In this lesson you'll find how to make an interview with a client. This will be a dialog between an analyst and a client. The final product of this conversation will be an activity diagram.
In
the following text A will stand for Analyst and C
for the client.
A | Let's start with the work. Tell me what's happening when a customer enters in your library? |
C | He or she goes to the corridor where data search can be done. After selection of which books or journals to lend, the customer goes to the place where he or she can take the sample of that book or journal. |
A | You said data search. What kind of data? |
C | There is main data record for every book, author or journal, sorted alphabetically. Every record consist of different data according to type of the product: (book or journal). These records are printed on paper cards, and they are putted on different folders. Access to these records can be done also by computer terminals which can be found in the corridor. |
A | That means that your library is computerized. Why using a computers and a paper records? |
C | As we live in hi-technological era, we must to follow time steps. Computers were introduced few years ago, but paper records are here since the library was built. Also some impatient customers, can use them if all of the computer terminals are occupied. |
A | Are the same data put in the paper records and in the computer records? |
C | Yes. All of old data from paper records is converted to computer records, and new data that we write in paper cards also is writen in electronic format. |
A | Where is your database located on? |
C | Our database is located on a computer server. This server is a heart of our local area network - all of the terminals located in our library. |
A | Let's backtrack to the data. You said that same data is stored in the electronic format and in the paper format. Next in our conversation we can refer to these with same name, let's say index. |
C | I agree. |
A | When we talk about index, what kind of information is necessary to perform a search? |
C | Data for the books and for the journals is very similar. Both have ISBN-the unique number for every book/journal, title, publishing year, publishing house, but books have author and genre, and journals have volume and area. For the data search are usefull ISBNs, titles, authors, genres, volumes and areas. Retreived results specifies the type of the books or journals. |
A | Just a second. What are the kinds of books and journals? |
C | Except paper books and journals, electronic books and journals are supperted in our library. |
A | Electronic books and journals. How do you manage these types of items (books / journals)? |
C | The server we had is used for storage of these types of items. We produced some of the electronic items, but also in our database we have Internet addresses from electronic books or journals from other libraries we used to cooperate. |
A | You have a lot of ammount of data. Is everyone concerned with data input and data maintenance? |
C | We have employees to do this. |
A | You said employees. I think that they are not parts from
this conversation for now. We will talk about them later. The customers are not finished
yet. Before going to the process of lending let's assume what we have at this point of
interview, things come clearer to me now. Every customer can perform a data search for the
books or journals. Electronic formats of books retrived from the search, can be accessed
imidiately. Paper formats can be lended if there is a free sample. Now you may go to the process of lending. |
C | At the begining, I've stress out that user who is in the library after data search can perform a lending. Lending can be done if books or journals are in paper format, and it's done in the lending area in the library. Searched books or journals can be given to the user if free samples of them are in the library. |
A | Let's look at the both cases - present and not present sample of the book/journal. What is the flow of events? |
C | When sample is not present, the user can make a reservation for it. After that library must inform the user for a free sample, when one is set free. User, than should go the the library and make a lending for that sample. I must say that free sample is kept for the user few weeks after informing it. |
A | What if there is a free sample? |
C | In that case emloyee who is concerned with lending (let's say - lender), must check the users data to see if user is a library member or not. If the user is a library member, he or she takes the ISBN of lended books or journals and personal data for the user, and writes them in the lending record. Also a date is writen in this record, which is stored in the lending database. Every user has a limit of books/journals to lend, and also there is a limit for time keeping of books/journals. |
A | Do you allow employees to lend books or journals? |
C | Yes we do. Every employee in our library has the same record as members. That we have lending records for employees too. |
A | You said that lending records are stored in a lending database. Is this a work of "lender" or someone else do this? |
C | Our local network doesn't consists only from searh terminals. A "lender" also has a terminal from which he or she can check for user data and free samples. Also a quick reports can be done to see which users have books to return. |
A | Wait a minute. Our conversation gone in other direction. We started to talk about employee's duties, we didn't finished with the customers. Let's see to made a lending a free sample of the book or journal can be present in the library, and a lending record is produced after it. |
C | That's it. I'll stress again that only paper formats can be lended, because they have a samples. Electonic formats of books and journal doesn't have a samples. In other words they have infinite number of samples, or they are present in the library everytime. |
A | Is it possible to have no present samples of books or journals from searched user's list? Can users ask a lender to recommend them a book or journal? |
C | Certainly lender can take a brief look at the user's history of lended books and journals, and if he or she had read a books or journals from the user's interest areas, then he or she can recommend something to the user. User can accept that or not. |
A | This will be all for now. I think that user's diagram is done, and we can take a look at it: |
Member Activity diagram corresponding to the previous interview |