Learning Outcomes

In this new era of technology, software engineering has mainly contributed in the advancement of the human comforts and fulfilling the advanced needs and requirements. It has contributed in advancing the existing systems through allowing fast and automated systems that can collect and process the real-time data and information contributing in the fast processing of those information for specific and precise output (Alam 2017). Every sector in this world needs automation such as farming, product development, data analysis, household activities, and many more. The purpose of this report is to highlight the aspects related to the automated car parking system. Smart city is the next step for the developed countries and car parking system will be major fact for minimizing the chaos and allowing common people to park their parking in far better way than the manual systems (Bonde et al. 2014). The objective of this report is to evaluate the usability priorities and requirements through performing a systematic usability evaluation based on the standard method.

The first phase of the project will be discussing the interactive system and its users followed by the Use Cases those will be describing the functioning of the selected system. The third and fourth phase will be discussing about the evaluation methodology and evaluation of the selected system in manner to identify the feasibility of the system in the real world and how much effective it could be for the users’ needs and requirements.

Automated Car Parking system

The selected system is the automated car parking system that will be allowing the users to park their vehicles in the parking without any rush or problems. The system can be migrated completely online through assuring that the operational activities such as ticket generation, payment processing, checking in, checking out and vacant places can be identified using the online means (Nawaz et al. 2016). The users can log in the system and fill the necessary details in the same system that can allow users to manage and process those activities at the same platform. The system will be an online process allowing users to save the data and information and manage the payment processing automatically. Real time data will be collected from every parking venues in manner to identify the parking areas where there is vacant or which parking venue is filled that will also save the time for the users to move between various locations (Albuquesque et al. 2015). The users will be allowed to book the parking of their vehicles using mobile or web application.

Background

The data presented by British Parking Association states that there are total 20,000 public car parking available in UK. Most of the population uses personal vehicle for the travelling purpose and hence, the proposed system will be developed targeting very large number of population who uses the parking facilities in the country. The estimated average of daily users including small, medium and big parking venues is about to be hundreds and thus, hundreds of users must be able to use the service without any hesitation (Ghasemifard et al. 2015). The developed system on the other hand must be able to handle the needs and requirements of these users.  

 The users should be capable of using the service from all over the country via connecting to the internet and all the related data and information must be accessible for every individual. Users should be capable of tracking the venues where car parking is available and select the best area where he or she can park their cars without any chaos. The users will be also be able to make the payment based on the fare breakup arranged by the parking owners (Shitkova et al. 2015). There should be different payment modes for the users in manner to make the payment system flexible however, the payment will be online in manner to eliminate the need of a staff for the cash management.

Aspects of use of system considered

It is being considered that the user will login to the system through creating their profile after providing necessary personal and card details in manner to make sure that the future processes can be executed in far fast and easy way. Following use case diagram explains the entire process of the selected system:

Figure 1: Use Case for the Automated Car Parking System

(Source: Created by Author)

Description of Use Case:

Figure 2: Use Case for Payment option

(Source: Created by Author)

Description of Use Case:

Evaluation Methodology

The methodology being used should be capable of evaluating the boundaries of the software and analysing how useful could it be for the users in manner to fulfil their basic needs and requirements. The developed system can be operated by the mobile or web application and will be handling hundreds of users on daily basis and so, it should have easy user interface and capable of providing necessary usage for the users (Rawat an d Rai 2018). The system should be capable of handling the traffic of the large number of users and providing smooth services despite of the increased number of users. Another considerable approach while evaluating the software would be the user login and user account and the handling of the necessary usage via application. The approach would be to identify the boundaries of the software or software-based system considering the daily usage and application of the system.

Evaluation Methodology

Following are the considerable sectors those need to be evaluated while evaluating the proposed system:

Unit testing: this testing will be focusing on the evaluation of the logics and codes used behind the development of the system comparing the existing system structure of the framework. This must be performed at the end of the system development in manner to make sure that the developed system is free from bugs and glitches in manner to assure that the functioning is being managed in an efficient and effective way (Patel et al. 2015).

Integration testing: This step focuses on dividing and integrating the software into modules and thereafter, evaluating the functionality of the developed system. This will also allow the system analyst to evaluate the compatibility of the modules with each other (Pashte et al. 2016). In manner to proceed with the system integration evaluation, it must be executed in different platforms for example on different hardware and software platforms.

Business Requirements: the developed system should be fulfilling the needs and requirements of the business along with the respective goals and objectives of the system. The business requirement in the present scenario is allowing the users to book car parking at the venues where he or she is moving to and assuring that there is not any problem or issue in making these bookings. There should be alignment between the objectives of the system with the business requirement and there should be enhancement in the level of the customer satisfaction and overall output. There should be different test cases and the results gathered should be documented for troubleshooting certain problems those could be eliminated automatically.

User Acceptance Testing: The developed system should be accepted by the users considering their comfort and easy to use the system. The user interface will be playing major role in this preference as it needs to be easy and understandable enough to be used by the users assuring that the users easily access to the system options and functions and deliver the necessary operational activity (Priya et al. 2015). This testing can be deployed to the real users in the real world in manner to get reliable feedbacks from them and implement the changes those are necessary for the development and execution of the project.

There will be two major sectors those need to be emphasized while performing this software evaluation that includes the features those need to be evaluated and the features those not need to evaluated and these features can be listed as following:

Features to be tested

Features to be tested:

The developed software must be capable of meeting the standard of the software evaluation in manner to be fully capable of fulfilling the needs and requirements of the users. Thee software must follow the national and international standards of the software evaluation. The artefacts of the developed system should be complying with these standards and all the testing and evaluation should be documented in a written paper. The ISO 829:2008 standard can be recommended for the proper and effective evaluation of the developed software and analysing whether the proposed solution is capable of fulfilling the needs and requirements of the users (Pham et al. 2015). A traceable matrix can also be another approach that can be utilized for the analysis of inputs and outputs of the developed system. There should be the consideration of every stakeholder while developing the system in manner to gather their proper response and feedbacks those could be implemented within the developed software.

Features not to be tested:

The security features have not been considered as a section for the evaluation and so the testing plan will not be covering the security aspects of the developed software. However, the developed software will have payment section in association with the collection of the personal and sensitive information and hence, the developed software must be fulfilling the basic security requirements in manner to make it reliable for the users (Ahmed et al. 2015). The developed network and system should be capable of restoring the collected information and protecting from the unauthorized users.

Evaluation Performance

There will be the need of the tools and environment for the delivery of the necessary software evaluation and analysis of the software as how it could be effective and efficient and delivering the necessary objectives of the business and software developed (Islam, Adil and Alvi 2017). This include the following tools and platforms:

• There should be full or partial monitoring of the program codes in manner to evaluate that whether it is meeting the business objectives or not and will be including the following:
  • Instruction set simulator is applicable in providing instruction level permission considering the monitoring and evaluation trace facilities.
  • The next step would be the evaluation of the animation of the developed software based system in manner to provide the stepwise implementation and execution of the conditional breakpoint within the machine code and the source level coding (Paz and Pow-Sang 2016).
  • The third step will emphasize on the code report coverage to identify the depth of functioning being implemented within the software or system.
• Formatted dump and/or symbolic debugging can be helpful in executing during the instance of the software development in manner to identify the errors at the selected points.  
• There should be the application of benchmark in manner to compare the run time performance of the developed system and compare it with the expected run time estimations considering the number of users (Hussain et al. 2016).
• The number of users and the usage of the resources need to be evaluated in manner to identify the necessary application and usage of the system.

The following proposed test case states the evaluation of the proposed system:

Test Case:

Test Case-1: Use Case-Login: the purpose of this test should be to identify whether the users entering the system should be capable of logging into the network without any error or glitch.

Purpose and Inputs

The input will hold the steps including registering to the system, feeding personal information and banking related information. The backstage program include the admin and evaluation of the fed data and information in manner to make sure that the user provide necessary and true information related to his or her identity. The user must be able to log in to the system after registering in the system through using the credentials provided by the randomly generated system.

Conclusion

Pass/fail criteria and Expected Outputs

There will be certain expected outputs of the executed testing considering whether it is meeting the expectations and functionalities or not. The system will either pass or fail and or either meet the expected outputs or not. Proper and step wise documentation in manner to record the test output and assure that the necessary changes will be implemented in the after implementation of the system within the real world application. There should be availability of the proper functioning of the system in manner to provide them access to the system including the option selection and selection of the features and functionalities necessary for the car parking. There should be proper and effective alignment between the business needs and users’ need and requirements. The user should be easily accessing all the services and availing them in far better and efficient way.

Test Procedure

The test procedure must be focusing on the non-functional and functional procedures in manner to analyse that the system is efficient and effective enough to be operated by the users. This will include maintainability, usability, performance and the security of the developed system.

Usability

The users will be allowed to use the system in for 24*7 hours for a week and deliver the necessary objectives of the developed system. The users will be introduced with an easy and effective graphic user interface in manner to allow them to understand the options and select the services as per their needs and requirements. The system will be incorporated with the GPS, payment collection, encryption, receipt generation, and all other existing services in an automated manner and thus, it will be helpful in allowing the same services in much advanced and easy way through their mobile or web application.

Performance:

The developed system will allow the users to book the venues for parking at anywhere in the UK despite of the traffic and other factors. This will eliminate the hectic scenario of the present car parking cases and allowing users to look and park their vehicles using smartphone, mobile devices, or computer systems. This will be a regular service in manner to manage the parking of every possible vehicle running on the road.

Maintainability:

There should be the availability of the IT team who should regularly perform the audit of the system in manner to identify and manage the bugs and glitches identified in the system and fix them as the users utilizes the services through the system. It should be a regular process in manner to assure the proper functioning of the system and meeting the needs and demands of the users.

Security:

The system will be collecting personal and sensitive information in manner to make it more sophisticated and easy for the users and hence, the security will matters a lot for the system and the reliability of the users. The developed network and the system should be secured enough to manage the privacy and security of the individuals connecting with the system and providing their personal data and information for further processing of the operational activities.

Summary of evaluation results

The evaluation provides positive aspects on the functioning and accomplishment of the necessary applications. The users’ needs and requirements are being fulfilled through the developed system assuring fast, better, and more precise real time data collection and processing and assuring that there will be not any lagging in providing the expected services to the users. The developed system will be capable of managing the entire operational activity in an automated manner allowing the car parking organization and the users to avail the best services. All the aspects have been identified positive however, the developed system does not focuses on the security aspects of the data and information being collected and thus, it could fail in real world if proper security measures are not taken. The sensitive and personal information will be collected for the proper and effective functioning of the automated car parking system and hence, the developed system must assure the users that the developed system protects the privacy and security of the individuals and does not violates any law that can reflect on the privacy and security of the users. The developed system meets the business requirement as it allows the users to make the necessary booking for car parking and also allows them to make the payment without altering the traditional production and output. The system objectives align with the business objectives and thus, the necessary deliverables will be feasible to be replaced with the existing parking system in manner to allow the users to avail the best, fast, efficient, and much accurate services those can be time saving and money saving. The performance of the developed system will be high allowing all the users to avail the same services as that in the traditional systems and hence also meeting the usability factor of the proposed system.

The expected car parking plots is 20,000 and among them hundreds of users can access and avail the services and hence, the developed system will assure that all the users can effectively and efficiently use the services without any need of manual operations or manual help. The usability factor will be an independent variable for all the other factors as all other variables will be dependent on the usability of the developed system. The easy user interface will be accepted by the users and hence, every user would be availing the same enhanced services in the future and thus, the traffic needs to be managed. The number of users will be very high during the office timing and evening time and so, the server or network should be capable enough to be handling these traffic assuring that the users avail the glitch free and fast services. The necessary output of the project will be allowing the users to book their car parking in the venue where there is availability for the booking facilities. The security and network traffic can be considered as the serious concern in this section considering the large number of users and the services being introduced to them. The future research or while implementing the system in the real world, the system analyst and the system developer must consider these aspects as the necessary objective for the efficient and effective delivery of the system that can be reliable and efficient enough for the users. These concerns and issues need to be addressed during the real world implementation of the system in manner to assure that the users can rely on the system while sharing their personal and sensitive information those needs to be protected with higher priority. Moreover, security concern also considers the intrusion and breaches those might occur within the system and lots of sensitive data and information can be at stake or could be in the hand of an unauthorized user who can utilize them for personal benefits. The precaution measures include the secured network, and encryption those could be adhered for meeting the objectives related to the security of the developed system in manner to protect it from being breach by an intruder or hacker. The necessary objective behind the security aspects should be concerned to the security and privacy of the data and information being collected by the system administrator and evaluation of those collected information.

Strength: The strength of the developed project is the real time data collection and processing and allowing the users to avail the services via connecting to the internet. The introduced mobile application and web application will allow the users to access these services via the mobile devices, in manner to assure that the service accessibility is available to them at any instance. The expected benefits of the system is to allow users to identify the location where the car parking is vacant and the user can book for further vehicle booking without any chaos.

Weakness: security aspect has not been considered as major concern in this project and thus, it could possibly violates the policies and regulations set by the government concerning the sensitive data and information collected by the car parking organization. Thus, it also influences the reliability of the users on the automated system and so, the future aspect of the project must focus on the security of the individuals. The users with no internet access or any smart devices will not be able to avail the proposed services and hence, it might influence the acceptance and usability factor of the proposed system.

Success: the developed system will allow the users to book the car parking system in manner to allow them to be out of every rush and book the ticket via mobile application or web application. The developed system will meet the business objectives and goals without altering the expected benefits from the developed system. The developed system will be effective and efficient enough to be managing the operational activities of the car booking network in much advanced and better way. The usability factor of the developed system is positive and hence, the acceptance level of the developed system will also be high. The chaos and rush of the UK car parking management can be reduced through introducing this system that can fulfil the needs and requirements of every user using personal vehicles for transportation purpose.

Failure: the developed system does not emphasizes on the security concern and hence, the security aspect of the developed project is low and so, the improvement is necessary in this sector of the project. The developed system should be evaluated based on the software evaluation standard however, it must comply with the rules and regulations established by the UK government for the management of the privacy and security of the users whose data and information are being collected for the processing  of the proposed system.

Conclusion

The developed system will be capable of meeting the requirements of the UK population for the car parking and assuring that the users can make the booking and payment of the car parking at certain venue automatically. The developed system will have all the traditional functionalities with additional features and will allow the users to collect and make decision based on the real time data collection and processing. The real time data collected by the information system will be shared to the users that will alternatively help them make better decisions regarding the vacant place for parking and get the parking lot at the same instance. The above report discussed the use cases and the properties of the users regarding the functionalities and operations being accomplished through the developed system. This report analyses the existing scenario of the car parking in UK and replacing it with the newly developed automated car parking system that will alternatively be helpful in delivering the same needs and requirements of the users with an ease and much advanced manner. An evaluation methodology have been also proposed in this report considering the evaluation of the system and identifying the depth and intensity of the services being delivered to the users without altering the benefits and outputs of the organization. Thereafter, the expected results have been also proposed in this report, describing the efficiency management of the developed system and assuring that the developed system will be acceptable in future. The evaluation of the developed system results in assuring that it can be helpful in fulfilling the necessary objectives and goals of the car parking system within entire UK and it can be much beneficial for the users and the car parking organization to manage them.

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