Mgmt 340 - Week 5 Problems and Exercises

Chapter 8 – Problems and Exercises

3. Imagine the worst possible reports from a system. What is wrong with them? List as many problems as you can; what are the consequences of such reports? What could go wrong as a result? How does the prototyping process help guard against each problem?

The worst possible reports:

• Contain too much useless or unnecessary information

• Lacks sufficient useful or outdated information

• The layout is complex and the flow is difficult to follow

• Information is jumbled and not easy to read

• Columns and rows do not have labels

• Data isn’t categorized or sorted in meaningful order

The consequences of such reports are that the end user is not able to follow and understand or obtain what is needed from the report making it un-usable.

As a result of an unusable report, the needs of the business can’t be met.

The prototyping process can help by:

• Detecting errors much earlier

• User feedback is available before the report is written

• Missing or difficult functions can be identified

• The user has the option to accept or request changes

4. Given the guidelines presented in this chapter, identify flaws in the design of the Report of Employees shown below. What assumptions about users and tasks did you make in order to assess this design? Redesign this report to correct these flaws.

The flaws with this particular report are:

• Ambiguous Title - The title doesn’t reflect the name of the company or the reason for the report.

• Lack of information – specific employee divisions/departments are not specified

• Confusing date format and location - No way to identify if the number shown is the current date; No way to determine when the form or report was generated

• No revision date or code to distinguish this report from prior versions

• Data isn’t categorized or sorted in an easy to follow manner

Report of Employees

Employee ID Name Title

2342456 Chang, Jennifer Systems Analyst

4446789 Eager, Kim HR...