prototype – a small-scale, incomplete, but working sample of a desired system.
•Accelerated systems analysis approaches
–Discovery Prototyping
–Rapid Architected Analysis
Discovery prototyping – a technique used to identify the users’ business requirements by having them react to a quick-and-dirty implementation of those requirements.
–Advantages
•Prototypes cater to the “I’ll know what I want when I see it” way of thinking that is characteristic of many users and managers.
–Disadvantages
•Can become preoccupied with final “look and feel” prematurely
•Can encourage a premature focus on, and commitment to, design
•Users can be misled to believe that the completed system can be built rapidly using prototyping tools
Rapid architected analysis – an approach that attempts to derive system models (as described earlier in this section) from existing systems or discovery prototypes.
•Reverse engineering – the use of technology that reads the program code for an existing database, application program, and/or user interface and automatically generates the equivalent system model.
