The Hotel Computer ScienceTM Comments to Booking System User Manual of Acme Design Solutions Tuesday March 19, 1996

Hotel CPSC Homepage
ACME Design Solutions Homepage
Booking System User Manual

Introduction

One note about this document, we had our team members do imaginary runthroughs. We believe that if any of these people found a screen confusing it was worth mentioning even if other team members did not have similar difficulties. After all if these people, who were involved in the design process, had problems it is reasonable to assume that our staff would have similar problems.

General comments:

The illustrations in the user manual are helpful however our staff find some of the written explanations difficult to understand. At times the instructions are not detailed enough. One possible reason for this appears to be that a reader of this user manual is assumed to have read the detailed design document. It is also difficult to determine the relationships between the screens. We would like to have had some description of how events flow within the system. We would also like to see some description of what screens get used in what situations.

It would also have been helpful for our review of the manual if the index was functional. Although it provided an alphabetical list of system features, it failed to indicate where these features appeared in the document. In a hardcopy manual, page numbers are expected in an index, and for electronic media, links to the appropriate sections would have been appreciated.

Evaluation by Front Desk\Management Team:

• Check out screen, employee record screen and security access features all well executed.
• Message screen and check in/out information for housekeeping both well done and eye catching. The design team did a great job here.
• Room search also well done but what does the bar graph mean?
• For check in screen - sequence of events is unclear:
  • What about checking in a person who doesn't have a reservation?
  • Can a room search be done easily from this window?
  • What about all the personal information that doesn't seem to appear on this screen (such as address and such)?
  • It appears that to check a guest in, a reservation has to exist for that guest - what about walk in customers?
• Available/occupied/reserved rooms report is a little unclear - some explanation as to the purpose of this screen would be nice (We didn't ask for this -- what does it do?)
• Some apparent errors in the User Manual:
  • Please note that mailing address seems to have been omitted from the check in screen.
  • Revenue report screen - screen shot was not readable.
• In sample interaction for check in screen, in list of rooms, you have guest names. Could you include room numbers in this display?
• In general, the sequence of events is not well defined - individual screens are fairly well described but the actual sequence of events that the staff would have to follow is not clear. For example,
  • Do they have to do a room search before using the check in screen?
  • Do they have to place a reservation before they use the check in screen?

Evaluation by Room Service Team

• The user interface for editing the room service menu is simple and easy to understand. Do we need to acquire the software "Microsoft Access" in order to use the room service menu?
• Processing a room service order has, in general, been dealt with effectively. We do have some concerns about the flexibility of the system in dealing with real world situations and with how the system deals with mistakes. Some examples of where these concerns might arise are respectively:
  1. Does one have to press print before another item can be added?
  2. What happens if an item is printed but a mistake has been made?