Nostalgia Project Design Case Study
| Introduction
Trade-offs |
Trade-off Analysis We used impact analysis techniques to analyze whether or not the new features are cost effective. Photographs take more resources and therefore need more transfer time. The use of small photographs in the first page can reduce the transfer time and gie users an overall introduction to the photo gallery. This implementation might become more problematic, though, as the photo gallery gets bigger. It will then require a much longer transfer time and also involve scrolling through a long page to see all the available thumbnails. It would be possible to use a subject list to introduce the photo gallery. This implementation would take less transfer time but would also be less direct. On the other hand, there are few negative consequences of the guestbook implementation. It does, perhaps, clutter the site a little bit more, but mostly seems a very positive addition to the system. Visitors did increase immediately after the changes were introduced, and our users surveyed were very positive about them and what they added to the system. For these reasons, we feel that the photo gallery is worth a little bit of added transfer time and that the guestbook was a very useful addition. We have also considered the trade-offs of our possible new enhancements. The first possible enhancement was the use of discussion groups or threads which were changed occasionally to keep users involved. The biggest drawback to this would be its requirement for the system administrators to be more involved with the Nostalgia system instead of staying in the background. On the other hand, it does seem to be a way to possibly keep interest in the Nostalgia system up over longer periods of time. Our next consideration was a timeline which could somehow relate the stories to one another and give a chronology of important events in Blacksburg. Although this idea could be useful in unifying our stories and putting them into a context, it also seems like it would be very difficult to implement and would probably involve an interface that might be confusing to less experienced computer users. Our final enhancement idea was to add more media and possibly old music to the site in order to possibly enhance its nostalgic qualities. Although some users might enjoy such additions, since they would not relate directly to Blacksburg (especially the music), they might not fit this site. Further, many users use older computers with slow modems (and possibly with no sound cards), so such additions would be costly time-wise and might not benefit many users.
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