Design Stage

Now that the analyst as all of the information needed recorded, it's the designer's turn. The designer will have to design the inputs & outputs of the system, database stores, process of the system, validation check and test data for the system.

However, the designer has to keep in mind several factors when designing the new system. He has to consider:-

1) The fluency and smoothness of the system, i.e. it should be easy to use, navigate through and not over-elaborate.

2) A ship won't sail without its captain. The new system has to contain guidelines & instructions and should be free of misleading figures.

3) The margin of error is so small  and therefore, the designer should be well aware of them and has to limit the possibility of inaccurate data.

Imagine what would happen to the user if he found the system without these factors. He/She will definitely get a short-circuit & blow their fuses.

The format of the output can take various shapes, from which includes: graphs, reports, list of records and tables. The output can be produced on paper, on screen display and/or sound display.

* Why do you think sound display is an option over here?

There will be two files to be designed:-

1. Master file: This contains data which do not often change such as name, date of birth, gender, etc...

2. Transaction file: This one contains data which change often such hours worked, phone number(s), etc...

How to reduce errors? Can you think of a way to reduce them apart from validation? There are more ways around a door than a key. As a matter of fact, there are several ways in which you can do this:-

1) You can use the coding method to make the character length shortened. If you're not familiar with this method, coding is more like replacing an entire data with a letter or symbol. For example, you can write "Male" as "M" and "Female" as "F", "Yes" with a tick and "No" with a cross.

2) Alternatively, you can use direct input data. The next time you  visit a supermarket, check the barcode on a product and how does the cashier use the POS (Point of Sale) to directly input the data to his computer. Scan the barcode and you're done, it's as simple as that.