Business Forms Salesman Project

Comments by section

Main Window

• The names for the buttons on the main screen do not match those of the descriptions. The names of the buttons in the text descriptions are much more clear. These should be put on the buttons for clarity.

Order Information

• Entry Field: Next Order Date- this was not shown on the interface, is it still there?
• When the user places a new order for the customer a default order appears on the screen. How does this order appear on the screen? It is not specified whether the user has to first search for the customer then use the "New Order" button. Clarification might include a list of steps such as:

  i) search for desired customer
  ii) select "New Order" button

• Clarification of the "View Product List" button. It is unclear if this function allows the user to select more than one product from the displayed list at one time. We interpret the description as saying that only one product can be added at a time, requiring that the user perform multiple button clicks to add multiple products. Is this the case? if so perhaps multiple selection could be added?
• The special "discount" field, pertaining to preferred customers, should not be editable by the user. This discount rate should be set by the administrator for security reasons, thus preventing the user from modifying the discount rate. A preferred customer should be determined by the administrator, not the user. In general, any field that involves accounting ($$) should not be editable by the user. This should be the administrator's responsibility.

Customer Information

• From the customer information window, what happens when you try to add an existing customer (i.e. same name, address etc?). From our understanding of the document, it would be added as a new customer since the system takes care if ID numbers sequentially. This should not be the case.
• From the customer information window, what happens when a user tries to delete a non-existent customer? Does the system first search for the customer and then delete it?
• Customer Information Print Box:
  -Print Customer Information
  -Print Customer Recent Order
  -Both of the Above

  You showed us 2 sample printouts, one for Customer information and another for Customer Order History. Is the "Customer Order History" similar to the option "Print Customer Recent Order"? In Order Information, there is another Print option, it seems to be printing the Customer Recent Order too.

• Clarification of the "undo" function selected from the menu is needed. It is not clear to a user what the difference between cancel and undo is. Also if undo undoes all changes since the last save, what is the point? Cancel would have essentially the same function. "Undo last action" would be much more useful.

Product list

• The document says that you can only add product to a list only if you view "Product List Window" from the "Order Window". If you selected "Product List Window" from the main window, then double clicking would do nothing (as opposed to ordering). We feel there should be a message to indicate that no ordering is allowed so the user is not confused. Simply greying out one button without any textual explanation might not be enough.
• Can the user order more than one item at a time from the order window? Also, confirmation that the product was added to the order would be nice.
• Please explain functions of those "arrows" in the center of the Product Filter to the user.
• When adding a new product to a customer order, if the user double clicks on a product that is already on the order nothing happens. To help the user, one of two things should happen:

  i) A message should appear on the screen notifying the user that the desired product selection is already included in the customer order, thus providing feedback and eliminating possible confusion
  ii) Have the products that are already part of the customer order stand out from those products that are not. For example when the user wants to add a product, any products which are currently on the customer order should be highlighting or marked by a "selected" field so as to inform the user that the product is already included.

Route List

• The "Print Box" should allow the user to reenter the print box when an invalid selection was made. Currently if no selection is made and the OK button is pressed the print box is closed. To correct this , an error message should be displayed notifying the user that that no selection was made and allow the user to try again. The only way to exit the print box should be by the OK or CANCEL buttons. This will allow for user error and reduce the time required to make a change.
• In the Route List Display Area the column headings include Active, Order ID, Company Name, and Order Type. It might be helpful to also include the "sector number" or "name" in which the company is located.
• We should be able to remove manually a customer from the router list and manually add others to it. In the document it appears we only have the option of deleting or adding customers that are already on the router list. It would be more useful to be able to add stops not already on the list.
• When the route list is displayed to the screen we don't see any way of viewing the comments except for clicking the edit customer button. We suppose this will be O.K. if you can get back to the route display. It might be reasonable to have a button that simply displays the comments about that customer for quick reference.

General comments

• The Search window: The search window closes even if a product is not found, we believe it should remain open and inform the user that the product was not found, thus giving the user the opportunity to continue the search immediately. The same goes for the filter window, no matches found then return to the product window. We feel there should at least be a message and the opportunity to filter again.
• The filtering of products in the product display window is very nice.
• In the case of the product window and order window; "if they double click on one of the products, that product will be added to the current order." It would be beneficial if a dialogue box asked the user if they were sure they wanted to add a particular product to an order in case a particular product was selected by mistake.
• The "Delete" button should provide a safeguard against accidental deletion in all cases. This is a little unclear in some sections.