Skill Test: Model of a Book Store

In a previous post, I discussed the use of fictitious situations to use as a discussion platform to "test drive" the skills and thought processes of a potential candidate during an interview. The example below details the aspects of a Book Store.

• Discussion Topic:  Book Store
• Context:
• RareBooks.com specializes in rare books. They cater to the amateur and old book collector enthusiasts. They are in need of a system that allows them to collect, update and show their current collection of books. Books are cataloged by the standard library cataloging system. For each book they have they need to track the book's title, author, year of publication and how rare the book is (one-of-a-kind, scarce, common). The system should also be able to tell which rack and bin the book is stored in the vault and how was the book acquired (drop-by donation, antique store purchase, well known benefactor donation) and which community / town was the origin of the book. The system should also help manage the semi-annual book donation drive in three of the surrounding communities. The system should also provide the ability for other similar shops to perform searches on the collection of books held at this location. Since this is the largest such rare book library in the country, they get to decide the interface by which other rare-book libraries get to perform searches in the catalog
• Feel free to edit this to your needs and set up aspects of the problem to cater for the type of skill you are looking for
• What to ask the candidate
• System Analysis and Design Track
• please construct a Use Case diagram of a system that would support the requirements of RareBooks.com
• please construct a UML conceptual model diagram that shows all the aspects of the house in the "context" portion above.
• please construct a UML class diagram that represents the home described above
• please construct a UML system sequence diagram that shows the interactions of other rare-book libraries as they search RareBooks.com's collection of books
• Data Modeling Track
• please, construct an entity relationship diagram (ERD) that can be used to represent the system requirements described above
• What to look for in your candidate's answers:
• You can choose which area you would like the candidate to elaborate more on (i.e. CRUD capabilities, external party service interface, a mobile implementation of this system)
• assuming that you know UML, compare and contrast what the candidate came up with and what you would have come up with
• pay extra attention to the assumptions that the candidate made. If they do not mention any assumptions, please, simply ask them: What assumptions did you make as you were thinking about this problem?
• Use this opportunity to ask questions and experiment / explore what it would be like to work with this individual