3. Case Study : 3W Marketing

Their client have already established public-access terminals for replying to common predetermined queries. The operation disseminates data from the centre to the terminals, and there was no requirement or functionality for data to follow in the other direction, i.e., from the terminals to the operations centre.

In line with a policy to make the final product more sympathetic and responsive to public need, the company wanted to experiment with handling feedback in the form of a series of surveys, whose results were to be made available to managers and executives. Since the terminals were already in place then as much existing technology as possible was to be utilised.

Datamotive tackled this by:

designing a flexible prototype system whose core is the survey management database, which has variable question wordings, the facility for recording qualitative replies and allows web connection for both replies and reporting.

designing a database sited at each kiosk to accommodate the collection mechanism

arranging for kiosk replies to be regularly mailed to the centre using a dial-up connection if necessary

updating a central database with the replies

confirming reply receipt by mailing the kiosks

The result was a working protoype whose components were composed of well-tried, reliable products, with licensing and associated cost kept to a minimum, The model can be examined and rearranged at will during the evaluation process, and features added, removed, revised or enhanced at low risk and low cost.