Expert answer:Paraphrasing for 2 Assignments
Solved by verified expert:HelloI would like to have both of these papers paraphrased and reworded. Both assignments are not due until 11/19. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you
it331.docx
it340.docx
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Milestone 1: Application Overview and Analysis
Reason for Selection
The web-based application that I chose to analyze for this project, is The Southern New
Hampshire University (SNHU) Student Portal (https://my.snhu.edu/students). I chose this
application because it is one that I use often. Over the past year, I heard users both praise and
criticize the user interface of this application. The intended audience is any SNHU student,
whether enrolled online or on campus. The site offers student financial and academic
information, and various other services such as online library access and current SNHU
news/announcements. It is mandatory that students use this application to gain access to student
services, so I have gotten used to using it, regardless of its design and ease of use. I will be
taking an in-depth look at this application, based on HCI best practices. This will help me to not
only become better acquainted with all of the features, it will also enable me to recommend
specific changes for improving the application’s design and ease of use.
Design
A consistent color scheme is present when viewing the main page of the SNHU Student
Portal. Dark-blues highlight the headings of new sections within the page. This helps users to
more easily find information. Light-blues highlight the links within the scan columns, which are
present at both the far left and top right of the main page. As soon as a user finds that one lightblue object is a clickable link, they easily identify all the other menu items as such. The left and
right columns have equal widths, while the center column is 40% wider (20, 60, 20 from left to
right). The left and right offer links to personalized items (mail, academic, financial services),
while the center column shows current advisor and school announcements. Upon inspection, this
center area contains a blank element, leaving the “Messages from your Advisor” box placement
lower than it should be. Perhaps it is a placeholder for an upcoming feature? Overall the design
feels comfortable, although the color scheme feels a bit dated and the column lengths (left and
right) are uneven. The left column is much longer than the right.
Ease of Use
This application relies heavily, on user menu selection (which seems appropriate). There
is a small “search this site” box present, but it does not return desired results. For example, when
I type in “financial aid”, a “no results found…” message is returned on the following page. When
using the Firefox browser, I found that financial information links led to error pages. There was
no clear explanation or suggested alternative options. When switching to the Chrome browser,
these links worked fine.
When clicking on various links, menu items (along the top row and the left column)
remain in the same position on the following pages. This is in line with Ben Schneiderman’s
“The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design” in regards to consistency and reducing short-term
memory load. “Identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus…”(Shneiderman,
Plaisant 2010 70). This allows for user-friendly navigation throughout the site, regardless of the
page they are presently on.
Recommendations
The applications design works fairly well overall. One area that could use improvement,
is the consistency of column lengths. The main page feels heavily weighted on the left side. The
list of menu items is much longer than on the right side. Evening these menus out would provide
for better aesthetics and clarity of information.
On the homepage, the options within the “Academic” column do not match the options
presented within the “Academics” dropdown at the top of the page. Consistency could be
improved upon here.
When errors happen, the user no longer have an internal locus of control. Working on
support for various web browsers could alleviate this sense of lost control (Firefox).
References
Devaney, B. G. Southern New Hampshire University. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from
http://www.my.snhu.edu
Shneiderman, B., & Plaisant, C. (2010). Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective
human-computer interaction (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Higher Education.
Milestone One: Sections I and II
[Student Name] | IT340 Module 3
Introduction
With such a wide scale project, we first want to consider as many factors as possible in determining the
location of the new office. These things include the climate, crime rate, and state contractor,
construction, and labor laws.
Based on the factors outlined above, I believe Fayetteville, North Carolina is the most suitable location
for the office. This is because it has a steady and predictable climate, it has the safest crime index of the
available options. Furthermore, as a Republican state, North Carolina will have the least regulations on
construction and contracting laws. This gives us more flexibility when planning and executing the
project.
The requirements of this project are as follows:
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Newton is expanding and adding a new office in one of three locations:
o Tacoma, Washington
o Rochester, New York
o Fayetteville, North Carolina
Select a location to setup the new office.
Office to support at least 50 employees, network should be extensible to scale to more.
Live video teleconferencing calls with other company locations.
Send print jobs to the billboard printers located in the Austin, Texas location.
Some of the constraints identified thus far:
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All three cities had relatively high crime rates, this will impact the insurance of the building
greatly, and furthermore, the likelihood of the office being burglarized will be higher than in the
average US city. Perhaps additional security measures are necessary.
Being on the third floor of a building has its limitations, this will require longer cables and piping
to run them through up the walls.
The humidity of the location may require additional cooling considerations within the server
room, a dehumidifier may be required to maintain safe moisture levels in the server room.
LAN Topology
The possible LAN topologies that could be used are as follows:
Bus Topology
Connects all the nodes by using a trunk cable (a cable bundle containing duplicated cables). All messages
are sent to all the nodes on the network.
Strengths:
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Easy to expand.
Requires least cable length.
Milestone One: Sections I and II
[Student Name] | IT340 Module 3
Weaknesses:
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Entire network dependent on main cable.
Terminators must be installed at both ends of trunk cable.
Troubleshooting is most difficult.
Ring Topology
Connects all the nodes in a daisy-chained circular fashion. Each node connecting to another on each
side. Messages go a single direction around the ring, and each node acts as a repeater to send the
message to the subsequent node.
Strengths:
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Low chance of message collision.
Outperforms bus topology even when under stress.
Weaknesses:
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Slower than star topology.
Network dependent on all nodes being active.
Expensive hardware.
Mesh Topology
This topology is somewhat of a suitcase term to describe many different types of complex topologies
where each node could have any number of connections to any other node. The complexity of the mesh
networks varies, some have moderate amounts of path redundancy, while others have a complete point
to point connection between all nodes.
Strengths:
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High redundancy.
Point-to-point speed on transmissions.
Weaknesses:
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Difficult to maintain and scale.
Requires most cable length.
Most difficult to troubleshoot/configure.
Star Topology
Uses a hub, router, or switch to connect all nodes on the network to a central point.
Strengths:
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Allows for more control of data flow at the central point.
Flexible and scalable for growth.
Easiest to troubleshoot.
Milestone One: Sections I and II
[Student Name] | IT340 Module 3
Weaknesses:
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Requires more cable length.
Single point of failure.
More expensive.
Topology Selection
The Newton Fayetteville, North Carolina office will be utilizing a star topology. This will achieve optimal
support practices by utilizing a topology that is the easiest to manage, configure, maintain, and support.
If any individual node on the network fails, the network continues to function uninterrupted. This means
that the entire company can still perform their job functions even though another machines network
connectivity is lost.
Additionally, this topology will be the easiest to add new devices to. A mesh topology would require that
any new device be connected to all existing devices. With over 50 employees and potentially more, each
with multiple devices to connect to the network, the mesh topology does not seem feasible.
The ring topology is far too dependent on all the nodes on the network being active, this is not the ideal
topology for this scenario.
The bus topology would be too difficult to maintain and support. With such large trunk cables, it would
difficult to identify where cabling issues exist. This would not be an optimal support solution.
References
Sparrow, P. (n.d.). Ring Topology : Advantages and Disadvantages. Retrieved May 29, 2017, from
http://www.ianswer4u.com/2011/05/ring-topology-advantages-and.html
NeighborhoodScout. (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2017, from
Winkelman, R. (n.d.). Topology Retrieved May 29, 2017, from
https://fcit.usf.edu/network/chap5/chap5.htm
…
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