Software Design And

Software Design and

Development

HSC Assessment Task

Task Weighting: 20%

Date issued: 23 May 2007

You are to create a piece of computer software that will interface with the DeadSouls mud system allowing the quick creation of rooms and objects within the game. Your solution should allow the user to do either of the following :

Quickly create single rooms, objects, weapons or armour using a Graphical User Interface.

The user should have text boxes allowing them to enter all of the relevant information for the type of room or object they are working on and should be able to save both a working copy of the object which can be opened by your software as well as an “Exported” copy useable by the mud program.

Or

Quickly create a number of similar rooms based upon a collection of short statements entered by the use.

The use should use a Graphical user interface to enter room descriptions “snippets” and design a “map”. The software you design should automatically combine the description “snippets” in random order and create a set of linked rooms (like a forest area, or swamp area etc.) as outlined by the user in the map. It may be useful for the program to randomly allocate monsters and/or other objects (created somewhere else) into the rooms in the map.

Software Development Cycle Stage /

Task

/ Date Due
1.  Understanding the problem / ·  Demonstrate your understanding of the problem through a report. One section of the report should be targeted at users and another should target the developers of the solution.
·  The report should include design specifications for
o  What your solution will and will not do.
o  The user interface
o  Variables and data structures to be used and their types
o  Modules to be used
·  Include a data flow diagram (developers section) a systems flowchart (both developers and users) and screen designs (users section).
·  The user section should include a feasibility study addressing all of the necessary constraints. / Wednesday 6th June 2007
Outcomes: H3.1, H3.2, H4.2, H4.3, H6.4
30%
2.  Planning and designing of software solutions / ·  A data dictionary describing the data types and data structures
·  Description of the logic of each module in the form of an algorithm.
·  Detail the arguments to be passed between modules.
·  A set of final screen design diagrams
·  Develop test data and test algorithms
·  Justify the use of your chosen programming environment for the solution to this problem, identifying any limitations in the solution. / Wednesday 13th June 2007
Outcomes: H4.2, H4.3, H5.1, H5.2, H5.3, H6.2, H6.3
30%
3.  Implementing software solutions / ·  Code the solution.
·  Document this process in a journal particularly noting how the code was developed and how errors were identified and corrected.
·  Create technical and user documentation for the solution. These should be presented in an appropriate format. / Wednesday 20th June 2007
Outcomes: H4.2, H4.3, H5.1, H5.2, H5.3
20%
4.  Testing and evaluation of software solution / ·  Test the solution and document the testing procedure. / Wednesday 27th June 2007
Outcomes: H4.2
20%

Marking Criteria

Understanding the problem

Criteria / Mark
Report is divided into two sections.
Users' section should contain preliminary screen designs to demonstrate the entire user interface. The diagrams should be accompanied by a written explanation of the intended design. It should also include a full feasibility study of the project.
The developers' section should consist of a data flow diagram and systems flow chart of the intended system, a structure chart of the modules to be included and a summary of the variables and data structures that will be used. It should also have a written description of the intended solution. / 8 - 10
A report, divided into two sections, defining the problem accompanied by preliminary screen designs, data flow diagram, structure chart and summary of variables and data structures at a rudimentary level without written explanation of the significance of the diagrams. To achieve full marks, a feasibility study should be included. / 5-7
A report defining the problem accompanied by a subset of the diagrams listed above without further explanation. / 3-4
A brief description of the problem without any of the required charts and diagrams. / 1-2

Planning and designing of software solutions

Criteria / Mark
Complete system design that includes all of:
·  a detailed set of algorithms describing each modules, show all of the parameters passing between modules, which can be used to code the problem
·  a correctly formatted data dictionary describing all of the data types and data structures to be used
·  a set if final screen designs
·  a set of test data that will test all paths through the algorithm together with an explanation of the use of the data
·  a report justifying the use of Delphi for the solution of this problem, identifying strengths and weakness of the environment / 9 – 10
A set of design documents that include all of the following:
·  a set of algorithms that shows some of the logic of the required modules
·  a data dictionary showing some of the data items
·  a set of screen designs
·  test data that test some of the algorithms
·  a report discussing the use of Delphi / 5 – 8
A set of design documents that include 3 of the following:
·  a set of algorithms that shows some of the logic of the required modules
·  a data dictionary showing some of the data items
·  test data that tests some of the algorithms
·  a report discussing the use of Delphi / 3 – 4
A set of design documents that include 1 or 2 of the following:
·  a set of algorithms
·  a data dictionary
·  test data
·  a report discussing the use of Delphi / 1 - 2

Implementing software solutions

Criteria / Mark
A fully working solution that includes all of:
·  a fully working set of source code files
·  a journal detailing the processing including
-  new things learnt each day
-  any difficulties encountered and how they were overcome
-  how errors were identified and corrected
-  any changes made to the original design and why they were made
·  a set of appropriately presented technical and user manuals including
-  hardware specifications
-  installation guide
-  user manual
-  troubleshooting guide / 9 – 10
A working solution that includes all of the elements above but does not work as expected. / 7 - 8
A non-working solution that contains all of the written documentation above. / 4 - 6
A non-working solution that is accompanied by a subset of the written documents above. / 1 - 3

Testing and evaluation of software solution

Criteria / Mark
A report relates the testing procedures to the test data developed during the design stage, describes the test plan, reports on the conduct of the tests and descriptions the test results including changes required to the program as a result of the testing procedure. / 8 – 10
A report on the conduct of the tests and a description of the test results including changes required to the program as a result of the testing procedure. / 5 – 7
A report on the conduct of the tests and a description of the test results. / 3 – 4
A brief description of the results of the testing stage. / 1 - 2
TOTAL: