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C H A P T E R 1 1
Analysis and design
Table of contents
Learning outcomes 143
Management issues 143
Chapter at a glance 143
Suggested teaching and learning approaches 144
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter the reader should be able to:
Summarise
approaches for analysing requirements for digital business systems
Identify key elements of approaches to improve the interface design and security
design of e-commerce systems
Management issues
Analysis and design of digital business systems raises these issues for management:
What are the critical success factors for analysis and design of digital business systems?
What is the balance between requirements for usable and secure systems and the costs
of
designing them in this manner?
Chapter at a glance
Main topics
Analysis for digital technology projects
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Process modelling
Data modelling
Design for digital business
Focus on
Case studies
11.1 Providing an effective online experience for local markets
Suggested teaching and learning approaches
This chapter is structured according to different aspects of digital business analysis and
design, each
of which can be covered as a single lecture. The analysis sections are as
follows:
Analysis for digital business this introduces different types of analysis emphasising
the importance of analysing information flows (use the quote off slide 4) and the
workflows that make up business processes (slide 5).
Process modelling Table 11.1 illustrates the way in which a business
process can
The design sections:
Architectural design this should be used in conjunction with Chapter 3, for
example, Figure 3.1. The diagrams and Case study 11.1 stress the importance of
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Activity 11.3 and 11.4 and Case study 11.1 can be used for tutorials or as an assignment
Case studies
Case study Providing an effective online experience to local markets
Questions
1. Select one country that i-to-i operates in closest to the area where you live. Define a
persona based on their age and product needs and then identify the main customer
journeys that form the customer for this persona. Which routes through the site
would this user follow?
2. Review the range of engagement devices on the i-to-i website to engage the audience
to generate leads.
Engagement devices which are examples of content marketing to encourage signup include:
TEFL taster questions and answers to gain an idea of the experience
3. Identify key areas for improvement for i-to-i based on your use of the site.
Use a suitable framework such as WEBQUAL or RACE (Chapter 1) to review and make
recommendations.
In keeping with the theme of this chapter, this question is about managing the online customer
experience and prompts students to think about how often this needs to be addressed.
Examples include:
Changes in product offerings and partnerships
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Arguments against:
Additional activity
This is a practical activity for undergraduates, relating ERD design to creation of a
database. It is based on Figure 11.6.
Scenario
The business-to-consumer company (B2C), a kitchenware retailer, wants to set up an e-
commerce site, but first wants to produce a prototype in Microsoft Access.
The data analysis has been performed and is shown in the expanded entity relationship
diagram below.
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Instructions
2. A dialog box will pop up; choose create a New Database/blank access database.
4. The next box you see with the name of your database at the top, is the heart of creating
and managing the database. First we will create a database table.
5. You will be presented with a list of different ways of designing/creating the table.
NB. Choose Design View.
6. You will now see the Design View for the table. Complete as shown in the diagram
below:
You do not need to type in anything for the General/Lookup part at the bottom this
is for validation.
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7. Before you save the table design you need to set the primary key so it is set next to
customer id as shown above.
To do this:
choose Edit,
primary key.
8. Now save the table by choosing File Close. You will be prompted do you want to save
the design of Table 1?, choose Yes and
9. Now we can populate the database with example data. Make up three rows of sample
data
for each table (and around two products per order for order line). To add data,
select
the table and choose Open and then add the data. You should see something like
this:
10. Now repeat the process for the other three tables as shown in the table designs below.
NB 1. Remember to create/mark a primary key for each table.
Order header
Order line
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Product
Source
: Microsoft product screenshots reprinted with permission from Microsoft
Corporation.
Questions for debate
Debate 11.1 Digital business vs. ERP architectures
Designing an appropriate architecture for digital business is effectively the same as the
architecture for enterprise resource planning systems.
Summary of arguments for:
Summary of arguments against:
ERP is a subset of digital business so some elements not covered, for example,
administrative workflow, knowledge management.
Debate 11.2 Whither website design?
Website design is too complex, and too important, to be left to marketers and IT staff
untrained in its principles. Specialist usability professionals and psychologists should
be present in every large e-commerce team.
Summary of arguments for:
Graphic design is usually undertaken by specialists, why should website design be different?
Chaffey, Digital Business and E-Commerce Management, 6th edition,
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Summary of arguments against:
Exercises
Self-assessment questions
1. What are the risks if analysis and design are not completed adequately?
For an e-commerce service:
poor user interface;
2. Distinguish between process analysis and data analysis.
3. What are workflow analysis and workflow management systems?
4. What are legacy data and what are the options for their incorporation into an e-
commerce
system?
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5. What are the four requirements of a secure e-commerce site?
1. Authentication (customer needs to avoid fraud from customer, alternatively
customer needs to check reputable company).
3. Integrity (applies equally to both).
6. Explain the concepts of digital keys and digital signatures and how they relate.
Digital certificates (keys) consist of keys made up of large numbers that are used to
uniquely identify individuals.
7. Explain the notation used for use-case analysis.
Figure 11.8 shows the notation for actors (people) and use cases (activities in a sequence).
8. Summarise the characteristics of a usable website according to Jakob Nielsen
(www.useit.com).
Customer orientation
Essay and discussion questions
1. Write a plan for the analysis and design of an e-commerce site,
recommending which
aspects of process and data analysis should be conducted
and explaining how they should be integrated.
The plan should contain the main elements of this chapter. Students can also refer to Figures
10.2
and 10.3 to assist with this. The main stages are:
Process analysis (e.g. task breakdown, flow process chart)
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2. Write an essay on the significance of workflow systems to digital business,
illustrating your
answer with examples of organisations of your choice.
3. Write a report summarising the characteristics of a website with good usability.
This should be based on the section on user-centred design (p. 538). Concepts to include
are as follows:
User-centred design
4. How can the concept of customer orientation be translated into e-commerce site
design?
5. Assess the success of e-tailers in designing secure e-commerce systems.
Students could take a particular sector, for example, banks, grocery or books and then
evaluate their systems against the criteria on p. 588:
Authentication
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How well they implement (or the relevance of) different aspects of security could then
be
reviewed:
For example:
Encryption
Examination questions
1. Summarise the purpose of process analysis.
Process
Part of a system that has a clearly defined purpose or objective and clearly defined
inputs and outputs.
Workflows help manage business processes by ensuring that tasks are prioritised to
be
performed:
2. What is meant by user-centred design?
User-centred design
3. Explain the concept of task analysis with reference to a customer placing an order
online.
Task analysis
Identification of different tasks, their sequence and how they are broken down.
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4. Explain the stages involved in use-case analysis with reference to a customer
placing an
order online.
Use-case
5. Describe the stages of data modelling with reference to a database for an e-
procurement system.
1. Identify entities (product, supplier, purchase order, invoice, payment)
3. Normalise to tables which minimise redundancy of information.
6. Outline the different types of services that need to be provided by different
servers on an e-commerce site based on the three-tier clientserver system.
Web server. Manages http requests from client and acts as a passive broker to other
servers. Returns or serves web pages.
7. How do the attributes of a secure e-commerce site differ from customer and
company viewpoints?
This requires reviewing the following:
Authentication (customer needs to avoid fraud from customer, alternatively customer
needs to check reputable company)
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8. Explain the relationship between analysis, design and implementation for an e-
commerce
site.
These are high-level activities that need to occur in the creation of a site, in this sequence:
Analysis identify requirements, for example, user interface, process, data
Activity answers
Activity 11.1 The consequences of poor analysis and design
Form a focus group and discuss your own experiences of online purchasing. What have
been your problems and frustrations? Refer to a particular example such as purchasing a
book what are your expectations? Alternatively, visit GetSatisfaction.com to see the
types of complaints about different brands.
Let us take the approach of looking at expectations for buying a book online. Those,
where
Analysis and Design are important are marked with (A&D). It can be seen that
analysis and design are important for most of these requirements:
2. Site easy to use, pages fast to download with no bugs. (A&D)
4. Specification of date, time and delivery to be possible. (A&D)
6. Personal data remains personal and private and security is not compromised. (A&D)
8. Delivery on time.
9. Returns policy enabling straightforward return or replacement.
10. Effective email or phone-based customer support for when any of the expectations
above are not met! This means traceability through databases, someone who knows
your order status and can solve your problems (A&D).
Activity 11.2 Transforming invoice processing at a B2B company
As a business analyst you have to produce a more efficient way of working. You should
restructure the workflow by filling in a blank table. You should also write down
assumptions about changed roles and give details of new software needed to support the
new workflow. You can assume each member of staff has access to a networked PC and
the MD has access to a notebook with fax/modem that they use twice daily.
It is apparent from Table 11.2 that there are many inefficiencies in the company. These
include
separate people performing tasks that could be performed by one individual and
unnecessary steps. Another problem is that the Managing Director is often out of the office,
so authorisation by him takes as long as 2 days on an average. It can be seen that each
Software needed
For such an application a full functioned workflow system is probably unnecessary,
rather, a
forms-enabled email system can be used to route information from one person to
the next. So,
the first payable clerk will pass a scanned copy of the invoice to the Managing
Activity 11.3 ER modelling for a B2C company
Create a normalised ER diagram for the B2C company, or a B2C consumer transactional
site.
For answers see Figure 11.6.
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Comments
Customer. May also have a separate delivery address.
Activity 11.4 Allowing for the range in access devices
1. Update the compilation in Table 11.7 to the latest values using Onestat.com or other
data from web analytics providers.
No suggested answer.
2. Explain the variations. Which browsers and screen resolutions do you think should be
supported?
Three good sources for this information are:
Adobe Digital Index