slightly OT: preventing user stupidity

[Nancy Palmquist]

GCC Consulting wrote:

>  
> 
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com 
>>[mailto:filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com] On Behalf 
>>Of Joe Chasan
>>Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 12:09 PM
>>To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
>>Subject: slightly OT: preventing user stupidity
>>
>>meaningless rant of the day:  how far do you go to prevent 
>>user stupidity?
>>
>>program:  Q.  Do you wish to post now? (Y/N)
>>user: Y
>>
>>program: Q. Are you SURE you wish to post? (Y/N)
>>user: Y
>>
>>program:  Q. Are you REALLY REALLY REALLY SURE you want to 
>>post now? (Y/N)
>>user: Y
>>
>>user:  SH*T.  i didn't want to post.  time to call the 
>>consultant to drop everything and unpost the 63 places that 
>>get affected by my careless posting of data that was 
>>certainly not my fault that was posted in error.
>>
>>
>>what to do?  obviously, the more questions you ask the more the user
>>just answers by rote without thinking.  its not always appropriate or
>>helpful to the end-user to have a corresponding unpost/undo routine.
>>
>>i've thought of;
>>a) mixing up yes/no answers so that they can't press "yes" 
>>all the time
>>
>>(e.g. do you want to post? / enter Y to cancel post, N otherwise...)
>>
>>b) forcing type out of word "Yes" or "Agree" instead of Y or N
>>
>>c) creating a random character sequence each time and ask user to
>>type in to confirm post.
>>
>>draconion?  what have other people tried that would not make them the
>>one least likeley to be invited to christmas party?
>>
>>--- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
> 
> 
> How about a client who decides to do a year end roll over procedure mid year?
> 
> Had this years ago.  Loads of fun undoing the mess but profitable.
> 
> To keep them from doing this by accident again, I pass worded the menu, the
> output also.
> 
> So, they had to enter 2 passwords and the confirm twice that they wanted to do
> this, after reading what was about happen.
> 
> So, at the end of the year, they called me.  THEY FORGOT THE PASSWORDS.  That
> was easy, it was one of the partners child's name.
> 

You can not protect the user from all the stupidity.  But my solution to 
yearend or monthend stuff is to check the date and require the date to 
be near the correct point in time.  After Jan 1, a message pops up to 
remind them the yearend process must be done.  When they run the year 
end, it checks the date and it must be in the year following the last 
time it was run.  All saftey checks.

I used to have an idiot that would print checks for payables and select 
the wrong dates, he would pay too much stuff, so I added date checks to 
make sure everything was so many days old, and that the date he typed to 
be the check date was within 7 days of the computer date.

And on those questions where they just fly by and don't pay attention, I 
make the answer an unusual keyboard key, instead of Y/N.  On deletes or 
dangerous stuff, I make they answer with a ! so they have to think about 
it.

I will normally word a question so that N or ENTER will mean OK 
continue, but I always word purge or delete questions the other way 
around, where they must type a Y to make the function continue, and 
ENTER will cancel.

Also a good point would be to make the answer a YES NO edit or at least 
limited to a few characters.  Especially if the data entry is usually 
numeric.  Had a customer lean on the keyboard key 9 and posted so many 
payments, it overflowed the fields.  By adding a yes/no question after 
each posting, with a test for is $999,999.99 really an acceptable 
payment? it never happened again.

Just my own two cents of suggestions.

Nancy


-- 
Nancy Palmquist 		MOS & filePro Training Available
Virtual Software Systems	Web Based Training and Consulting	
PHONE: (412) 835-9417		   Web site:  http://www.vss3.com