1. Imagine that you are to design a budget report for a colleague at work using a spreadsheet package. Following the prototyping discussed in the chapter (see also Figure 6-7), describe the steps you would take to design a prototype of this report.
2. Consider a system that produces budget reports for your department at work. Alternatively, consider a registration system that produces enrollment reports for a department at a university. For whichever system you choose, answer the following design questions. Who will use the output? What is the purpose of the output? When is the output needed and when is the information that will be used within the output available? Where does the output need to be delivered? How many people need to view the output?
3. Imagine the worst possible reports from a system. What could be wrong with them? List as many potential problems as you can. What are the consequences of having such bad reports? What could go wrong as a result? How does the prototyping process help guard against each problem, if at all?
4. Imagine an output display form for a hotel registration system. Using a software package for drawing such as MS Visio, follow the design suggestions in Chapter 11 and design this form entirely in black and white. Save the file and then, following the color design suggestions in this chapter, redesign the form using color. Based on this exercise, discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of each output form.
5. Consider reports you might receive at work (e.g., budgets or inventory reports) or at a university (e.g., grade reports or transcripts.) Evaluate the usability of these reports in terms of speed, accuracy, and satisfaction. What could be done to improve the usability of these outputs?
6. List the PC-based software packages you like to use. Describe each package in terms of the following usability characteristics: time to learn, speed of performance, rate of errors by users, retention over time, and subjective satisfaction. Which of these characteristics has made you want to continue to use these packages?
7. Review the guidelines for attaining usability of forms and reports in Table 10-9 in our textbook (“General Design Guidelines for Usability of Forms and Reports.”) Consider an online form you might use to register a guest at a hotel (if possible, include a screen shot with your answer -- to do so, push Alt-PrtScrn when showing the desired web page and then do a Copy-Paste in MS Word.) For each usability factor, list two examples of how this form could be designed to achieve that dimension of usability. Use examples other than those mentioned in Table 10-9.
8. How can differences in user, task, system, or the environment influence the design of a form or report? Provide an example that contrasts characteristics for each difference.