Real-Life Communication
You're a software engineer who creates programs to help businesses
get online. You tailor the programs so that they suit each individual company.
You've just been asked to set up an online shopping site for Heritage Gardens.
In
order to find out how to customize a website suited to this business, you
need to find out all about what Heritage Gardens wants the site to do and
how they want it to look.
"The ability to communicate well is very
important," says Ken Kyler, a software engineer. "If one is the interface
with a client, it's a critical skill."
Kyler says that software engineers
need a great deal of detail in order to set up an appropriate site.
Here
is what John at Heritage Gardens begins to tell you:
"We
are a small company in a small town, but we'd like to be able to reach customers
further away. We grow special heritage bulbs for spring gardens, heritage
roses and organic vegetable seeds. We think these would be popular around
the world.
"We want to be able to sell all of these products to customers
and set up a mail-order system. We would need a questionnaire that clients
could fill out to let us know what climate zone they live in, how much sun
their garden receives in a day and the quantity of each product that they
require.
"We'd also like an online catalog that explains our products.
We'd like pictures of each of the plants, along with planting and care guidelines.
"In
addition, we'd like to somehow set up a question and answer section where
we can assist people in finding just the right plant to suit their needs.
An online chat room or forum would also be nice so that our customers could
share information amongst themselves."
This is just the
beginning of what you will need to know to set up a site for Heritage Gardens.
In order to make sure you're clear on the company's demands so far, you ask
yourself a few questions.
- What are the products they currently offer?
- Why do they need the customers to fill out a questionnaire?
- What would they like in the catalog?
- Why do they want a question and answer section and an online chat room?
How would you answer these questions?