User:Sam sakala

Monash University 144 Peter Road Ruimsig (1725) 21 April 2010. The Chief Systems Operator Central Capricorn Central Mill 761 McCauley Road Roodeport (1734)

RE: Transmittal Letter Dear Sir The following report has been compiled with the effort of illustrating the new information system and components. It has been created for Central Capricorn by Eaglesoft Technologies Inc so as to brief the appropriate Central Capricorn personnel on how the resultant system will look like. Yours Sincerely Kudakwashe D Jr Nyamutsambira (Human Computer Interaction Specialist) Sam Musoga Sakala (Chief Interface Designer)

Background Information/ System Description The Capricorn Central Mill is a giant sugar cane processor that has been in operation for over a century. Situated in the sugarcane farmer’s dream, Queensland Australia, its capacity of production is formidable and unquestionable. To deliver all the sugarcane to the factory, Capricorn Central Mill has a highly strategized procedure that sees it through: the Cane Transport System. The cane transport system is basically a network of processes to bring sugarcane from all registered farms to the Mill. This involves a lot of recording and bookkeeping , for example the farms, the cane obtained from the particular farm, the cane type, the various locomotives to be assigned in to delivering the cane from source to destination. All these procedures are performed through interfacing with the system’s five main subsystems i.e. Cane Harvest Management, Rolling Stock and Tramway Management, Locomotive Crew management, Map Repository Management and Weighbridge Management. All these collectively work together to ensure correct delivery of cane and the adequate auditing of all the processes involved while doing so. The Cane transport system is also employed by six different users, who essentially make use of different modules of the system. They also have different access rights, with the Transport superintendent being the most privileged user with access to the whole system. The system is also actively in use for a period of 20 to 24 weeks when sugarcane is being harvested. The Central Capricorn mill however does not have an automated system to see it through all the day to day operations. It instead makes use of a paper based system, which comes with several misgivings, some of which include:

1. Difficulty of educating new interns on how to implement the current manual system. 2. Use of paper based system makes it difficult to keep track of strategic data as there is no uniform way to present data on the mill’s everyday activities. 3. Only one decision maker can hold on to a particular set of information at a moment as there is no central repository that stores the data in a single location, available for access. 4. Badly designed data capture facilities that often leave those involved in capturing the data leaving out some important information.

1.0 Introduction As mentioned above, this effort is based on justifying the design decisions of the high fidelity prototype designed for Capricorn. These prototypes will be of use to all stakeholders involved in the project. The main drive behind choosing High fidelity prototyping as a tool is that it will particularly assist we the Human Computer Interaction technicians in explaining the decisions we made on the system. Also, it will give users a look and feel of the system before the final results. It will also test the preliminary perceptions of the end users, who in this light are the heart of our design decisions. Also, High fidelity prototyping provides a mechanism in testing the feasibility of ideas and also facilitates the clarification and validation of ideas. The scope of this study is within the context of Capricorn’s low level prototype design. No other study outside these bounds has been conducted. Several journals, particularly those that contained Norman’s content have been referenced and accordingly implemented. Microsoft Word itself has also been used to write this report. Friends, from campus and abroad have also been asked to take part in the evaluation process of the low fidelity prototype. These model the normal novice end user at Capricorn Central Mill.

2.0 Design Evolution Since the initial design of the system, this has been the greatest leap that the system has made thus far, that is the leap from low level to high level prototype. Several modifications, derived from individuals testing the system, that is the fellow colleagues have accompanied this evolution. We (Eaglesoft Technologies) basically decided to hand our system to three different pairs of users our system with the intent of getting feedback and possibly constructive criticism and this is what they said, and how we responded to them. We did not want to carry evaluation by ourselves; we wanted new ideas from outsiders. This would improve innovation within our system. We also gave 3 groups to test the system. One group consisted of a novice user, the other consisted of occasional experienced users and the last consisted of an IT expert. This was done because we wanted as much diverse ideas as possible, from individual with different backgrounds in the IT field.

2.1Group A Concerns  The interface is too pale and boring to look at :- We (Eaglesoft) decided to incorporate a more colorful background, taking note that the color would not interfere with the content on the prototype.  The text on the menu is too small and too complex to read :- We enlarged the font and changed the font from Bradley Hand to Arial which is basic.  I cannot distinguish between a link and normal text:- Addition of a line on each link in the system. Group B Concerns  The icons are not in sync with the task they represent e.g search is represented by this funny icon that I have never seen before :- We restricted our icons to the icons that exist in the previous systems to avoid confusing users.  Too many blank spaces on the screen:- We restructured the screen layout to get rid of unwanted space.  There is no way that user knows that they are logged on to the right place :- We included the name of the user on the main menu e.g James Murdoch. Group C Concerns  Content is too clustered on one place:- We spaced the content more when we changed the screen layout.  There is no feedback from the system, after user saves a document, for example, the system does not notify :- We included dialog boxes after important actions which would help user to identify whether their action has been honored.  There is no way of going back where I came from:- We included a backward and forward arrow for this purpose.

2.2 Guideline Development Methodology The guidelines were developed on a basis of the Theories, models, frameworks, guidelines, standards and style guides used in Human Computer Interaction. The guidelines followed items such as Affordance, Visibility, Constraints, Natural Mappings, Transfer effects etc. To ensure adherence to these guidelines, we made periodical reviews to compare system against the guidelines. Also, we printed out these guidelines and always ensured that we had them with us whenever we were working on the system i.e. no one was allowed to work on the system without these guidelines in the vicinity. We also tested the system three times after we finished its construction.

2.3 Application Specific Guidelines

1. We decided to use Arial because of its simplicity and also because it is easy to read anything written in it. It is not like Bradley hand which is too looped for example.

2. We decided to include our menu on the top because we wanted to capture the user’s attention on the most important sub sections of the system from where the user starts to actually perform the desired operations.

3. We used red to capture the user’s attention towards important notices that the system warns about e.g on the very first form of the prototype.

4. We reduced the content and spacing on each screen so as to enable users to focus on particular components at a time. We also did not want to confuse the user with too many things all located on one form.

5. We used the color black because it clearly distinguished text form the background and thus provided good perception.

6. We included a to do list on each user’s menu so as to help users remember all the tasks that they are intending to to on a particular day. This is because users have short Memory.

7. We included backward and forward arrows because of their visibility. Users will know simply by looking that they can go back to the previous form using the backward arrow

8. We incorporated a magnifying glass on the search bar because it makes the task performed by the search bar easy to know. It is visible. 9. We incorporated a calendar with arrows (which help users to scroll across months of the year). We chose the arrows because they show affordance. The appearance or the arrows indicate how it is to be used.

10. We used a combo boxes because we wanted to constraint users to only the specific data items they were supposed to enter.

11. We included a calendar because we wanted to help the users reduce the number of things to think about(Reducing memory load when adding a note).

12. We included error messages because we wanted to avoid the users continuing to do tasks when there is a fatal error already existing.

13. We used a different color to show a menu that was actively in use because we wanted the user to easily know where they were within the system.

14. We used the Close window icon (“X”) because we wanted users to easily relate the icon to the previous software that they encountered. Transfer effects.

15. We put the backward arrow to the left and the forward arrow to the right because it was important to lay them out in a way that best represented their functionality. This was in line with Natural Mappings.

16. We put all the “Quick Links” to the left because this is the general rule of thumb followed by all designers, entailing that users would have encountered their quick links to the left in previous systems. Transfer effects.

17. We also included our logout button on the top right hand because this is the general standard followed by all designers, thus users now know that logout is to the right.

18. We located all the functions that were to be performed by the user after choosing a particular submenu on the center of the form because this is where users’ attention is mainly and corely centered.

19. We chose black to show all the links within the system. This is because it can easily be seen by everyone including color blind individuals.

20. We included the danger alert icon and two exclamation marks in the dialog box that appears when a user does not enter adequate information on the running sheet because we wanted the user to understand the fatality of the error.

21. We included the company logo in all screens because we wanted the user to know that they were using the correct application.

22. We used the horizontal menu type on our system’s main menu because it is the easiest menu to navigate through when initially attempting to find a task to do.

23. We used the Central Capricorn Cane Company’s organizational colors for most of our prototypes because these best identify the system to the company and gives users a feel of being at home.

24. We also maintained consistency of form color, layout and content throughout the system because we wanted users to quickly adapt and get used to the whole system.