Purpose
To assist the Paragent software company in the refining and further development of their pre-release software by conducting beta-testing and usability testing, and by building an online bug-reporting system.

Action
The team worked with Paragent, LLC, a Muncie-based start-up software development company.  The team conducted an analysis of online help centers used by competitors and developed a Web-based bug-reporting site with a supporting database, allowing users to report potential software problems and programmers to review and repair the problems.  The team then performed beta-testing on multiple pre-release versions of the software currently under development and reported the findings to the programmers.

Results

• Developed a functional analysis report of competitors' help-desk Web sites and presented the results to Paragent
• Developed a feasibility analysis report for a Web-based customer support system and presented the results to Paragent
• Built a bug-reporting Web site with a database and installed it on Paragent's Web server
• Conducted beta-testing on software currently under development and reported bugs to the programmers
• Conducted usability testing on pre-release software and made suggestions to the programmers for additional software features
• Produced a video summarizing the team's experiences

Faculty Mentor
Dr. Fred Kitchens, Department of Information Systems and Operations Management

Partner
Paragent, LLC

Students
Josh McGuire, Sam Ruf, Nick Riedman, Martin Ryder, Seth Lemons, Todd Chaffins, John Durkovich, Dustin Veteto, Pete Mathias