Gathering Requirements What do users want?

Information Gathering Techniques Surveys Interviews Focus Groups

Surveys Paper surveys Electronic surveys –in-text –attachments Web-based –processing data Phone Surveys

Interviews Personal –Come prepared –Tape recorder –Open versus Closed questions Phone –Cold call –Selected users

Focus Groups Room setting –small versus large groups –moderator –synergy Electronic –Group decision support systems Cost prohibitive –Platform Issues

What to Use? Ask some questions –Do users have addresses? –Can you meet with them personally? –Snail mail addresses only? –Does a Website exist? More than likely use a combination of two or more techniques.

Think About What techniques might you use? Team will be asked to provide information gathering techniques, plans and tools in reports. –Initial: tools, techniques, any preliminary results –Final: tools, techniques, results Link to how the Website meets the needs

Creating Web Page Forms Paperwork with a New Twist

What are Forms? On the Website –input data –guestbooks Behind the scenes –files –databases

Behind the Scenes Active Server Pages Common Gateway Interface Script –CGI –receives data from the Web page and then processes the data to create information Server-side

Other CGI Uses Hit-Counters Server-side maps Message and Web Boards lists Cookies

CGI Made With... AppleScript C/C++ Perl TCL (Tool Command Language) Visual Basic Java Depends on the System

Where to get them... Ask your ISP what CGIs are available In UNIX system, in cgi-bin directory We will use GForm –on homepages.wmich.edu – FormMail (v 1.9) at Matt's Script Archive is good as well

End-User Side Online Forms –input boxes for text and numbers –radio buttons (option buttons) to select a single option –check boxes to specify an item as present or absent –text areas for expanded input

Form Element Each element is a field in the form and will have a value Need the first though Form Elements and HTML layout tags

Can use most HTML tags in the FORM to specify layouts and presentation of material

Input Boxes –button –checkbox –hidden –image –password –radio –reset –submit –text –textarea

Input Box Size and Length Some input boxes (like text) allow you to set their size (in characters) Can also limit the amount of text entered – (in characters)

Value Property Can set a default with " " – United States

Selection Lists Used to allow a user to view a list and select one or a multiple number of items How many pizzas versus choosing the toppings on a pizza Similar to list tags and

Selecting One Item 1 2 3

Multiple Items mushrooms olives green peppers anchovies The VALUE and the SELECTED are optional and can be used with both types of lists

Selection List Appearance –show more or less of the list –by default shows one item in a drop-down box

RADIO party lunch Why Pizza

CHECKBOXES Set a default

TEXTAREA <textarea rows="value" cols="value" name="text"> default text * Close out the TEXTAREA tag

TEXTAREA Example Enter Comments COLS or ROWS optional -- can choose default

WRAP Property <textarea rows="value" cols="value" name="text" wrap="option">default text OFF = all text in a single line scrolling off the page VIRTUAL = text wraps automatically in Web window. Still sent to CGI in a single line PHYSICAL=text wraps automatically in Web window. Line wrap info sent to CGI as well

FORM Buttons Need to have a means for users to perform actions

PROPERTIES How the form is handled. –ACTION –METHOD –ENCTYPE

Properties (cont.) Location of CGI script Get versus Post –Get attaches information to the end of the URL specified in the ACTION area (e.g. server-side maps) –Post is the preferred method -- use it with Gform –Post sends the form information as a separate data stream/file

ENCTYPE Various options like multiple form data, etc. Default value is text -- what GForm uses

MAILTO Can also have the form data sent to an e- mail address instead of a file or a database

Most Important Go through the Chapter 6 tutorial Go through the GForm instructions and tutorial (link on Resource Site) Try linking your Gform and making it work –Take my example and modify it on your site Ask Questions