User Manual Design Comment

CPSC 451 Customer Group 6
Flin Flon Airlines

We at Flin Flon Airlines were pleased to read the User Manual document for the ATICS project. While many of our concerns were met we feel it is necessary to clarify a few points with you before we go ahead with the system.

Choosing a seat:
We understand here that every seat is associated with a class. That means every seat, depending on its given number is in a certain class. We also understand that the only means to select a class is through seat selection. That makes the Radio buttons for the classes not modifiable and they are only for display purposes. Does this mean we can not go to the radio button and select a class? Does it also mean that we have to click through seats to find our class?

Database updates:

To do updates to our information in the database we noticed the following:

Booking a new seat to a specific flight you do:

You Press the NEW button

You enter the specific information

Then you press the ADD button

To modify an existing booking:

You select the specific booking to modify.

you press the MODIFY button

You Edit the changes

Then you press the MODIFY button again.

As users we find that this inconsistent approach is a source to a lot of confusion. We Want a SAVE and CANCEL button to be used whenever appropriate. we think it is easier to approach the above tasks as follows:

Booking a new seat to a specific flight:

Press the NEW button

you enter the specific information

...then you press the SAVE button to save or the CANCEL button to bail out.

To modify an existing booking:

You select the booking to modify.

you press the MODIFY button

Edit your changes

...then you press the SAVE button to save updated information or press the CANCEL button to bail out.

We have a feeling that each button on the screen does more than one thing each time depending on the situation and which screen you happen to be in! and the only consistent buttons are the HELP and QUIT buttons and you did not mension anything about them in the user manual.

We want a consitent use of the SAVE and CANCEL buttons as you did with the HELP and QUIT ones.

Seating Information: In the example about seats layout you have the following:

" - enter the the aisle columns sample Input: A,F [Error!] Make sure there are an odd number of aisles"

Does this mean your sample input is wrong? Or you want to specifically test for an error? Also as we understand it, by assigning arbitrary letters to each column we are creating, we end up with a potential row of any combination of letters. We need a consistent way to always assign letters in order, let us say from left to right as follows:

Window--> AB CDE FG <--Window

Also it would be nice if we could mark certain seats as unusable. This way we could simulate better the real plane seating plan.

Supervisor functions:
As we understnad it, a person logged in as supervisor can not access the booking agent functions. So in order for the supervisor to perform a booking agent function has to do the following:

He has to log in as supervisor

create a new booking agent

logout as supervisor

perform a specific task

logout again as an agent

than login as a supervisor. If that is the case, we think this is very occurd situation for a supervisor if for any reason he has to perform some booking agent functions. Please explain if that is the case.

Screen Abbreviations: We found that you included some abbreviations on your screen. Please try to avoid that as they are a source of confusion.

Refund Percentage:
At one point in the document you specified a 10% refund policy for over-booked passenger then you specified a 15% refund policy. Please specify which percentage you are using in the system and if it consistent throughout.

Issuing Refunds:
In the case of overbooking in a specific class, We specificaly wanted to assign overbooked people in one class to a higher class seat few minutes before flight takes off (If seat is available). To refund passengers overbooked for a specific class while other class seats are available is unacceptable. In your document you did not address that issue. You only stated that a refund is booked if plane is full. Please explain if your system handles such cases.

Error message:

"[Error!] make sure the ticket number should be exactly six digit long."

Does this means to query a ticket by number a user must enter exactly the 6 digits? Can it be, if one person enters a 1 that it is padded with 0's? Or a certain Query screen with all number started with 1 is displayed to choose from?

Flin Flon Airlines