Tuesday 22 November 2011

week 7 (24/10/11)

Chapter 1


Topic
Viewpoint Requirement for the design of Information Architecture in eHomestay development.

Introduction
Chapter 1 begins with research background that explains about the information architecture, viewpoint concept and some general information about homestay programme. Problem statement, aim, objectives, and significance of this study are also stated in this chapter.

Research Background
          
           The viewpoint-based approach that will be used in this research recognises that all information about the system requirements cannot be discovered by considering the system from a single perspective. Requirements from a number of different viewpoints need to be collected and organised. Viewpoints may be used to structure the requirements description and expose conflicts between different requirements for eHomestay.

            Nowadays, there are ample of local homestay website that can be found over the internet. So, there are many kind of web design for each of the existing websites. Information architecture is the term used to describe the structure of a system, that is the way information is grouped, the navigation methods and terminology used within the system. Effective information architecture enables people to step logically through a system confident they are getting closer to the information they require. Information architecture is most commonly associated with websites and intranets, but it can be used in the context of any information structures or computer systems.
      
         The Malaysian Ministry of Rural and Regional Development closely supports the homestay program in line with the mission of the ministry to promote rural development and modernization. The homestay program is a non-commercialized entity, as opposed to a hotel, a bed and breakfast, or a homestay run by an individual homeowner in a residential area. A village homestay program is operated by a group of certified homestay operators in the communal area. Homestay Programme is an experience where tourists stay with selected families, interact and experience the daily life of these families as well as experiencing Malaysian culture. Homestay is not classified as accommodation facilities. It focuses more on lifestyle and experience, which include culture and economic activities.

          A website has given the traditional companies much more opportunities in contacting customers more easily, implementing business to the new market, increasing the profit, and gaining competitiveness. As for homestay, it will gain many advantages if they have their own website. This is because homestay is one of the tourism sectors, so it will help the tourist to observe and make a survey about the homestay. In Malaysia, although we have different culture in different state, the information displayed for homestay websites can be usable to implement for other state.

Problem Statement
Most of the homestay website display many kinds of information to promote their place. Unfortunately, the homestay operator does not know what kind of information needed and how to attract the people who visit their website. From my initial observation on 10 homestay website, the information displayed among the websites is inconsistent. Some of the homestay have their own website and some of the homestay uses blog to promote their place. As for the homestay websites, certain have functionalities and other homestay website only display the information.

Aim
The aim of this project is to provide an information architecture model by using viewpoint requirement for homestay websites.

 Objectives:
  •          To define what is viewpoint requirement
  •           To identify the type of information that suits for homestay website.
  •          To design eHomestay information architecture model based on viewpoint requirement.


Significance
The study of viewpoints for requirements engineering is intended to formalise what we believe is a natural part of any analysis process. Recognising these perspectives and unification differences between them is essential if the analysis is to be valid. The significance of this study is for academic and practitioner. For the academic mostly people who get involved in this study directly or indirectly such as the homestay operator, internal and external user or basically the stakeholders, because from here they can learn many new knowledge. Whereas for the practioner, the homestay operator that who intended to have their own homestay website and the eHomestay visitors.

Summary
It simply isn’t good enough for homestay operators to build functionality or write content, put it on their homestay website and expect people to be able to find it. This chapter has provided a clear view for eHomestay from the information architecture, viewpoint requirement method, the problem raises, the goal need to achieve and benefits that people can gained.

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