Information Overload At The Workplace

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

CMT3333

Software Development Project

Project Proposal

Module Number: M00414522

Name: Simon Sant Cassia

Institution: STC Malta

 

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Problem 2

1.1. Information Overload 2

1.1.1. World Wide Web 3

1.1.2. Information Overload at the Workplace 5

1.2. Reflective Journal Writing 6

2. Existing Solutions 9

2.1. Comparison Notes 9

2.1.1. Note Tagging 9

2.1.2. Synchronisation of Data 10

2.2. Existing Solutions 10

2.2.1. Simplenote 10

2.2.2. Evernote 11

2.2.3. Microsoft OneNote 14

2.2.4. Day One 16

2.2.5. Pocket & Instapaper 18

2.3. Technologies 19

2.3.1. Client-Side Technologies 19

2.3.2. Server-Side Technologies 20

3. Software Design 25

3.1. Introduction 25

3.2. Timings and Milestones 25

3.3. Requirements and Features 27

3.3.1. Technology 27

3.3.2. User Accounts 27

3.3.3. Platform for Reflective Journal Writing 27

3.3.4. Tools to Mitigate Information Overload 28

3.4. Functional Model 29

3.4.1. Use Cases 29

3.5. User Interface Mock-ups 33

Bibliography 35

1. Introduction to Problem

Modern life, for all its indulgences and advances, suffers from a huge increase in distractions. Individuals living a modern life face two common problems:

• Clouded decision-making, and an inability to save useful information due to an overload of irrelevant or low-quality information.

• Reduced time, for self-improvement and reflection.

1.1. Information Overload

The phrase "information overload" had its first recorded use in 1970’s Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. Today, the term has come to describe an even more fitting situation. FOLDOC has a very accurate definition of the term:

When a person feels unable to read all the information that is presented […] to them, particularly where they need to make decisions based on that information but can’t because there is just too much to take in (Howe, 2005).

Information overload is a growing concern. Because of the reduced barriers, an increasing number of people are producing and publishing content online (blogs, articles, videos, eBooks, and others). Content creation is accelerating incredibly quickly.

The problem can manifest itself when an individual has a decision to make. When an individual has a decision to make, they will gather relevant information in an attempt to enumerate the options, and determine the best possible course of action.

However, it is all too easy to acquire too much information, and they will not be able to process all of it. The end result is that all the information overwhelms and simply becomes noise (Feather, 1998). This is not a new problem:

"The technological developments of the last 50 years have made more information more available to more people than at any other time in human history." (Feather, 1998)

However, the effect that the Internet and the World Wide Web has had is very clear to see.

1.1.1. World Wide Web

The Internet, and specifically, the World Wide Web (WWW), has been a great enabler. True to its name, it has connected the entire world together, and formed a huge, interconnected network of devices and people. The WWW has enabled billions of people to get online.

One of the biggest benefits of the proliferation of the WWW has been the massive surge in content, in all forms.

Pew Research Center publishes an annual report on the state of news media. In 2012’s report, traditional newspaper reading is down from previous years. This is not a new trend. The research firm says that readership of traditional paper-based news has been on a steady (sometimes sharp) decline for almost nine consecutive years (Edmonds et al., 2012).

The main beneficiary of this decline has been the World Wide Web. Several traditional news outlets such as newspapers, magazines, networks, and periodicals have changed their publishing models. They now regard the Internet as a distinct medium for their content. Readership has also made the transition. Pew Research, in their annual report, has noted that online readership of content has exploded in recent years. 2011 was the first year where people read more online than on traditional media, including paper-based news and television (Edmonds et al., 2012).

While it is true that the content made available online has the potential to completely replace traditional media, there are some important differences. Online media varies greatly in subject matter, content, barriers to entry, quality, and quantity.

Perhaps the biggest difference is indeed in terms of quantity, and how it affects the overall quality. There is simply much more content than ever before. One of the main reasons for the large increase in content is the lowered barrier to entry. It’s trivial to write in a blog, edit a wiki-style article, upload a video, and so on.

To put this into context, users of YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, upload 72 hours of video every single minute. On the average day, just over 29-and-a-half years of video are uploaded to the site (YouTube, Inc., 2012).

The surge in the quantity of content can be interpreted as a double-edged sword. The positive aspect is obvious: more content means more varied points of view, and sometimes, the highest quality content enjoys more prominence than lower-quality content.

The main negative is that this is not always the case. High quality content can easily be lost among the enormous amount of irrelevant, "useless" content.

1.1.2. Information Overload at the Workplace

At the workplace, information overload is perhaps an even greater issue, as it can carry very real costs. Office workers usually have overflowing email inboxes, and no time to deal with information responsibly and effectively. Sometimes, they may need to act on some information received at a future date.

When it comes to finding information that they had previously but cannot find it, businesses in the UK claim to have lost more than two weeks of time and over £1,200 per employee in a single year. In addition, over one-third of emails remained unread (Mindjet Research, 2011).

A separate study, conducted by LexisNexis Corp., concluded that over 90% of workers say they sometimes "delete or discard work information without fully reading it". (LexisNexis Corporation, 2010).

Edmunds & Morris state some reasons why managers obtain so much information that they become overwhelmed, including:

• Seek more information to verify the information already obtained.

• To be able to justify and/or rationalize decisions.

• They collect barely-related information in case it proves useful.

• They ‘play safe’ and collect all the information they can (Edmunds & Morris, 2000).

A common point in almost all the literature reviewed is that the huge amount of information causes a sort of paradox, where useful information is buried under less useful information.

Although there is an abundance of information, it is often difficult to obtain useful and relevant information among the vast volumes of information which, at the very least, need to be scanned through to find the nuggets.

[…] Even with an oversupply of information, managers believe that they do not get all the information they need to do their job. (Edmunds & Morris, 2000).

The same paper progresses to mention that a possible solution is to "use technology to develop an information strategy".

In both personal and working lives, information overload is a very serious, and in some ways, very old, problem, that still has not been completely solved.

1.2. Reflective Journal Writing

Information overload and the modern age of hyper-connectivity have created another problem: that of reduced time for self-reflection.

Reflective journal writing is a beneficial undertaking that can improve oneself in several ways.

Reflective writing is:

− your response to experiences, opinions, events or new information

− your response to thoughts and feelings

− a way of thinking to explore your learning

− an opportunity to gain self-knowledge

− a way to achieve clarity and better understanding of what you are learning

− a chance to develop and reinforce writing skills

− a way of making meaning out of what you study (Farrah, 2012).

"Moreover, reflective journal writing has the potential to promote critical thinking." (Farrah, 2012).

J. Kok & M.M. Chabeli (2002) analysed the results of students who wrote and maintained a personal reflective journal over the course of a scholastic year:

The positive perception was the development of problem-solving skills attained through reflection by using analytical critical thinking, synthesis and the evaluation of situations. Self-evaluation leading to intellectual growth and self-awareness indicated a positive perception (Kok & Chabeli, 2002).

The benefits that reflective journal writing can bestow upon an individual, particularly with regards to critical thinking and improved self-awareness, are difficult to ignore.

However, modern life makes maintaining a personal journal particularly challenging. There are several difficulties that people face; the most commonly quoted is that it is time consuming (Kok & Chabeli, 2002). However, other factors can also be considered as problems:

• The personal journal may not always be available to an individual when they feel a need to write. This may be because their typical computing use may be spread over several devices (work and personal computers, tablet computers, smartphones, among others).

• Inspiration to write in a journal may diminish and/or fluctuate.

Another difficulty expressed was a lack of clear expectations from the journal (Kok & Chabeli, 2002). When maintaining a journal, it is important to have a set of goals and objectives, otherwise, one’s enthusiasm can wane over a period of time.

In addition, information overload is perceived to contribute to the difficulty of maintaining a personal journal. Interestingly, the benefits, such

as improved critical thinking and analytical skills, lend themselves well to dealing with information overload.

Several of the cited works share a common thread of using technology to deal with information overload (Feather, 1998) (Edmunds & Morris, 2000). In addition, it may be construed that the most effective way for an individual to have near-constant access to their personal journal, is on the World Wide Web.

 

2. Existing Solutions

A web-based application, allowing access to a journal from almost any connected computer, is not a new concept. Whereas there is precious little academic matter on web-based journaling applications, numerous companies have built successful businesses around the concepts.

Despite there being dozens of applications, many of them overlap in features and functionality. The applications selected represent different ways to approach the problems of information overload and a centralised place to maintain a self-reflective journal.

2.1. Comparison Notes

Several of the solutions contain similar technologies, so it is prudent to describe them here.

2.1.1. Note Tagging

Several of the solutions allow the creation of notes. Notes can, in some form, have labels attached to them. These labels, or tags, can be used to group similar notes together, or to add weak links between notes.

2.1.2. Synchronisation of Data

In the interests of being available everywhere and on all platforms, several solutions implement a form of synchronisation, where the data is read and written to a remote server. In a sense, the software or web application simply becomes a "client" for the data, which is usually stored centrally on a remote server.

2.2. Existing Solutions

2.2.1. Simplenote

Possibly the sparsest in terms of features, Simplenote is also perhaps the most focussed. It is a free service (paid extras are available) that simply requires an email address to register and log in.

The user interface consists of a simple blank canvas on the right, with the user’s notes on the left in a sidebar. Simplenote offers several features for notes:

• Version history.

• Publishing a note using Simplenote itself.

• Sharing by email.

• Direct printing.

• Markdown formatting.

• Tagging system.

• Word and character counts.

• Pinning of notes to the top of the sidebar.

In addition, Simplenote offers optimised experiences for several devices, in the form of native mobile applications.

True to its name, the relatively few features of Simplenote are touted as a selling point. However, it offers no real way to manage information overload, and rich media (pictures and video) is essentially unsupported. In addition, there are advertising banners in the sidebar, which presumably disappear if one purchases a premium account.

2.2.2. Evernote

Evernote is a very large player in this field. The company employs over 230 people (as of August 2012), has 15,000 third-party developers, and originally launched in 2008 (Nuttall, 2012). It offers almost every conceivable feature for note taking and management of information overload, and is available on almost every modern platform.

For note taking, Evernote offers a rich text editor for notes using a GUI. Where available, notes have a date and location information attached (i.e. where in the world the note was written).

It is of particular use in the academic world. Cordell writes "Students could use Evernote, then, to take notes in class from their laptops. Those notes would then be available on their phones, their desktops, or any other computers connected to the Internet" (Cordell, 2011).

Notes of almost any type can be captured, including plain text, pictures, audio or video recordings, and others. Pictures benefit from a secretive Evernote service where they are scanned for any text, thereby making the pictures searchable. An obvious use case is for business cards and handwritten notes, and this is often used in Evernote’s marketing.

Notes can be shared in a variety of ways, including sharing public links, and direct sharing to several social media websites.

In terms of management of information overload, Evernote offers a web clipper, which takes a web page as input, scans it, and saves a note with the textual content of the page. All unrelated content is removed.

Notes are organised into notebooks and sub-notebooks. They may also be titled and tagged, which helps users maintain control over their notes.

When it comes to solving the problems at hand, Evernote almost certainly comes closest. However, several issues hinder the application, preventing it from being a complete solution.

Alex Payne (2009) argues that applications such as Evernote discourage users from sorting and making sense of the information and data they have. He refers to software that attempts to perform multiple tasks as "Everything Buckets", and makes particular references to Evernote.

"An Everything Bucket […] is what I call applications that encourage the user to throw anything and everything into them. They’re virtual scrapbooks, applying a lightweight organization system to (often) unrelated data of varying types.

Computers work best with structured data. Everything Buckets discourage the use of structured data by providing a convenient place to commingle "structure-less" data […]

Rather than forcing the user to figure out the rhyme and reason of their data (for example, by putting receipts in a financial management application and addresses in an address book), Everything Buckets [Evernote] cry: "throw it all in here! Search it! Maybe I’ll corrupt my proprietary database, but maybe I won’t and you’ll have the joy of sifting through a mire of RTF documents. Doesn’t that sound great?" (Payne, 2009).

Karger, of MIT, counters this point, stating that "the everything-bucket is here to stay". He concludes that:

"Today’s version provides the quick capture that is often the most important feature of an information management tool—in its absence, information may not get recorded in the computer at all. Looking ahead, a structured everything bucket is the right way to cope with information fragmentation, letting you link together all the different kinds of information you need to tackle different tasks, instead replicating or partitioning it among different applications" (Karger, 2010).

Notes cannot be linked together. For example, clipped web pages cannot be grouped together. Although the tagging system can be used for this, it is not the original design of the feature.

The type of a note (text, picture, clipped web page, and others) is not always displayed, which may make it difficult to determine the contents of a note before opening it. Managing notes and links this way can be perceived to be cumbersome.

Evernote is of course able to work as a journal, offering a rich-text editor for notes. However, the fact that it is not specifically adapted towards reflective journal writing is obvious. The interface does little to encourage off-the-cuff, inspired writing. There are other journal-writing applications that take the lead in this area.

A free account is ad-supported, and restricts users by the amount of data they can upload per month (60 megabytes). Text and links use up very little data. However, considering the average 8 megapixel smartphone photograph consumes 2-2.5 megabytes, media uploads (including pictures, audio, and video) can quickly consume the quota. A premium account, priced at €40 per year (Evernote Corporation, 2012), increases the monthly quota to one gigabyte, and adds other features.

2.2.3. Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is a brand that encompasses several products on different platforms. Notes are saved onto a user’s "SkyDrive", which synchronises and backs up a user’s notes across platforms. OneNote is a part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications, as well as offering standalone versions for various mobile platforms including Apple iOS and Android. A web application is also available with reduced functionality.

OneNote is a tremendously popular product, and has enjoyed particular attention in the academic world. Students are able to leverage technology to deal with information overload in a way that simply was not possible before.

Barber et al. have particular praise for OneNote, stating, "It is a note-taking program that has been promoted as a means for an individual to store and organise information" (Barber et al., 2009).

OneNote’s approach is somewhat different to most web-based solutions. Notes take the form of a canvas, where text blocks and other content may be freely positioned and linked together. Sections of web pages may be clipped onto notes, and most kinds of media are supported. Notes may be inter-linked together to form relations. A multiple-user mode is supported, where several collaborators may work on the same note simultaneously. "OneNote was designed to treat the note-taking space as a manipulative two-dimensional space." (Fitzpatrick, 2008).

Similar to other solutions, OneNote supports tagging, powerful text search, and more, however, there is no concept of social sharing for posts. All notes (pages) are personal to the author and Individual notes are called pages, which are saved under sections in notebooks.

OneNote is, however, not without limitations when it comes to tackling the dual problem of information overload and the maintenance of personal reflective journal.

In terms of managing information overload, OneNote is generally well tooled. The free-form nature of the pages, combined with the ability to re-arrange media and content at will, make it a formidable tool. However, the endless array of features, ways to write notes, and so on, mean that it may not be very easy to use.

In addition, the desktop software suffers from a sense of "feature bloat", where the program’s myriad features reduce the focus of the user interface. The application is relatively slow

to open, and certain features, such as tagging, are buried in long menus.

In an effort to improve the software’s integration with its various platforms, Microsoft OneNote will look, feel, and indeed behave very differently on different platforms it is used on. This is a disadvantage compared to purely web-based alternatives.

The perspective changes dramatically if OneNote is viewed purely as a reflective journal-writing tool — it does not offer enough features that help handle this problem.

In addition, OneNote’s mobile offerings have been criticised for not offering the same experience as on the desktop. OneNote for Apple’s iPad in particular has been particularly criticised for missing several crucial features, including: text formatting, tagging, highlighting, support for web links, collaboration features, slow searching, limited security, bugs, and a relatively high price for the platform (O'Kelly, 2012).

In addition, the interface, primarily aimed for note taking, does not encourage writing in a self-reflective manner. Other software specifically tailored for reflective journal writing outshines OneNote in this respect. However, it is perhaps an unfair expectation on consumer note-taking software.

2.2.4. Day One

Day One is a relative newcomer. Of the dual problems of reflective journal writing and handling information overload, Day One tackles simply the journaling side.

As of late 2012, it is currently available exclusively on Apple software — with both iOS and OS X versions available for purchase. It is a comparatively unique software application in many ways. It provides no web-based interface, and relies instead on document synchronisation using third-party services such as Dropbox, Apple iCloud, or both. Compared to other solutions, Day One is relatively simplistic.

As a result, it enjoys a significant strength in its user experience — it offers a best-in-class graphical user interface, which is extremely well adapted to reflective journal writing. The user can set periodic reminders. The software will notify the user, and attempt to remind them to write in their journal.

Notes are organised by date in a sidebar on the left hand side of the window, with the selected note occupying the central section. Notes, called entries, are organised into one central list, with no concept of separate notebooks. Entries are saved and listed chronologically. There is support for tagging, and with recent versions, full-text search. Pictures can be added to posts, or they may be made the subject of the post, which is a subtle difference. Titles are optional, which encourages direct writing. Day One also records the weather conditions at the time, which help to provide context to the entries. Entries may be published either by HTML export, email, or directly online using services such as Tumblr, Twitter, and Foursquare.

The note editor is simplistic and attractive, with a simple formatting bar for Markdown, although formatting may be input inline instead. The top of the left sidebar frequently contains inspirational thoughts and messages, designed to help the author relax and write introspectively.

Examples of messages included in the entry editor include:

• Much of our sense of competence comes in reflection about our lives not just about the actions we take. ― The Charge by Brendon Burchard

• What are you thankful for today?

• "Keep a diary, and someday it'll keep you." — Mae West

• Don’t become obsessed with fact to the exclusion of emotion.

• Write a letter to a loved one who has passed away.

The probing questions, thoughts, quotations, and messages, help to focus the writer, and promote introspection. They primarily focus on the benefits of reflective journal writing, and sometimes provide some inspiration for writing material.

In terms of the problems at hand, Day One tackles one problem very well, but does not tackle the other problem.

The software is adapted for reflective journal writing, with a user experience that is second to none. Shawn Blanc (2012) writes that Day One is "easy and fun to use" (Blanc, 2012). Day One, however, is purely a journaling application.

It offers no information management to speak of. Besides manually entering URIs, information overload is not really tackled. Additionally, many media types (such as videos) are not supported, and only one photo may be placed per entry.

2.2.5. Pocket & Instapaper

Although Pocket and Instapaper are separate entities and products, they offer very similar products.

Whereas Day One is purely a journaling application, Pocket and Instapaper are designed purely for the collection of web pages and links. Essentially, they are online reading lists.

Perhaps the greatest strength of these services is that it is very easy to gather and submit web page link. They can be submitted in a number of ways, including sending a URI to an email address, JavaScript "bookmarklets" (specially-written JavaScript that submits the current page), author-added buttons on a page, browser extensions, and direct entry via a web form.

Both services maintain an online list of all saved URIs, tied to a user account. The web pages are "scraped", and a stripped-down version of the page can be viewed. All special formatting, advertising, and distractions, are removed from a page. This improves the readability of the web page. Web views are available on both. When an article is read, it may be saved as a favourite, kept unread, archived, or deleted.

Instapaper, by Marco Arment, is the original online reading list. It offers a basic web application with an unlimited number of articles to save for free. A mobile application for iOS is available at a cost.

Pocket (formerly known as Read It Later) offers a more graphical layout, with support for video pages such as YouTube and Vimeo. Software clients exist for iOS, Android, and OS X. It is completely free.

Both of these services exist to tackle the problem of information overload, offering easy ways to save web pages for reading later. However, one cannot add any notes at all to their list, and there is no sorting or categorisation to speak of. Searching is also absent.

The two services, despite their obvious limitations, are very popular. This is undoubtedly due to the fact an online reading list of useful web pages is very much in-demand.

2.3. Technologies

Whereas front-end web application technologies are fairly standardised, there is a lot of room to manoeuvre in the back-end.

2.3.1. Client-Side Technologies

The front-end, also known as the client-side, is the main point of interaction between an end user and a web application. Web applications are accessed through a web browser. As a result, the technologies used in this area are fairly fixed.

HTML, or Hyper-Text Mark-up Language, is the primary delivery medium. Content is presented, and input is collected using HTML.

HTML is written using elements, called tags, in a manner similar to XML. Tags typically come in pairs. Below is an example of bold text in a paragraph.

<p>The <strong>quick brown fox</strong> jumps over the lazy dog.</p>

HTML, and in particular, the concept of a hyperlink, has been central to the explosion of the increasingly accurately named World Wide Web.

While HTML has support for formatting and styling, modern web design encourages the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Besides allowing for a complete semantic division of content and style, CSS allows for more powerful styling, use of repeatable elements, conditional styling, and much more.

JavaScript is an extremely popular programming language that can be run by web browsers. With C-like syntax, its main function is to enhance and improve web pages, but it is powerful enough that it can be used for almost any conceivable web-related task, including connecting to web servers without refreshing a page, and much more.

2.3.2. Server-Side Technologies

Server-side technologies refer to a suite of technologies that interoperate to serve content to a client, which is typically an end user through a web browser.

Typically, a web server receives a request for a resource, determines the best way to serve the request, and sends back a response.

2.3.2.1. Web Server Applications

A web server is a class of application that can transmit and receive data based on requests, particularly over the Internet. Web server applications often connect with server-side programming or scripting languages, allowing for some programming when handling requests.

Apache HTTP Web Server

Apache HTTP Web Server is the most popular web server in the world by usage in websites (Netcraft Ltd., 2012). It is an open source project, and versions are available for almost any platform, including Linux, Apple OS X, and most versions of Microsoft Windows.

Apache supports excellent integration with several web-oriented programming languages, including PHP, Perl, and Python.

Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)

IIS is another very popular web server (Ibid.) by usage. It is distributed with server versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

As expected, IIS includes excellent integration with Microsoft’s web application technologies, such as ASP.NET and C#.NET. Microsoft has also added official support for PHP (Microsoft Corporation, 2012), and other tools.

2.3.2.3. Server-Side Programming Languages

Server-side scripting is a very common way to build web applications. A web server essentially passes the responsibility of handling the request onto the scripting language. A scripting language is able to handle a request in a context-specific way, and deliver an appropriate response to the client.

There are dozens of languages that may be used for server-side scripting. These differ in terms of intent, paradigm, quality, features, and popularity. Languages including: ASP.NET, C, ColdFusion, JSP, Lua, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, WebDNA, and others.

PHP

Priss (2008) states that PHP is "probably [the] most popular" scripting language in the world (Priss, 2008).

PHP is embedded into HTML pages, placed between special tags. The server application will run any code between these tags using its PHP interpreter. The rest of the text file is output directly as HTML. Connections to a database are made ad-hoc.

Cecchet et al. (2003), compared PHP to Java servlets and Enterprise Java Beans, stating that "PHP scripts are easier to write and reasonably efficient" (Cecchet et al., 2003). PHP is relatively concise, and requires considerably smaller code files to accomplish most tasks (Ibid.).

Java HTTP Servlets

Java HTTP Servlets are Java classes that are loaded by a servlet engine. Being Java classes, they run in a JVM.

Java somewhat standardises certain scripting aspects, such as database connections, file locking, and thread synchronisation. However, because HTTP servlets run in a separate process, they can be significantly slower and less efficient than processes, which run as part of the web server instance (Ibid.).

ASP.NET

ASP.NET, by Microsoft, is an event-driven language that can be used in conjunction with several programming languages, most commonly C# or VB.NET. Officially, the language will only run on Windows Server running IIS. ASP.NET forms a part of the .NET suite of technologies, and is written in the very well regarded Microsoft Visual Studio IDE (Hull, 2004).

ASP.NET, as is expected, is designed to work in conjunction with Microsoft SQL Server databases, but also supports other database engines using the ODBC protocol (Ibid.).

2.3.2.4. Database Engines

The vast majority of web applications serving dynamic content are driven by databases (Altinel et al., 2002). Many scripting languages support interoperability with major database engines, rendering the choice purely down to feature set, price, and ease of use.

Database engines, amongst other things, vary in features, paradigms, and SQL implementations. There are several kinds of database management systems, including traditional relational databases, object-oriented, NoSQL, NewSQL, and others. However, Vicknair et al. (2010) assert that "relational databases have been around for many decades and are the database technology of choice for most traditional data-intensive storage and retrieval applications" (Vicknair et al., 2010).

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a popular relational database management system. It runs exclusively on Windows platforms, particular the Server line of operating systems, and is available in several licensing configurations, including a stripped-down core version called "Express".

SQL Server offers seamless interoperability with other .NET technologies. Support is not just limited to .NET, however. Numerous server-side scripting languages also provide support, including PHP, which provides native connection methods.

MySQL

Although relatively recent in absolute terms (the initial release was May 1995), MySQL has quickly grown to become the world’s most popular open-source relational DBMS (Oracle Corporation, 2008). Oracle Corporation owns, develops, and maintains MySQL, despite having its own database offering. MySQL is available on every major server platform, naturally including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux.

MySQL is a crucial fixture in several of the world’s largest websites, including Google (Urlocker, 2005), Facebook (Sobel, 2007) (Oracle Corporation, n.d.), YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr (Ibid.).

Similar to Microsoft SQL Server and other enterprise solutions, MySQL offers support for all major relational database features, including stored procedures, triggers, cursors, SSL, and others.

 

3. Software Design

3.1. Introduction

This chapter outlines the analysis and design of the software product, informally known as "LogBook". An up-to-date Gantt chart is produced, which assigns time boxes towards various tasks and milestones. For the analysis part, a detailed requirements and features catalogue is produced, which will help to further define the project’s goals.

Sections of the software design include UML diagrams. A functional model describes the main functions of the product, as well as the way users will interact with various modules.

User interface mock-ups provide an early look into how the final application may be laid out. Although simple wireframe models, they help to define the overall look of the product.

3.2. Timings and Milestones

As with any software project, it is important to allocate and track timings of different milestones. A Gantt chart, overlead, has been produced that enumerates the tasks ahead, and clearly delineates tasks and milestones. The project’s structure is fairly linear, lending itself well to this format.

 

3.3. Requirements and Features

A detailed requirements and features list has been created. The list helps to define the core competencies of the application, as well as dictates the overall direction that the feature-set gravitates towards.

3.3.1. Technology

• The software product will run inside a client’s web browser, as a web application.

• The web application will be written using modern, freely available, standards-compliant, client and server web technologies.

3.3.2. User Accounts

• Login feature for users to track their own notebooks.

• Password-protected notebooks and user accounts.

• Forgot password feature for user convenience.

• Disabling of a user account.

3.3.3. Platform for Reflective Journal Writing

• The entry of notes into a digital representation of a journal.

• A view of notes in a series of views, including one sorted by date.

• Text formatting.

• Saving and/or uploading of media (including images) to supplement notes.

• Sharing and/or publishing of notes to external sources.

• Organisation of notes, including tagging and deletion of notes.

• Display of a rotating selection of motivational messages.

• Collection of metadata for notes, including but not limited to:

o Date and time,

o Location and weather (if available),

o Word counts.

3.3.4. Tools to Mitigate Information Overload

3.3.4.1. Save URIs

Provide a platform to deal with information overload.

• Provide options for users to save URIs of web pages.

• Saved URIs can be inter-linked to form a collection of related material.

• Organising of URIs, including tagging and deletion.

• Linking of URIs with notes.

3.3.4.2. Recommendation Algorithms

Recommendation algorithms for finding relevant web pages a user might be interested in.

• Determine the most popular web pages saved to journals.

• If a web page has been saved before, suggest tags for it.

• Read a user’s tag list to determine what they are interested in or seeking.

• Recommend web pages based on a user’s own tag list.

3.4. Functional Model

A functional model of the software, using UML 2 use case diagrams, has been produced. The diagrams model the behaviour and functions of the system as designed, across a variety of use cases.

3.4.1. Use Cases

The use case diagrams outlined in this section will describe how different actors will interact with the system, from a high-level perspective.

3.4.1.1. New Journal Entry

This use case shows a user entering a new entry into their journal. The process includes the automatic generation of metadata, such as word counts, location, and weather (if available), and includes, if necessary, any tagging.

Writing a new journal entry may also include the user adding media (such as images), and a title.

Figure 2. New journal entry use case diagram.

3.4.1.2. Share or Publish an Entry

The user can choose to share their entries, making them public. Precise methods of sharing a post will be detailed in further chapters of this report.

Figure 3. Sharing a journal entry use case diagram.

3.4.1.3. Saving a Web Page

A user may save the URIs of useful web pages that they may want to reference later. The web application will save the URI in the notebook. The user may tag the saved URI, add notes to it, or link it to other entries.

Figure 4. Saving a web page use case diagram.

3.4.1.4. Tagging

Users will be able to tag entries. Tags are a form of metadata that helps describe an entry using textual labels. Tagging is a very useful tool for information management and the organisation of notes.

Tags make it easy to retrieve a listing of all entries under that post. The web application may recommend tags to the user based on the content of their post.

Figure 5. Tagging an entry use case diagram.

3.4.1.5. Recommendations

If the user decides, they may opt to receive recommendations for reading material.

An algorithm will process the user’s tags, as well as all other tags on the system, and find common tags between users. By basis of tagging, the algorithm will develop an understanding of common interests between the user, and other users of the application. It will then reveal web pages which are believed to be relevant and of interest to the user.

Figure 6. Receiving Recommendations.

3.5. User Interface Mock-ups

A preliminary mock-up of the graphical user interface has been produced. This is intended to show the main layout when the user is viewing an entry in their journal.

Figure 7. Journal view user interface mock-up.

The left side bar contains, from top to bottom:

• The logo, which will link to the home page,

• A prominent button to create a new entry,

• A date-sorted list of recent entries, with a search option,

• A list of tags at the bottom, with a section reserved for entries that have no tags.

The central section is equally complex.

The top bar contains, in order:

• Edit the currently-visible entry,

• Quickly change the tags of the post,

• Comma-separated list of tags,

• Word count (although the exact metadata may change),

• View more metadata on the entry,

• A way to share the entry.

The next section contains the entry’s title (optional), and

the date and time on the right side, with an option to edit it.

The main content consumes a large region of the centre of the page.

Attached media is included at the bottom. In this case, there are three placeholder images used. The options to individually delete them are listed, and the option to add more is on the right of this section.