Briefly summarize the DriverPass project. Who was the client? What type of system did they want you to design?
DriverPass is a company that provides training for drivers. They wanted to develop a system for their clients to take online tests and schedule in person on-the-road training.
This system design effictively achieves all of the clients requirements by utilizing a cloud-based database that provides built-in storage, security, and backups without the client needing to worry about implementation details.
If you could choose one part of your work on these documents to revise, what would you pick? How would you improve it?
One area I would seek to improve in future design iterations is better describing connectivity details in the UML sequence diagram for the use case of a user logging into the system.
How did you interpret the user’s needs and implement them into your system design? Why is it so important to consider the user’s needs when designing?
The client requested a system that would fulfill their needs without requiring a dedicated support staff. Because this system employs a third-party 'SaaS' cloud platform, the implementation details are taken care of. As a result, the system is highly modular and training material or package availability can be modified easily. Taking user's needs into account when developing systems is critical to product success. Had these requirements not been met, neither the client or the developers would have been happy with the process. This would lead to an inefficient software lifecycle for both parties.
How do you approach designing software? What techniques or strategies would you use in the future to analyze and design a system?
In the future, I plan to continue utilizing cloud-based solutions to develop modular, maintainable, and scalable solutions.