investigation
background info & intro
Pipeline Software Development is a newly established partnership of three friends who have recently graduated from university together. All three of them are software engineers dedicated to writing software that is able to be edited easily and effectively. Their main focus is the financial ICT sector.
Despite the company being so young, they have already produced some excellent products and participated in several high-calibre development projects.
I have worked with them in both units 4 and 6 designing and installing their workstations and providing technical support. Through both of these projects I have built-up a good working relationship, gaining their trust and respect.
I already know an awful lot about the company, however, for this unit I am working in a totally different capacity. Therefore I will need to perform further research, investigating and analysing their web site requirements.
My investigation will be spilt up into four different sections:
- Interviewing the PSD partners
- An evaluation of a similar web site
- An end-user survey
- The overall requirements including a clear list of agreed goals
In the first part I will identify what is the main purpose of the site. I will also attempt to determine who the target audience is, what information must be provided on the site, any features that must be included and any visitor information that needs to be collected. I will also discuss with them future plans for maintaining/updating the site once it is up and running.
Evaluating a similar web site will enable me to step into the end-user's shoes and try to understand what it is they will be looking for. It will show me any user interaction that is required and will help me gain a conceptual understanding of the main user pathways that will be found PSD's web site. It will also help me partly assess security and legal requirements.
The end-user survey will help me in my attempt at making the web site accessible and compatible for all. I will learn about the different hardware end-users have that impinge upon web browsing performance (memory, screen resolutions etc...). I will also try to determine the most commonly used software (operating systems, web browsers etc...) and the current scope of internet connection speeds.
In the final part of the investigation I will round-up all my findings and present them in a clear manner, creating a list of goals that will hopefully be agreed with by the PSD partners. I will be using all the information gathered in this section as the foundation for all future development. Only after I have completely finished the investigation am I able to move on to the Design stage.
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