Re: Are you as polite and diplomatic as COBOL?...

In article <1114714963.943680.313040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Kellie Fitton <KELLIEFITTON@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Hello EveryOne,
>
>I am plopping a dialogBox on the screen for the endUser's data
>entry processing --- however, if he or she enters the wrong
>informations, or perhaps some illegal characters into the
>editControl box for example, then I would like to bring their
>attention to that fact and process some kind of alert message
>appropriately, until the dialogBox captures all the Correct data.
>
>However, I would like to handle this situation as diplomatically
>and politely as possible, and without annoying or embarrassing
>the endUser, especially if I want my softWare to be userFriendly.

Ow OW OW Ow ow ow ow ow... you do realise that folks write books about
such things, don't you? What is considered 'friendly' correction can vary
from organisation to organisation, from department to department, from
manager to manager, from worker to worker... and from one's self to one's
self, depending on the day and the time and the quality of one's last meal
and the phase of the moon.

I recall reading, someplace, that back when Microsoft was trying to
introduce it's first spread*** in Tokyo the folks in Redmond had to
rewrite chunks of code because of beeping... seems that in the USA a
*ping* to get the user's attention was considered *far* too rude in a
culture where mistakes are Just Not Made.

[snip]

>I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and comments.

I realise you did not ask for suggestions... but mine are:

1) Find out what the person who signs your time*** likes and supply
that.

2) Find out what they already are doing and imitate that.

3) Do something you consider 'better' but be ready to be shot down for
what you can see as 'no reason at all'.

My memory is, admittedly, porous but I seem to recall that something about
this was discussed a while back... gotta love that Google, I guess.

>From
<http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?selm=bfsds2%24nf7%241%40panix1.panix.com&output=gplain>

--begin quoted text:

I've worked in shops where one error at a time is tossed back but all
fields are checked... in reverse order, of course, so that the last Length
field to which one moves -1 is the one to which the cursor is positioned.
I've worked in shops where all errors (up to however many can be explained
in the ERRMSG line(s)) are highlighted... then there was one place where I
was putting together a screen and I asked the user how he wanted the
errors to be handled; 'Make 'em all obvious', he said, 'and don't bother
me for more, I'm a Big Picture Man.'

Came time to test... and he got to watch over the shoulder of the
data-entry girl (they were called 'girls' back then) as she keyed in the
date, hit Enter... and saw every field in error thrown back in hilighted,
inverse, blinking video. Her response was a look of horror and the onset
of tears, his response was 'What kind of crap it this?', my reply was
'Well, they sure are obvious, aren't they?'

--end quoted text

DD

.