Software Project Life Cycle Course

Model an online ticket sales system

1. what the users want to be able to do with the system,
2. how they do business, and
3. how they expect an automated solution to help them.

1. Document user expectations
2. Help users clarify their expectations and business practices
3. Model the users' business in a way that will support the development of an automated solution

Modeling an Online Ticket Sales System: A Strategic Approach

1. Documenting User Expectations:
   • User Interviews:
     1. Objective: Elicit direct input from potential system users regarding their needs and expectations.
     2. Approach: Conduct structured interviews with a diverse set of stakeholders, such as ticket buyers, box office staff, event organizers, and management.
     3. Output: A collection of user stories, preferences, and anticipated system features.
   • Surveys and Questionnaires:
     1. Objective: Collect quantitative data about user preferences and system usage patterns.
     2. Approach: Design and distribute online or paper-based surveys to a broader audience, ensuring questions align with the project's objectives.
     3. Output: Statistical insights into user behavior and system requirements.
2. Helping Users Clarify Expectations and Business Practices:
   • Focus Group Sessions:
     
     1. Objective: Delve deeper into specific topics and encourage stakeholders to discuss and refine their expectations collaboratively.
     2. Approach: Organize moderated group discussions around key system features, challenges, and business practices.
     3. Output: Refined user expectations and identified best practices.
   • Business Process Workshops:
     1. Objective: Understand the current "as-is" business processes and co-design the desired "to-be" processes.
     2. Approach: Engage stakeholders in workshop settings to map out current processes and brainstorm optimizations or changes. Utilize tools like whiteboards, sticky notes, or dedicated process modeling software.
     3. Output: Detailed business process maps, highlighting areas for automation and potential system integrations.
3. Modeling the Users' Business to Support Automated Solution Development: |
   
   • Use Case Modeling:
     
     1. Objective: Visualize and define how different users will interact with the system.
     2. Approach: Identify actors (users or other systems), define their goals, and illustrate interactions using use case diagrams. Accompany diagrams with detailed use case descriptions specifying the flow of actions.
     3. Output: Comprehensive use case diagrams and associated narratives.
   • Entity-Relationship (ER) Diagrams:
     
     1. Objective: Model the data structure, its attributes, and the relationships between different data entities.
     2. Approach: Identify necessary data entities (e.g., User, Event, Ticket) and determine their attributes and relationships (e.g., One Event can have many Tickets).
     3. Output: ER diagrams visualizing the database structure and its interrelations.
   • System Sequence Diagrams (SSD):
     
     1. Objective: Model the sequence of system operations in a use case.
     2. Approach: For critical use cases, create SSDs to depict a detailed sequence of system events, emphasizing system responses.
     3. Output: A sequence of diagrams that provides a step-by-step visual representation of system operations.
   • Prototyping:
     1. Objective: Provide users with a tangible or visual representation of the future system to gather feedback.
     2. Approach: Create low-fidelity prototypes (e.g., wireframes) or high-fidelity interactive prototypes to simulate system functionalities.
     3. Output: An interactive or visual system prototype, eliciting feedback for iterative improvement.