ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Academic Project: Design of a new safe alert system for CVS Pharmacy
Course: Structured Systems Analysis and Design
Semester: Fall 2015
Prompt: Design a new safe alert system to send real-time video footage and alert messages to local police when activated upon burglaries. This is to provide immediate help and reduce the number of burglaries.
Team Members: 5
My Roles: user research, requirements gathering, system design, UI design, presentation
My Roles: user research, requirements gathering, system design, UI design, presentation
THINKING PROCESS
Step 1: Brainstorming
(1) Problem definition. CVS pharmacy, the second largest pharmacy chain after Walgreens, has more than 76,000 stores in the United states. The company offers new and refill prescriptions to customers. Due to the legal license contract with DEA, CVS pharmacy has the responsibility to maintain control of the drugs and keep them from getting to illegitimate players. The law requires them to have a system to detect doubtful orders which must then be reported to DEA. Presently, all the controlled drugs are placed in the safe which is kept locked. Only the pharmacist can open the safe by entering a specific code because of abuse of the controlled drugs. However, with the significant increase of burglaries and robberies over the past decades, the current security system is not safe enough to protect both the controlled drug and the pharmacists.
(2) Problem analysis. The new system is to be installed inside the safe that will be triggered to send direct alert messages and real-time video footage to the nearest police station once the CVS pharmacists enter a special code. One debate between the team: in the initial planning stage, the idea of installing a remote control under the desk or near the cashier counter for the pharmacists to send alerts was considered. However, the requirement was eliminated based on technical feasibility and risk assessment. The system is supported by the CVS corporate executives, CVS pharmaciests and CVS customers.
(3) User research.
● Interview : described below are the primary factors considered while interviewing participants (pharmacists, CVS store manager, customers). Objective: to understand the store safety issue from stakeholders' point of view; Sample question: how safe do you feel if you know that police is getting immediate message upon the danger occurs? User environment: how stakholders would behave in response to the system's behavior in different use cases; Suggested solution: the participants were asked to give opinion on proposing possible solutions to the current problem. Answers include installing a siren, requesting more police patrolling in the store, putting up a warning sign, etc.Observation
● Observation and extraction: one of our team members works part-time as a CVS pharmacist and she observed the store case, pharmacists work routein work activities, and customers' behaviors. News and crime reports were together incoporated int the requirements.
Step 2: System Design
(1) Interface Structure diagram (version 0)
The six-step iterative process shown in the interface structure diagram is to provide straightforward guided navigation assistance to the pharmacists when they interact with the system. Key design principles followed:
● Simple clean interface to decrease error occurence on emergency.
● User-centered interaction
● Clearly defined inputs and outputs
● Straightforwad Navigation
● High cohesion, low coupling
● Intuitive error feedback
● User-centered interaction
● Clearly defined inputs and outputs
● Straightforwad Navigation
● High cohesion, low coupling
● Intuitive error feedback
THE CHALLENGE
Involvement with government and or law enforcement could be frustrating.
When clients are running chain stores nationwide, requirements gathering from stakeholders could be difficult be difficult.
LEARNINGS
Learnt the structured techniques and applied them to a real-world problem, and designed solutions to the problem.
Learnt the structured system development analysis methodology, and the stages of the traditional waterfall and other systems development life cycle (SDLC) models such as iterative and agile.
Learnt the involvement of user-centered interaction research in the SDLC.
