uzodinma ifeanyichukwu-FYP-ge

Electronic Greeting Card

Thesis/Report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement

For the degree of

B.Sc.

In

Information Technology

By

Ifeanyichukwu Uzodinma

To

The Department of Computer Science

Baze University, Abuja

April 2015

DECLARATION

This is to certify that this Thesis/Report entitled Electronic Greeting Card which is

submitted by Ifeanyichukwu Uzodinma in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the

award of degree for B.Sc. in Information Technology to the Department of Computer

Science, Baze University Abuja, Nigeria, comprises of only my original work and due

acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other materials used.

Date: 24th April 2015 Name of Student: Ifeanyichukwu Uzodinma

APPROVED BY …………………

Dean

Faculty of Computing and Applied Sciences

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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that this Thesis/Report entitled Electronic Greeting card, which is

submitted by Ifeanyichukwu Uzodinma in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the

award of degree for B.Sc. in Information Technology to the Department of Computer

Science, Baze University Abuja, Nigeria is a record of the candidate’s own work carried

out by the candidate under my/our supervision. The matter embodied in this thesis is

original and has not been submitted for the award of any other degree.

Date: Supervisor:

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DEDICATION

This project is dedicated to my parents who have been the source of inspiration and

support throughout my life. I would like to thank them for all the support and prayers that

they offer on my behalf. I pray that God grant them all their hearts desires and

expectations.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First I will start by thanking the Almighty God for the sound health He has granted to me

and the Grace He has shown me from the day I was born to this day.

I would like to show my sincere and utmost appreciation to Mr E. Kvac for his guidance,

advice and ever presence in making sure that I finished this project. There were times

when I seemed lost and didn’t know what to do, but he was always there encouraging me

and brainstorming with me to solve mind-bogging problems. Thank you so much Mr

Kvac!

I would also like to thank Dr Godfrey Ekata. Just as Mr Kvac was helping me become a

better programmer, Dr Ekata was helping me become a better report writer and project

manager. I also want to say a big thank you to all my lecturers in the Computer Science

Department. I appreciate all the knowledge you have impacted in me which has helped

me reach the stage that I am in now. May God bless you all.

My deepest regards goes to my family, who have always supported and exercised

patience with me. My special thanks goes to my father, who knows the value of

education and made sure I got the best education, and who taught me the value of hard

work, perseverance, and patience. Also, I want to say a big thank you to my mum who

has always supported me with kind words and valuable advice about life. She has always

been there to give me a soft landing when I fall. Thank you so much, mum. To my

brothers: sincere gratitude and thanks to you for being my brothers and for being there for

me; I couldn’t ask for better band of brothers. I pray that God will grant you all your

heart’s desire. Amen.

I also want to use this medium to sincerely thank the Dean of my department Prof

Gerrard McKee for the standard he set in the faculty of Computing and Applied Sciences.

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Lastly I want to thank all my friends for the life lessons and support they gave me. They

taught me how to live and respect people from different backgrounds. I appreciate the

happy and sad moments we shared together.

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ABSTRACT

Electronic greeting card companies, with the aid of the internet made it possible for their

customers to design/customise a card online, and send it to whomever you want.

Although the system the system presented in this project might seem similar to the

systems already in place but they are different.

The Electronic Greeting Card system for this project comes in two parts; the website and

the mobile application. The website part of the system would allow the users of the

system to customise greeting cards while the mobile part of the was developed for

windows mobile phone users, they would be able to use the mobile application part of

this system to record either audio or video and attach the recorded audio to the card that

has been customised on the website.

The main goal behind this project is to make it possible for users to customise a card and

send the card to a recipient. The users can decide to attach a media file in the form of

mp3 or mp4 to the card.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................11.1 OVERVIEW....................................................................................................................................................11.2 PROJECT MOTIVATION...............................................................................................................................11.3 CURRENT SYSTEM......................................................................................................................................11.4 PROBLEM STATEMENT..............................................................................................................................21.5 PROPOSED SYSTEM....................................................................................................................................21.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS, ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................31.7 PROJECT LIMITATIONS............................................................................................................................41.8 PROJECT ORGANIZATION...........................................................................................................................4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................................52.1 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE (E-COMMERCE):.....................................................................................................52.2 MOBILE APPLICATIONS:.....................................................................................................................................6

2.2.1 Past of Mobile Application.................................................................................................................... 72.2.2 Present Uses of Mobile Application................................................................................................... 8

2.3 GREETING CARDS................................................................................................................................................82.3.1 The History of Greeting Cards............................................................................................................. 82.3.2 Electronic Greeting Cards...................................................................................................................... 9

CHAPTER 3: REQUIREMENT............................................................................................................113.1. REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATIONS.................................................................................................................11

3.1.1 Functional Specifications.............................................................................................................. 113.1.2 Non-Functional Specifications.................................................................................................... 12

3.2 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS..........................................................................................................................123.3 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS...........................................................................................................................12

CHAPTER 4: DESIGN........................................................................................................................... 144.1 DESIGN OVERVIEW..................................................................................................................................144.2 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE..................................................................................................................................144.3 STORYBOARD DESIGN.............................................................................................................................154.4 ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM (ERD)..........................................................................................174.5 USE CASE DIAGRAM (MOBILE AND WEBSITE)..................................................................................184.6 ACTIVITY DIAGRAMS...............................................................................................................................204.7 SEQUENCE DIAGRAM...............................................................................................................................22

4.8 User Interface Design...................................................................................................................... 24

CHAPTER 5: IMPLEMENTATION.................................................................................................... 265.1 OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................................................265.2 IMPLEMENTATION STAGES.....................................................................................................................265.3 API.............................................................................................................................................................265.4 DATABASE.....................................................................................................................................................275.4 USER INTERFACE.....................................................................................................................................30

5.4.1 Homepage.................................................................................................................................................. 305.5 TECHNICAL PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED.......................................................................................................345.6 SOLUTIONS TO TECHNICAL PROBLEMS........................................................................................................34

CHAPTER 6: TESTING......................................................................................................................... 356.1 TEST OVERVIEW......................................................................................................................................356.2 UNIT TESTING...................................................................................................................................................356.3 INTEGRATION TESTING...................................................................................................................................35

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6.3.1 BIG BANG INTEGRATION TESTING............................................................................................................366.5 SYSTEMS TESTING............................................................................................................................................36

6.5.1 Usability Testing................................................................................................................................ 376.6 TEST CASE REQUIREMENTS...................................................................................................................376.7 TEST CASE PROCEDURES........................................................................................................................386.8 TRACEABILITY MATRIX...........................................................................................................................426.9 TEST ASSESSMENT...................................................................................................................................436.10 TEST RESULTS................................................................................................................................................436.11 SUGGESTED ACTIONS.....................................................................................................................................43

CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................................................. 447.1 ACHIEVEMENTS........................................................................................................................................447.3 FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS.......................................................................................................................447.4 SUMMARY..................................................................................................................................................44

REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................... 46

APPENDICES........................................................................................................................................ 48APPENDIX A –PROJECT SCHEDULE.......................................................................................................................48APPENDIX B – OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS................................................................................................50

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LIST OF FIGURESFigure 2.1................................................................................................................................................................. 6Fig. 2.2....................................................................................................................................................................... 8Figure 4.1 System Architecture for the mobile.....................................................................................15Figure 4.2 System Architecture for the Web..........................................................................................16Figure 4.3: Website Homepage.................................................................................................................... 16Figure 4.4: Mobile Storyboard..................................................................................................................... 17Figure 4.5: Mobile Storyboard..................................................................................................................... 17Figure 4.6: ER Diagram.................................................................................................................................. 18Figure 4.7: Mobile Application Use Case diagram..............................................................................19Figure 4.8: Website Use Case diagram.....................................................................................................20Figure 4.9: Mobile Application Activity diagram.................................................................................21Figure 4.10: Website Activity diagram....................................................................................................22Figure 4.11: Mobile Application Sequence diagram..........................................................................23Figure 4.12: Website Sequence diagram.................................................................................................24Fig 4.13 Screen shot of Mobile Application Homepage.....................................................................25Fig 4.14 Screen shot of Website Homepage...........................................................................................26Fig 5.1 Mobile Application Database Provider Code..........................................................................28Fig 5.2 Mobile Application Database Provider Code Continued...................................................29Fig 5.3 Website Database Initialiser Code..............................................................................................30Fig 5.4 XAML Code for the mobile application Homepage..............................................................31Fig 5.5 XAML Code for the mobile application Homepage Continued........................................32Fig 5.6 HTML Code for the Website Homepage....................................................................................33Fig 5.7 Mobile Application Homepage preview in Design View....................................................34Fig 5.8 Website Homepage preview in Design View...........................................................................34Fig 6.1 Big bang integration testing.........................................................................................................37

LIST OF TABLESTABLE 1 FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATIONS..............................................................................11TABLE 2 NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATIONS.....................................................................12Table A1: Project Schedule....................................................................................................................................... 48

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Overview

Just as the Internet has made significant improvements in its uses, so has some of the uses and activities

associated with it brought with it. An example of such uses is electronic commerce and mobile commerce.

People no longer have to stand in long queues waiting for a service because just about anything can be

bought/done on the Internet from the comfort of one’s home.

The main idea behind the Electronic Greeting Card project is that the users can customise the card they

intend to send to someone and attach a medium in the form of mp3 or mp4 file to the card before sending it

to the recipient.

The Electronic Greeting Card software or system has two parts: the mobile application part and the web

application part. The web application part allows the users to choose a card from the categories of card

available, and then customise the card. The mobile part allows the user to record either mp3 or mp4 and

attach the recorded media to the customised card before sending the card to a recipient.

1.2 Project Motivation

Before this project was embarked on, an informal survey was carried out to find out the number of people

that signed onto their Facebook account on their windows mobile phone. Out of 90% that have Facebook

accounts 75% of them log onto Facebook app from their mobile phones.

Not many people can remember the birthday of everyone they know but applications like the Facebook

always sends a message to its users to remind them of their friend’s birthday. Motivation to build a project

that allows its users to customise an electronic greeting card, attach a medium and send to a recipient was

derived after noticing how the Facebook app makes it a point to remind its users about birthdays of people in

their friend list. So instead of worrying that one might have forgotten about an event, one can simply use the

website and the Electronic Greeting Card application to customise a card and attach a medium to make it

more personal and send the card.

1.3 Current System

The current system available are similar websites that allow their users to choose the kind of card that they

want to customise from a list of cards. The users then customise selected cards to send to a recipient.

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1.4 Problem Statement

There are two main problems that this system will solve and these problems are:

I. Information Overload and

II. Media Recording

I. Information Overload: the current systems have too much information that the users might not be

interested in. A user wants to easily find the information that they want on a website but the current

systems in place have so much information that some of the users give up on using the system before they

even begin. The current systems in place does not cater for novice computer and internet users. To solve

this problem, the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) design principle was applied.

II. Media Recording: Although the current systems in place allow the users to customize cards, they do not

bring with them a sense of intimacy or connection from the sender to the receiver of the card. Which is one

of the problems the proposed system will be solving and to solve this problem, the system will have a

mobile application part to it that would allow users to record audio or video and attach it to the card that

they have customised on the website.

1.5 Proposed System

The proposed system is an electronic greeting card website that is supported by a windows phone mobile

application. The website consists of the cards that the user will select from and customize while the Windows

phone end allows the user to record audio or video and upload it to the card that was customized on the site.

The user will be able to customise any card from the range of card categories available and they can use the

mobile application part of the system to record an mp3 or mp4 and attach it to the card that they have

customised and send the card to the email address of whomever they customised the card for or whomever

they want to send the card to.

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1.6 Definition of Terms, Acronyms, Abbreviations

C sharp, HTML and XAML is the computer programming language that was used to develop this system.

ERD – Entity Relationship Diagram: this diagram is a representation of the entities and their relationship

within a particular system, it is usually in the form of a graphical representation of that system.

DFD – Data Flow Diagram: this diagram shows how data/information flows in a particular system.

IDE – Integrated Development Environment: this is a software development environment or interface that

helps software developers to develop their software and sometimes also provides a testing environment for

the developed software.

SRS – Software Requirements Specification: this describes the requirement expected of the software under

development.

E-Commerce – Electronic Commerce: in layman terms e-commerce involves the buying/rendering of

goods and services electronically usually making use of the internet.

HTML- Hyper Text Mark-up Language: it is a programming language that is used for creating web pages.

XAML - Extensible Application Mark-up Language: this is a programming language developed by

Microsoft, it makes it easier for developers that want to develop .NET framework applications.

SDK- Software Development Kit: this is a software programming package that helps a software developer

to develop software applications for a particular platform.

ASP.NET – Active Server Pages: this is a server side script engine, among the first that was developed by

Microsoft and it is used for creating or generating dynamic and interactive web server applications.

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1.7 Project Limitations

There are two limitations facing this project and they are:

I. Deployment of the Website: the website developed wasn’t deployed, that is there isn’t a

URL in place for the developed site, so it is not live. To test the website Internet Information

Services Express (IIS Express) was used, IIS Express helps developers of softwares to

develop their software and test it on any compatible web browser. It works really well with

ASP.NET and PHP applications and since this website has elements of ASP.NET it seemed

like logical choice to use IIS Express.

II. Deployment of the mobile application: the application developed wasn’t deployed to

Microsoft windows play store so it can’t be downloaded. The testing of this application was

done using the emulator provided by visual studio update 4 IDE.

1.8 Project Organization

The remaining parts of this project report describe the literature review in Chapter 2, requirements in Chapter

3, design in Chapter 4, implementation and method in Chapter 5, and testing in Chapter 6. Other areas

covered in the remaining the last chapters include conclusions, limitations, and suggested improvements for

the system.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Electronic Commerce (e-commerce):

Due to the rate at which the internet has grown, it has brought along with it different business/commerce

ideas, one of the business ideas it gave birth to is the idea of buying products or services over the internet.

Scholars calls this idea of buying goods and services over the internet electronic commerce or as popularly

known e-commerce. (Akintola et al, 2011).

In electronic commerce the customers will usually interact with a system, in most times it’s a web based

system using their electronic devices like laptops, mobile phones etc. to shop for either goods or services

from where ever they are.

Riggins and Rhee, 1998 carried out a survey to find out what practitioners and managers of e-commerce

think it is and the survey showed that they see it as buying and selling of services/products with the aid of the

internet.

But researchers believe that e-commerce shouldn’t just be seen as buying goods and services over the

internet, they felt that it should encompass activities that go on before a sale is made and the activities that

goes on after the sale.

Hence this definition of e-commerce by Zwass, 2003, p1 which says that as “… the sharing of business

information, maintaining business relationships, and the conducting business transactions by means of

telecommunications networks” (Zwass, 2003, p1)

The field/discipline known as e-commerce is made of the following types of information technology:

1. Electronic Data Exchange (EDI)

2. Electronic Mail (e-mail)

3. Electronic Bulletin Boards

4. Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT)

5. Other Network-based technologies

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Figure 2.1: Convergence of different information technology to create E-Commerce (E-Commerce –

Overview, P1)

In the early 1970’s the growth of e-commerce applications started with electronic funds transfer (EFT), in

this case there were computer system which carried out electronic financial transactions. These types of

applications had limited functionalities because only organisations that dealt in financial transactions used

them, organisations like banks. (Ynarsale , 2011).

Then in the late 1970s Electronic Data Exchange (EDI) was developed in order to care of the limitations that

was discovered in the EFT. Because of this development/enhancement organisations/companies that wanted

to participate in using the system increased, some of the companies came from different fields like

manufactures, retailers, others. This kind of system that allows automatic flow of information between

different organisations is referred to as Interorganizational System (IOS) (Ynarsale, 2011).

Just as briefly mentioned above Interorganizational Systems allow information to flow freely and

automatically between different organizations in order to achieve a common objective, the object can come

in different forms like achieving a preferred supply-chain management, systems like this helps organizations

that want to expand to do so with little amount of effort. (Ynarsale, 2011).

The growth of e-commerce wouldn’t just stop at EDI, it would go on to include data warehousing and mining

and also the popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) and this is what it did.

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https://www.scribd.com/ynarsale

The word that is very popular today that is electronic commerce was created in the early 1990s when the

internet became accessible to everyone, and users started trying to leave a mark in the World Wide Web, this

gave rise to applications of electronic commerce. (Ynarsale, 2011).

One of the first examples of the application of EC was the Boston Computer Exchange, this was created in

the year 1982 and it was a market place for buying and selling of second-hand computers. It was an example

of many-to-many electronic commerce just like E-Bay is today.

Another example is of the first online information marketplace which included services like consultations

that could be done online. The name of the company was American Information Exchange and there system

was introduced in 1991. (Ynarsale, 2011).

E-commerce has truly come a long way, since 1995 the applications of it has been numerous, these

applications range from users simply buying and selling to them trying to learn online. The number of

organizations that have an internet presence is enormous. (Ynarsale, 2011).

E-commerce just like everything about technology and the internet has evolved over the years by feeding on

revolutions in EFT, supply chain management, internet advertising, processing of transactions online etc.

In this modern age, electronic commerce must use the internet at some point in the transaction’s life cycle,

even if sometimes it may involve a whole range of different technologies. Some electronic commerce

activities are carried out completely online without waiting to any delivery to be made to the customer, some

of these kind of transaction are buying an electronic book/journal, paying for a premium content online,

designing/customising electronic greeting cards etc.

(Akintola et al, 2011)

2.2 Mobile Applications:

Everyone who has used a smart phone or a mobile device like a tablet has used an application at one time or

the other. Mobile applications are easy to download; some are free and some are not. Some of them allow

users to play games, get directions, access books, weather, music, videos etc. So mobile applications are

software programs that can be downloaded and access directly using phone or mobile devices like a tablet.

The success of mobile applications are usually judged by its users, a user determines if a mobile application

is a success or a failure. One of the fundamental requirements of every mobile application is its usability and

these usability sometimes depends on some factors such as the resolution of the screen, storage space of the

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mobile, internet connection issues etc. If a developer develops a mobile application that will require internet

to work for a mobile phone that can’t connect to the internet, the users will likely brand the application a

failure.

The mobile phone companies realised this as a problem and have been trying to develop and make better

mobile phone devices that have better screen resolution, added storage space, more processing power, better

internet connectivity etc. and by making these better, they hope to deliver an environment that will support

the modern day mobile applications (Islam et al, 2010).

“

”

Fig. 2.2 Growth of the various categories of mobile applications from 2009 to 2010 (eMarketer, 2010)

2.2.1 Past of Mobile Application

At the early stages of cell phones, the applications that these phones had then were simple games like the

snake game, simple calculators that just handled simple numeric calculations and some of them also had the

alarm clocks. At the time as long as a user can make and receive calls, send text messages, the user is happy.

By 2000 mobile phone developers wanted to give users something out of the box, they started thinking of

Internet based mobile application where people can connect their mobile devices to the Internet for daily

important uses (Islam et al, 2010). But this was only an idea because at that time the companies making the

cell phones were also the ones developing the mobile application, so they were slowing things down which

made a hole amongst the mobile phone developers and their customer. (Islam et al, 2010). Meanwhile in

USA a company made an announcement that they will be soon launching a mobile phone that will change the

mobile phone industry and this company is iPhone and they actually did manage to change the mobile device

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industry. Because of the announcement there was a lot of anticipation for the phone and finally when it was

released it easily over took its competitors and became the most sought after mobile phone and within a

couple of years after its release other cell phone companies started adapting their mobile phone to be able to

compete with the iPhone mobile phone. (Islam et al, 2010).

The iPhone didn’t just over take its competitors due to its sleek looks, it overtook them because of its main

attribute which is its platform that different types of dynamic applications to run on it based on the internet,

iPhone also bought applications from developers rather than follow the traditional way of developing the

applications themselves.

Nokia followed up with the launch of its application store called the “Ovi Store”, the store allowed users to

download applications that they like.

The steps these cell phone companies made in involving developers in the development of their cell phone

applications opened a path for application developers to develop application that would use the internet and

sell the developed applications to mobile phone companies. (Islam et al, 2010).

2.2.2 Present Uses of Mobile Application

Since the last few years every mobile company has been making smartphone phones and increasing the

computing power of those mobile phones, thus rapidly increasing the number of smart mobile applications.

Most of the people from developed countries including America and Europe as well as some developing

countries can’t imagine leaving home without mobile (Islam et al, 2010).

Some of the major areas that the use of mobile application has been on the rise are in communication such as

internet browsing, voice chat, Facebook, Twitter etc. Now every standard mobile has a Facebook application.

Users can share messages and photos with their friends and family from anywhere and any place like in car,

in train. People can now use the messenger application for chatting. Users can generate call to anywhere in

the world with low cost using VoIP application and internet. (Islam et al, 2010).

Then there is the Global Positioning System (GPS); Current position locating in map, Road navigation,

vehicle tracking etc. are the most common uses of applications that use GPS system. Using mobile commerce

users can view product, select product and order for product. Sometime mobile application Mobile Wallet

uses in restaurant or market for completing payment. (Islam et al, 2010). According to comScore’s MobiLens

study, the total number of mobile app users in the US increased by 28% from April 2009 to April 2010.

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2.3 Greeting Cards

2.3.1 The History of Greeting Cards

The idea of sending greeting cards can be tracked back to ancient Chinese and Egyptians, during New Year

they exchanged good will messages to celebrate the New Year and they usually convey this greetings on a

papyrus scroll. (Greeting Card Association 2014).

The Exchange of paper greeting cards in Europe started in the early 1400s. The Germans are known to have

started printing their new year’s greeting from woodcuts in the 1400s and handmade paper valentines were

being exchanged in various parts of Europe in the mid-1400s. (Greeting Card Association 2014).

“….although the first known valentine card can be traced back to 1415, it wasn’t until the early 1800s and the

Penny Post that they became popular and affordable….” (Greeting Card Association 2014)..

A young woman by the name of Esther Howland from Massachusetts, was the first publisher of a valentines

card in the United States (Greeting Card Association 2014)..

“…..She sold her first handmade valentine in 1849, eventually establishing a successful publishing firm

specializing in the elaborately decorated cards…” (Greeting Card Association 2014).

Fig 2.3 First Handmade Card by Esther Howland

2.3.2 Electronic Greeting Cards

The first postcard site was created by Judith Donath in the late 1994 at the MIT Media Lab (Foth, 2011). It

started very slow with only: 10-20 cards a day which were sent in the first few weeks, then 1000-2000 a day

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over the first summer, and then it gained momentum really fast. During the 1995-96 Christmas season, there

were days when over 19,000 cards were sent; by late spring of 1996 over 1.7 million cards had been sent in

total. (Foth, 2011).

The source code for this service was made publicly available, with condition that users share improvements

with each other.

Although the idea of sending an electronic greeting cards might sound good because it will save time, in

some cases cheaper, it can also have be very risky and one of the risks people might face is the issue of

security.

Sending an E-card to a recipient involves giving the email address of the recipient to a third party which is

the web service providers. The web service provider has the chance to misuse this address

One way they can misuse the e-mail address is if the E-card service provider sends advertisements to the

recipient's address. Under the anti-spam rules used by major internet service providers, such advertisements

would be spam, since the recipient never asked or opted in to receive them.

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CHAPTER 3: REQUIREMENT

3.1. Requirements Specifications

The list of requirements mentioned below was produced by putting into account the purpose and scope of the

project and some of the requirements were extracted from the story board and the entity relationship diagram

(ERD). It will show a comprehensive description of what the system is supposed to do and the environment

for the system being developed

3.1.1 Functional Specifications

Table 1 Functional Requirement Specifications

Req. No. Description

R-01 The system shall display all cards available

R-02 It shall have an interactive and easy user interface

R-03 The navigation from a page to another on the website

shall take less than 0.3 seconds

R-04 The system shall display the cards in a list view

R-04A The system shall allow a user to select a card from the

view list.

R-05 The system shall allow the customers to customise

cards

R-06 The user shall be able to record mp3 or mp4 using the

mobile application part of the system

R-07 The system shall let users register their personal

details

R-08 The system shall allow users to preview recorded

media

R-09 The system shall allow users to edit customised cards

R-10 The system shall allow users to attach media to

customised cards

R-11 The system shall provide a shopping cart for the user

to add their customised card

R-12 The system shall allow the admin to add cards

R-13 The system shall allow the admin to add/update the

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categories of cards on the website

R-14 The system shall recognise admin credentials

R-15 The system shall protect the users from making

irreversible errors like inputting invalid data.

3.1.2 Non-Functional Specifications

Table 2 Non-Functional Requirement Specifications

Req. No. Description

R-01 The system shall be readily available to the user.

R-02 The system shall have a consistent look and feel.

R-03 The mobile application part of the system shall be user

friendly and compatible to most windows phone devices.

R-04 The user interface shall be user-friendly and easy to use

for both novices and experts.

R-05 The database shall be able to accommodate modification

R-06 The system shall be stable (that is it should not crash

when in use)

R-07 The website part of the system shall be compatible with

different browsers

3.2 Hardware Requirements

Laptop

Windows Mobile Phone

3.3 Software Requirements

C# language

HTML language

XAML

Microsoft Visual Studio

SQL Lite Browser

SQLite PCL (portable class library)

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Windows phone 8.1 SDK.

Erwin Data Modeller

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CHAPTER 4: DESIGN

4.1 Design Overview

This section consists of diagrams in the form of UML diagrams that describes the interaction between the

user and the system. It will also show UML diagrams that depicts the development of the system, some of the

diagrams include the Story-board, the system architecture, the Use-case, activity diagram and sequence

diagram

4.2 System Architecture

Figure 4.1 System Architecture for the mobile

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Figure 4.2 System Architecture for the Web

4.3 Storyboard Design

A Storyboard is a sequence of drawings usually consisting of dialogues that represents the design of a

system; it is also a set of images that show the functionality of a system. Figure 4.3 below shows the

storyboard for the website homepage and the mobile application

Figure 4.3: Website Homepage

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Figure 4.4: Mobile Storyboard

Figure 4.5: Mobile Storyboard

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4.4 Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD)

The ERD diagram illustrates the entities and attributes of tables in a database. Linked ERD’s show the

relationship between tables or tables. Entities can only have a many-to-one or one-to-many relationship.

CUSTOMEREmailAddressPasswordName

MEDIAemailaddress (FK)datetimemedianamefilename

RECEIVERReceiverEmailAddress

CardEmailAddress (FK)emailaddress (FK)ReceiverEmailAddress (FK)Datetimedatetime (FK)CardType

Figure 4.6: ER Diagram

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4.5 Use Case Diagram (Mobile and Website)

The Use Case diagram shows the interaction between the user and the system. It uses a use-case description

to document the interaction between a user and the system. The diagrams below depict the use-case for this

system.

Figure 4.7: Mobile Application Use Case diagram

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Figure 4.8: Website Use Case diagram

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4.6 Activity Diagrams

An activity diagram is used for modelling tasks, describing functions of a system represented by the use-case.

It also describes the logic of a task and models the activities that make up the life-cycle of a process.

Figure 4.9: Mobile Application Activity diagram

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Figure 4.10: Website Activity diagram

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4.7 Sequence DiagramA sequence diagram is an interactive diagram, which shows interaction between key components of the

system in a timed structure. It shows the messages being passed by objects followed accordingly in a timely

process.

Figure 4.11: Mobile Application Sequence diagram

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Figure 4.12: Website Sequence diagram

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4.8 User Interface Design

Fig 4.13 Screen shot of Mobile Application Homepage

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Fig 4.14 Screen shot of Website Homepage

Refer to Appendix B for rest of User Interface.

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CHAPTER 5: IMPLEMENTATION

5.1 Overview

The implementation process of this system was carried out after the design phase has been completed. During

the development phase, Visual Studio was used as the development platform, and in addition this IDE

supports the use of C#, XAML, HTML programming languages, which has been used to implement the

system and its functions

5.2 Implementation Stages

The implementation stages for this application include:

Requirement Gathering

Preliminary Design

Detailed Design

Coding

Unit Testing

System Design

Coding

System Testing

Usability Testing

Deployment

Maintenance and enhancement

5.3 API

The API that was used in the development of this project is Visual studio with update 4.

The API handles how the elements on the interface of the project interact with each other. It also defines how

the developer accesses functions and functionalities within a device.

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5.4 Database

The database of this system was the first functional aspect of implementation that was done, since this

system is divided into two parts, the database for each one was different, the database for the mobile

application was designed to insert the recorded media, preview the media, delete the media and

retrieve a media from it to upload to the website and the database for the website was designed to

store the cards, put the cards in a category, save customised cards and store user details. Below is a

few lines of code which shows some of the database codes for both the mobile application and the

website.

Fig 5.1 Mobile Application Database Provider Code

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Fig 5.2 Mobile Application Database Provider Code Continued

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Fig 5.3 Website Database Initialiser Code

For the rest of the initialiser code refer to Appendix B

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5.4 User Interface

5.4.1 Homepage

The homepage is the first page that the user encounters on any system, the homepage for the website and

mobile application of this system has been designed to be aesthetically pleasing to its users. When the

homepage of any system is pleasing to the user, they always tend to stick around longer on that system to

know more of the system and use the system, which was the aim for this system when it was being developed

as this would help create a good first impression for the system.

Below is an image which shows the C# code behind the homepage interface design.

Fig 5.4 XAML Code for the mobile application Homepage

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Fig 5.5 XAML Code for the mobile application Homepage Continued

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Fig 5.6 HTML Code for the Website Homepage

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Fig 5.7 Mobile Application Homepage preview in Design View

Fig 5.8 Website Homepage preview in Design View

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5.5 Technical Problems EncounteredDuring the implementation phase of this project, some of the issues encountered were:

Adapting to a new development environment, which I had to learn on my own. Considering the

timeframe, it proved to be a challenging task.

Getting the recorded media to display in a list view

Installing the correct version of SQLite browser

Upgrading from visual studio update 2 to visual studio update 4

5.6 Solutions to Technical Problems

All problems were eradicated by surfing online, reading discussion forums and watching tutorial videos and

getting advice from my project supervisor.

I was able to get some really good online tutorials and videos which helped me learn about windows phone 8.1

mobile application development.

I watched tutorial videos that explains how to migrate from visual studio update 2 or later versions to the most

recent version which visual studio update 4.

I read articles on Microsoft forum that illustrates how to download and install the latest version of SQLite

browser into a project.

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CHAPTER 6: TESTING

6.1 Test OverviewAccording to Myer (2004), testing is “a process, or a series of processes, designed to make sure computer

code does what it was designed to do and that it does not do anything unintended”, and Naik and Tripathy

(2008) said, “software testing is the verification process for software quality assessment and improvement”.

The types of tests that was carried in this project include:

Unit Testing

Integration Testing

System Testing

Usability Testing

6.2 Unit Testing

In unit testing, each individual unit/component is tested and validated to make sure that they perform as they

were designed. According to Visual Studio .NET(2003) “the idea behind unit testing is to isolate the

unit/component from the general component and determine if it behaves the way it is expected to behave or if

further work should be done on it.” In other to carry out this unit testing, white box testing technique was

used in performing the test.

6.3 Integration Testing

The ideology behind integration testing is to test combination of units. One of the main advantages of

integrated testing is that, it identifies problems that occur when units are combined.

Visual Studio .NET (2003) explains integration testing as “a logical extension of unit testing, here two

components that have been tested already are combined into a component, the interface of these two

combined units/components is then tested. In a realistic scenario, many units are combined into components,

which are in turn aggregated into even larger parts of the program. ”

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6.3.1 Big Bang Integration Testing Big bang testing is a type of integration testing, most books refer to it as big bang integration testing.

Inexperienced developers of small systems/software that are not familiar with testing tends to do more of big

bang integration testing than any other type of testing. In this kind of approach the individual components of

the software are not integrate until everything is ready. The inexperienced developers go with the “Run it and

see” approach

Below is an image of big bang integration testing:

Fig 6.1 Big bang integration testing

6.5 Systems Testing

When systems testing is about to be carried out that means the exit criteria for integration testing has been

met and the entry criteria for system testing has be fulfilled. Here the system testing is testing the software

product that has been fully and completely integrated into a finished product.

In system testing the requirements of the system that is being tested is inspected to make sure that the system

abides by the requirements that was set out for it.

Under systems testing, usability testing was carried out.

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6.5.1 Usability Testing Usability testing generally emphases on how the application is easy to use by the customers/users and the

ability of the application to meet a set of targets/objectives. After development, this system was tested by real

users who gave feedback on what they liked and what they would like to see as a further development, some

of the testers where students, lecturers and friends.

6.6 Test Case Requirements

Reqt. # Description Comment Priority Reviewers Approval/DateR-01 The home page for the website

shall give visitors an overview of the website

Level I implementation

4 Victor/Pocha James 12/01/2015

R-02 The home page for the mobile application shall give visitors an overview of the mobile application



R-03 Clicking the app icon shall open the app



R-04 Users shall be able to navigate back and forth between the pages on the website



R-05 Users shall be able to navigate back and forth between the pages on the mobile application



R-06 The user shall be able to customise cards on the “design card” page



R-07 The users shall be able to record media using the mobile application



R-08 The main menu bar shall be located on top of the home page just below the logo.

Level 2 implementation


R-09A user shall be able to add customised cards to cart

Level 2 implementation 4

Victor/Pocha James 12/01/2015

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6.7 TEST CASE PROCEDURES

Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #1Test Case Summary Does the homepage give visitors an overview the websiteRelated Requirement R-01Prerequisites Must open site

Test Procedure1. Open a Browser2. Type the site url3. Check the homepage for overview of the website

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card websiteExpected Result The homepage should display an overview of websiteActual Result The homepage displays an overview of websiteStatus Pass Remarks(if any) Responsive and Easy to use.Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Google Chrome)

Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #2Test Case Summary Does the homepage give visitors an overview of mobile applicationRelated Requirement R-02Prerequisites Must deploy and run application

Test Procedure 1. Click the app logo2. Check the homepage for overview of the application after it loads up

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card Mobile ApplicationExpected Result The homepage should display an overview of the applicationActual Result The homepage displays an overview of applicationStatus Pass Remarks Responsive, Simple and Easy to use.Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Windows Mobile Phone)

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Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #3Test Case Summary Does the application open when the app logo is clickedRelated Requirement R-03Prerequisites Must deploy app to windows mobile phone

Test Procedure 1. Click the app logo

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card Mobile ApplicationExpected Result The app will open and lead to splash screen and then the home pageActual Result The homepage displays after the app icon is clicked and the splash screen showsStatus Pass Remarks(if any) Responsive and Easy to use.Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Windows Mobile Phone)

Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #4Test Case Summary Users should be able to navigate back and forth between pages on the websiteRelated Requirement R-04Prerequisites Must open site

Test Procedure1. Open a Browser2. Type the site url3. Try navigate back and forth the website pages

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card WebsiteExpected Result The users should be able to navigate between the website pagesActual Result Navigation between pages on the website was possible Status Pass Remarks(if any)Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Google Chrome)

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Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #5

Test Case Summary Users should be able to navigate back and forth between pages on the mobile application

Related Requirement R-05

Prerequisites Application must be deployed and run

Test Procedure1. Open application2. Navigate back and forth the application pages

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card Mobile ApplicationExpected Result The users should be able to navigate between the mobile application pagesActual Result Navigation between pages on the application was possible Status Pass Remarks(if any)Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Windows Mobile Phone)

Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #6Test Case Summary The user should be able to customise card on the websiteRelated Requirement R-06Prerequisites Must be logged on to the site

Test Procedure

1. Open a Browser2. Type the site url3. Go to the design card page4. Customise card

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card WebsiteExpected Result The User should be able to customise a card on the websiteActual Result The User was able to customise card on the websiteStatus Pass Remarks(if any) Easy to use.Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15

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Test Environment The environment (Google Chrome)

Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #7Test Case Summary The user should be able to record media using the mobile applicationRelated Requirement R-07Prerequisites Deployed and running

Test Procedure1. Open application2. Click record mp3 or mp43. Record the media

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card Mobile ApplicationExpected Result The user should be able to record mediaActual Result The user was able to record mediaStatus Pass Remarks(if any) Responsive and Easy to use.Created By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Windows Mobile Phone)

Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #8

Test Case Summary Check to see if the main menu bar is located on top of the home page just below the logo

Related Requirement R-08

Prerequisites The test bed must be provided

Test Procedure1. Open a Browser2. Type the site url3. Check if the location of the main menu bar is the same as specified.

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card WebsiteExpected Result The main menu bar shall be located on top of the homepage just below the logoActual Result There is no LogoStatus Fail Remarks(if any) NilCreated By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Google Chrome)

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Test Suite ID RS-MTP #101Test Case ID #9Test Case Summary Check to see if the user is able to add customised cards to cardRelated Requirement R-09Prerequisites Must be logged in

Test Procedure

1. Open a Browser2. Type the site url3. Log in using credentials4. Navigate to design card page5. Customise card6. Add customised card to cart

Test Data Electronic Greeting Card WebsiteExpected Result The user should be able to add customised cards to cartActual Result The user was not able to add customised card to cartStatus FailRemarks(If any) NilCreated By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Creation 12/01/2015Executed By Uzodinma IfeanyichukwuDate of Execution 21/04/15Test Environment The environment (Google Chrome)

6.8 TRACEABILITY MATRIX

Reqt. #

Description Priority Test Case #

Test Date Test Result (P/F)

R-01 The home page for the website shall give visitors an overview of the website

4 1 21/04/2015 Pass

R-02 The home page for the mobile application shall give visitors an overview of the mobile application

4 2 21/04/2015 Pass

R-03 Clicking the app icon shall open the app 4 3 21/04/2015 Pass

R-04 Users shall be able to navigate back and forth between the pages on the website

3 4 21/04/2015 Pass

R-05 Users shall be able to navigate back and forth between the pages on the mobile application

3 5 21/04/2015 Pass

R-06 The user shall be able to customise cards on the “design card” page

5 6 21/04/2015 Pass

R-07 The users shall be able to record media using the mobile application

5 7 21/04/2015 Pass

R-08 The main menu bar shall be located on top of the home page just below the logo.

2 8 21/04/2015 Fail

A user shall be able to add customised cards 9 21/04/2015 Fail

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R-09 to cart 4

6.9 Test Assessment

The type of test that was carried out is a system test, this tests was carried out according to the requirements specified, and using the specified requirements test case and test procedures was generated and those documents shows that the test was extensive, precise and properly executed.

6.10 Test Results

Number of tests carried out = 9

Passed tests = 7

Failed tests = 2

Deviations:

Test Case Id #8 deviated from expected test case, which made the test a failure

6.11 Suggested actions

In other to resolve the failures, the developer should create the logo as suggested in the requirements test case and also make it possible to add customized cards to the cart.

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CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS

7.1 AchievementsThis project has been successful as goals that were set out at the start of the project were accomplished and

almost of requirement stated were tested to be working. During the course of this project, I have acquired a

lot of skills that comes in the form of a requirements analyst, software developer, software tester and many

more other skills. I have also been able to improve my programming skills as I had to learn and do a lot of

coding on my own during the implementation phase of this project. Due to time constraint of the project I

have had to effectively plan my time and resources in order to achieve optimum efficiency and result in my

work production, which is a testament to how much I have improved my project management skill, and I

have successfully developed a simple and “easy to use” project which would aid people in customising

personal and intimate greeting cards.

7.3 Future EnhancementsEvery project has to give room for further development and enhancements and this project have not been left

behind in that sense.

Some of the enhancements this project can benefit from are:

Better designed interfaces

Make the mobile application to be available on android phones as it is only available on windows

phone at the moment

Make it possible for the user to add their customised card to the cart and come back some other time

to edit/delete or send the card.

7.4 SummaryOverall while this has been a challenging task, it has equally been a fascinating task and a very good learning

experience. The creation of this project has been challenging in the sense that the project requirements,

designs, implementation, development, testing and documentation all had to be done and produced within

three months, and it is fascinating in the sense that I have gained a lot of satisfaction and knowledge with the

work I have accomplished on this project.

This project has been designed to serve as an electronic greeting card customisation website and mobile

application. The project was developed putting digital natives and digital migrants in mind; what this means

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is that novice technology users can easily use this project as proficiently as an expert user. One of the reasons

why this is so is the amount of work put in to make the project look simple but sophisticated.

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APPENDICES

Appendix A –Project Schedule

Task Mode Task Name Duration Start Finish

Manually Scheduled

Initiation 5 days Mon 05/01/15 Fri 09/01/15

Manually Scheduled

Research Required tools and Application software for windows development 2 days Sat 10/01/15 Mon 12/01/15

Manually Scheduled

Research tool Prices & Vendors 2 days Tue 13/01/15 Wed 14/01/15

Manually Scheduled

Prepare/Present Budget to Business Sponsor 10 days Thu 15/01/15 Wed 28/01/15

Manually Scheduled

Acquire/Purchase development artefacts 2 days Thu 29/01/15 Fri 30/01/15

Manually Scheduled

Purchase relevant equipment 3 days Sat 31/01/15 Tue 03/02/15

Manually Scheduled

Commence Application Development 20 days Wed 04/02/15 Tue 03/03/15

Manually Scheduled

Create Program classes and methods 6 days Wed 04/03/15 Wed 11/03/15

Manually Scheduled

Design & Develop Interface 5 days Thu 12/03/15 Wed 18/03/15

Manually Scheduled

Insert required functionalities into Application 8 days Thu 19/03/15 Mon 30/03/15

Manually Scheduled

Test out all functionalities on Virtual windows Device 2 days Tue 31/03/15 Wed 01/04/15

Manually Scheduled

Download working application into Real windows Devices For Demonstration and presentation 4 days Thu 02/04/15 Tue 07/04/15

Manually Scheduled

Prepare for presentation of project 12 days Wed 08/04/15 Thu 23/04/15

49

Manually Scheduled

End of Project and finish write ups 11 days Fri 10/04/15 Fri 24/04/15

Manually Scheduled

End of Project, Hand Over to Project supervisor 11 days Sun 26/04/15 Fri 08/05/15

Table A1: Project Schedule

50

Figure A1: Project Tracking Gantt chart

51

Appendix B – Other Relevant Documents

Fig B1 DesignCard page

Fig B2 Card Customization Page

52

53

54

55

56

57

The code below is rest of the website database initializer

58

59