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AGENT-ORIENTED INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN 105
Figure 7.4 Refined Actor Diagram for Media Shop

Usability
Internet Telecom
Services Cpy
Browse
Catalogue

Keyword
Search Find User
Medi@ Process New Needs
On-line
Money
Transactions
Place Order
Customer
Bank Cpy
Security
Accounting
Process Communication
Maintainability Internet Services
Orders
Continuing
Buy Media Business
Items
Media Shop
Media
Supplier
Increase
Market Share Media Items

Happy
Customers

Select Item, Add Item, Check Out, and Get Identification Detail. These are the main process ac-
tivities required to design an operational online shopping cart (Conallen, 1999). The latter task
is achieved either through subgoal Classic Communication Handled, dealing with phone and fax
orders, or Internet Handled, managing secure or standard form orderings. To allow for the order-
ing of new items not listed in the catalogue, Select Item is also further refined into two alternative
subtasks, one dedicated to the selection of catalogued items, the other to backordering unavailable
products. To provide sufficient support (++) to the Adaptable softgoal, Adaptation is refined into
four subtasks dealing with catalogue updates, system evolution, interface updates, and system
monitoring. The goal Item Searching Handled might alternatively be fulfilled through the tasks
Database Querying or Catalogue Consulting with respect to customers’ navigating desiderata,
that is, searching with particular items in mind by using search functions or simply browsing the
catalogued products.
In addition, as already pointed out, Figure 7.5 introduces softgoal contributions to model sufficient/
partial positive (respectively ++ and +) or sufficient/partial negative (respectively – – and –) support
to softgoals Secure, Available, Adaptable, Attract New Customers, and Increase Market Share.
The result of this means–ends analysis is a set of (system and human) actors who are dependees
for some of the dependencies that have been postulated.