Workplace Communication A

1.   IT website research

Your major project is related to an on-line book/CD/DVD seller. Research a number of currently available website offerings.

Keep links and notes related to the websites, as you will be required to write a brief report on your findings.

2.   IT Project

Deliverables: The project will be completed over the remainder of the semester via weekly tasks. Some of these tasks will be carried out using the various Blackboard tools, whilst others will be done in class.

Project Outline: You work for a Melbourne IT company that has been involved in a number of website developments. Your client (BlahBlahBlah, or BBB), is a medium-sized, Darwin- based bookseller, currently selling books, CDs and DVDs from their store. Because of their geographical isolation, they have a limited (and decreasing) customer base. Consequently, they are now at the point where they need to scale up and increase their exposure.

The owners of BBB have become aware that most other booksellers have websites, and believe a website will help them to increase their profit by increasing their exposure and turnover whilst decreasing their marketing costs.

To achieve this they have asked you to develop a website to showcase their wares. BBB is looking to incrementally increase their web presence over a period of time. The website needs to be developed from scratch.

• Initially, they wish to provide basic information regarding the bookshop and their product offering.
• Eventually, they wish to offer all their products online.

The owner of BBB is not very IT literate and has only a vague idea of what the various stages and final offering will be. The following limited description of requirements has been submitted.

Stage 1: The website should provide the following minimum information:

• Business address and operating hours.
• About us.
• Contact information.
• Products available

Stage 2: Add the following:

• Allow users to purchase products online via a number of payments options.

The aim of your project is to elicit fuller requirements and produce a Report detailing the scope and full description of the project. Any technical language included in the document will need to be explained in a glossary.

Technical issues should be omitted unless they are necessary for a better description of the requirements.

The Requirements Document will be built up over the coming weeks via a number of tasks, which are described below. The tasks for each week, and the assessment criteria/weighting, are outlined below. These, and any further instructions for each task will be placed on Blackboard in the 'Tasks' folder.

Tasks

1. Write a brief report on the websites you researched. Include the website links, outline of the products on offer, payment options and any other features you consider would be of interest to BBB.

2. Conduct three (3) team meetings to discuss the project, allocate team duties and compile a list questions and answers for the client.

3. Post comments/questions to the online forum. A minimum of three meaningful posts is required. At least one post must be constructed to elicit a response from other forum users, including the client. At least one must be a response to another's thread.