Transcript INFO 424 Team Project Practicum Week 7 – Feedback, User docs, Presentation tips Glenn Booker Notes partly from Prof.

INFO 424
Team Project Practicum
Week 7 – Feedback, User docs,
Presentation tips
Glenn Booker
Notes partly from Prof. Hislop
INFO 424 Week 7
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Agenda
• Feedback from review reports and
draft SDS’
• User documents
• Implementation plans
• Presentation tips
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Review Report Reminders
• Goal is to find defects
– As many as possible
• Avoid
– Writing new requirements
– Making value judgments about requirements
– Making assumptions about the target
environment
– Raising policy issues
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SDS Problem Themes
• Good individual work but not integrated
– Especially diagrams vs. Detailed Design
• Screen hierarchy diagrams vs. individual screen
entities
• ER Diagrams vs. database table entities
– Class diagram vs. sequence diagrams
– Sequence diagrams should be based on a
written main success scenario and extensions
for that use case
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SDS Problem Themes
• Connecting design elements to
requirements
• These are bad signs:
– “Requirement – There is no reference to this
section in the SRS as it is strictly design
specific”
– “Requirement – To store information of the
users”
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SDS Problem Themes
• Providing complete designs
– Continuing to describe features instead of
designing
– Not specifying complete design elements
• Watch phrases like “including”, “such as”, and
“etc.”
– By the time you get through SDS section 4,
the system should be fully specified
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SDS Problem Themes
• Remember the SDS should be clear and
complete enough you could hand it off to a
herd of developers and they could finish
creating the system, at least through cycle
1 functionality
– Even if it’s different from what you envision,
it would fulfill the requirements and design
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User Documents
• User documentation for a project could
include many kinds of documents,
depending on the nature and design of
the system and its users
– User manual (as in RTFM)
– Installation guide
– Debugging or maintenance guide
– Help menus or utilities
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User manual
• The User manual is usually designed for
novice users of the system
– Generally organized by the type of task they
need to perform
– Lots of screen caps and explicit instructions
– Written in conversational tone
– Be clear what the expected outcome of each
step is, and what to do if it doesn’t work
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Installation guide
• May seem obvious or not be needed (e.g.
for web-based systems)
– Keep in mind everyone isn’t as computer
literate as you are!
– Could be a brief set of instructions on how to
use the installer utility, particularly for CD or
DVD-based software distribution
– Might have separate instructions for the client
and server components of the system
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Debugging or maintenance guide
• More complex systems might be
maintained locally, so they need help with
debugging or troubleshooting common
problems with the system
– Often used with hardware-intensive systems
– Organize by the type of problem found, and
describe what to do about it
– Might be part of the user manual, e.g. for a
printer
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Help menus
• The most common form of user docs at
this point, most systems should have
some form of help available
– Could be context-sensitive or not
• All forms of user docs should include
contact info for problem reporting
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Implementation Plans
• What do you plan to do for cycle 1
implementation?
– Aim for full usable implementation of one
or two important functions, not partial
implementation of a bunch of stuff
– Set a good precedent for interface elements
that will appear throughout the system
• The look and feel of your system should be
apparent
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Term Presentation
• Content
– Project overview
• Summary of requirements and design
• Definition of cycle 1
– Project result
• Demo of cycle 1 prototype
– Project experience
• Good and bad; lessons learned, what worked
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Term Presentation
• Approach
– Professional, business style presentation
• Dress
• Presentation materials
– One or several presenters, your choice
– Maximum time: 10 minutes
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Term Presentation
• Evaluation rubric
– Content (40%)
– Organization (20%)
– Time (8%)
– Visual Aids (8%)
– Speech Patterns, Elocution (8%)
– Enthusiasm, Eye Contact, Posture, Gestures
(8%)
– Dress (8%)
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Term Presentation
• The content of your presentation is critical
– Select content that is concise and clear
– What is most important for us to know?
• Make sure the presentation is organized
– Adult audiences like to know where this is
heading; it’s not a mystery play
– Be ready to show your presentation
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Term Presentation
• Stay within the time limit
– If you don’t, the organization score is also
often poor
• Visual aids
– Pick appropriate visual aids
• Not necessarily PowerPoint!
• Hardware? Whiteboard?
– Use of figures
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Term Presentation
• Speech pattern, elocution
– Avoid filler words (um, er, uh, …)
• Brief silence is a lot better!
– Speak slower and louder than normal, or
we can’t understand or hear you
• Enthusiasm, etc.
– Pretend to be confident, even if you aren’t
– Make eye contact with the audience (not just
the professor)
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Term Presentation
– Stand up straight, don’t slouch (yes, I am
your mother); it makes a difference in the
impression you make
– Remember to breathe, relax
– Don’t fidget, it’s distracting
• Dress appropriately
– I don’t expect Armani suits, but something
nicer than shorts and flip-flops would be good
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