CONSIDERACIONES FINALES

LUUMAFCs requirements of the web application were agreed early in the information system development life cycle. The requirements gathering phase identified 11 functional requirements or CSFs (Critical Success Factors) that needed to be incorporated in a web application for it to be successful in solving their problem. There were also two non-essential requirements desired.

The ability to inform members of important notices including upcoming events:

This was achieved through the online bulletin board. The user is able to add, edit and delete articles published on this page through the online site administration interface. For details on how this was implemented refer to appendix H.User testing also showed that the users involved were very impressed with the bulletin board and believed it would be extremely useful.

The ability to store and maintain current and past fixtures and results for 4 teams:

This was achieved as the user is able to add, edit and delete fixtures for each team in the club. At the end if the season the user is able to store the seasons results by selecting the ‘archive results’ option in the online administration.

The ability to store and maintain player profiles including contact details:

This was achieved by requiring club members to register with the web site. Their details are stored and their profiles, minus contact details, are displayed on the player profiles page.

The ability to publish squad selections in advance of matches:

This was achieved using a WYSIWYG text editor to enable the user to change the layout and content of the page easily. A separate page is designed for each team in the club. Appendix Hdiscusses in more detail how the text editor works. The results of the user testing in appendix I showed that these pages successfully met the requirement, but emphasised that the squad selection pages needed to be given more emphasis in the navigation.

The ability to view current and past league tables:

This requirement has only partially been achieved. It was determined too difficult to acquire the results of all fixtures in the league, so it was decided to link to the league organisers web site to view these tables.

The ability to publicise tour information:

This was achieved through the implementation of a tour page. The user is able to control the content on this page using the WYSIWYG text editor.

The ability to store and maintain photographs from social events, tour and competitive matches. This was achieved by implementing a photo gallery that allows the administrator to create categories and display photographs in each category. The user is also allowed to interact with the gallery by porting comments to the photographs.

The ability for members only, to discuss topics of interest:

This has been achieved through the implementation of a discussion forum. Members of the club can register with this forum and post their thoughts and opinions. The site administrator is also given complete control over the forum. Unfortunately this facility was not implemented at the time of testing so no user evaluation of this function was carried out.

The ability for members only, to order training kit:

This facility has been achieved through the inclusion of an online order form. To ensure this form is available to members only, they are required to login in order to access the form. The orders made through this form are saved in the database and a display of these orders can be viewed from the site administration interface. The user is also able to control the kit selection available to the user through

this facility. While the functionality of this process is effective the design of the kit order form and the order report produced have ample room for improvement.

The ability to link to sponsors and league organisers:

This requirement has been achieved by allowing the user to add and delete links to other web sites in the right hand-side navigation of the web interface. Appendix H discusses how this is implemented. User testing of this function showed it to work perfectly every time.

The ability to publish directions to training ground facilities:

This has been achieved through the inclusion of a ‘How to find us’ page. This page can be accessed from the bottom navigation bar. The user is again able to control the content of this page using the text editor.

The two non-essential requirements identified include:

The ability to store and maintain a list of player statistics including, goals scored, assists, bookings, and man of the match awards:

This requirement was achieved by providing the user with a player statistics page that could be edited using the text editor. This implementation is not ideal as a good statistics page would utilise a

database to store the data. It was however, impossible to design a statistics table in the database that could be used by all types of sports so it was decided that a table created in the text editor would be the best solution.

The ability to publish match reports for 4 teams:

This was achieved by allowing the user to add, edit and delete match reports. The user can upload a full report and write a summary of this report. User comments during the testing process showed that they were very happy with how this facility works.