February 15, 1996

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Introduction

We at hotel Computer Science would like to thank ACME Design Solutions for their efforts in proposing a reasonable interface for our hotel booking system. However, we would like to have further clarification of our requirements in response to our supplier's Overall Design Document submitted on February 12, 1996.

We like the description of the interface, but we need some screen visuals to get a clearer idea of the appearance and flow of the system. In particular the food services division has stressed that they need a neat, easy to understand interface. One area that we can already see might need some work is consistency in that some actions that seem to be the same, for example deletions, are performed using different numbers of mouse clicks in different parts of the system. We would like, as far as possible, to use the same mouse action to perform the same function anywhere in the system. Also, we stress again that we want the interface modeled after the paper forms we are currently using. We also need information about how the system will handle errors and bad input. What will happen if we enter incorrect, invalid or incomplete information?

Front Desk

We like the way the system will require an appropriate room to be found before any further steps will be taken in making a reservation. However, we also want this room search to be a stand-alone feature, so that an employee can search for a room without having to make a hypothetical reservation. We also need more specific information on how the system will handle partial payments, deposits, and group bookings. We specified that group bookings should be able to be handled as a single entity, so that reservations, payments, and other transactions can be made for an entire group in a single operation.

Administration

We were satisfied with the Report Generation, Room Designation, Edit Room Service, and Tax Update screens. We would like some clarification as to how one would go about updating employee information, though. How do we change information shown in the Update Employee Information screen?

Food Services

First, a clarification, what happened to the delivery part of the system will the bill have a delivery persons name assigned to it as described before or will the first available delivery person just deliver it (as we wish it to be)? We like the feature that the There is only one screen to take care of all the functionality of the kitchen screen. This makes it a lot easier for the user because they don't have to go through pull-down menus, pop-up menus, etc to get to the functions they wanted. We also like the idea that an item can be removed by clicking it once.

Also, why not make this a feature of the select item menu as well (single click instead of double click)? This would further simplify the user-interface.

Summary

We are generally pleased with the development of the system but we have the following concerns:
• we would like to see some screen shots;
• we would like more consistent use of mouse commands throughout the system;
• we would like the interface modeled on our current forms.

We would also like further clarification and refinement of the following areas:

• group reservations;
• partial payments and deposits;
• update employee information;
• room service order delivery.