May/June - Vol 69, No 8 - International Technology and Engineering ...

The Design
So now your students have a grasp of the problem and what
customers might be expecting. It would appear that the
design phase is next . . . but hold on a minute there . . .
because there might just be someone else your students
should talk to. Yes, that’s right, the people who own and
operate the grocery store. You wouldn’t want to design or
specify a system to support the senior citizens’ needs if it
could not be done economically by the grocery store. This
system must be workable and practical.
Students’ first potential solutions will probably involve the use of
email.
Since the marketplace rules in a capitalist society, the
students are going to benefit enormously from actually
talking to some Baby Boomers or current seniors to get an
idea of what sort of system could be developed. Seniors can
be family members, neighbors, or friends; but it is important
for the students to conduct personal interviews—so very
like what happens in the real world.
Once these real interviews are conducted, the students and/
or student teams should meet to discuss among themselves
what they heard and learned about what their customers
would like from such a system. A very helpful device used by
many engineers and product developers is a flow diagram—
used to illustrate how the potential new product or service
will work. This diagram will illustrate in step-wise fashion
how a senior would contact the store and get the entire
process of order fulfillment underway. Judging from the
range of computer literacy among seniors, it may be that
the communication mode may have to be multimodal to
accommodate a variety of inputs.
It may be wise to provide your students with a little history
lesson and explain that about sixty or eighty years ago,
folks routinely telephoned their orders in to local grocery
stores, and delivery boys on bicycles were employed to
deliver groceries to customers, especially in small suburban
and rural towns. Local merchants knew the products their
customers desired and kept track of their purchases. In a
way, this design challenge harks back to those times, with
perhaps a chance to make it high tech.
Perhaps a manager from a grocery store could be invited in to talk
to the class.
Perhaps a manager from a grocery store could be invited
in to talk to the class about how such large stores are now
operated and how they might be modified to accommodate
senior citizens who communicate from home. Perhaps they
already have been thinking about this, or have a simple
system already in place that could be built upon? Here are
some of the questions that your students might consider.
It is not a complete list of questions, but a list that can get
them aimed in the right direction.
• In what ways can a senior communicate with your store
. . . telephone, letter, email, Internet shopping, other?
• Which method of communication is preferred and
why?
• What might a service like this cost the senior citizen?
• Does cost for the service depend upon the form of
communication with the store, size of the order, and
distance to customer?
• Would customers like to have their orders remembered
for automatic fulfillment every week or so?
• Might discounts be offered if orders are centralized to,
say, senior citizen housing centers?
18 • The Technology Teacher • May/June 2010