too hidden in main navigation bar 6 Locate 3rd team squad selection User should use link at bottom As expected None page of 2 team squad selection page 7 Locate 4th team squad selection User should click on the link at As expected None bottom of 3 team squad selection page 8 Find information about User should go to About us Slight hesitation but None LUUMAFC page used correct link 9 Find out what the latest club User should move to News User interpreted this None announcement is page to be the Latest news box under main navigation 10 Locate match report for 2nd User should locate the match As expected None team Vs Leeds Metropolitan reports page and select the 111 University on 19 03 2006 correct match report 11 Find the directions to the club Go to How to find us page As expected None 12 Contact the club with an User moves to Contact us Used correct link but Code alterations to enquir
140. y page fills in the form and sends form did not work the contact form successfully Admin receives an Page layout of error Correct error email enquiry message was message page distorted 13 Register as a member User move straight to As expected None registration area via homepage Successful registration request made approved by administrator 14 Make a training kit order User move directly to kit area 2 failed login Revise code to Successful login User fills in attempts The approve form and submits security details are membership not being approved successfully 15 Move to change password area User presented with error As expected None Enter ANY incorrect user message and allowed to try details again 16 Now type in correct details and Password change is successful As expected None change password 17 Try logging in to kit area with Login failed and error message Login failed Revise code to old log in details presented approve membership 18 Try logging in with new details Login successful Login failed Revise code to approve membership 19 View your player profile User moves to profile page As expected None 20 Change your profile details in User clicks on home gt personal Failed login Revise code to anyway and return to profiles details Successful login approve page to view the changes Successful change membership 112 Usability Inspection Results A Detailed General Purpose Che

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