nus-pe-bot
commented
3 years ago Team's Response
Thank you for your feedback. We rejected this bug report as we believe the current functionality is inadequate.
When a new user uses the application and enters a "delete" command and the response is that it is an "Unknown command", the user is immediately aware that the input he entered is unknown. If he requires more information about these commands, the command formats are provided clearly and in an easy to understand manner with the "help" button on the menu bar, or the "help" command. As shown in the screenshot below.
In addition, upon startup, the app prompts the user to use the help command if help is needed, so users would already be aware of the help command.
Furthermore, in the case that the user truly does not understand the command syntax provided via the help command, the user is provided the user guide, where he/she can access all available commands in CoLAB. Link to the user guide can also be found in the help panel.
In addition, it is not feasible to provide error messages for all combinations of "Unknown commands". For example, the same could be said for inputs such as "del" or "d" or "deleteTodo" or "remove" or "takeout" or "delete todo 1 from project 1". Moreover, this extends to all sorts of commands such as "addTodo" where "+" or "include" may also refer to an "addT" command.
Finally, if the user provides an input of "delete" command, it is not in our means to predict which command (whether it is "deleteT", "deleteC", "deleteD", "deleteE", 'deleteG", "deleteP") he actually meant to execute and provide the relevant command syntax for it. If we to provide syntax for all possible commands, the command box will become very messy as we will have to show a total of 6 commands and their syntax. This is not sustainable as the issue will only continue to worsen as we add more commands to CoLAB in the future.
In all aforementioned cases, the invalid operation had been prevented in a graceful manner, and the user is able to access the help menu to find out more on the information he needs.
For the aforementioned reasons, we have rejected the bug and placed it as very low severity.
Items for the Tester to Verify
:question: Issue response
Team chose [response.Rejected]
- [x] I disagree
Reason for disagreement: Thank you for your response. I would like to disagree with the decision of rejecting this issue. It is possible for the user to find out the proper command and its syntax from the UG and the help command. However, this is not always ideal. This application contains an extremely large number of commands, which makes the application much more complex, especially to newer users.
As a new user, such errors would be made at a very high frequency, due to the unfamiliarity of the application. This is something that I personally experienced numerous times when testing the application. I expected the error message to point me in the right direction, so that I can continue by using the right command word. However, the error message was very generic. As a result, I had to go back to the UG each time I made such a mistake. As the UG is also very long, due to the size of the application, this greatly slowed down my efficiency in testing and finding bugs. Similarly, when a user makes such errors, they would also have to go back to the UG/help command to be able to correct the errors that they may have made, which may cause great inconvenience and frustration to the user. This may also lead to a possibility where the user decides to stop using the application altogether, which would be bad for the application.
To address this issue, the error messages should be more helpful. While it is not possible to detect all types of errors, such as “del” or “d” or “deleteTodo” or “remove” or “takeout” or “delete todo 1 from project 1” , as mentioned by you, the most common error that would be made, would be to simply type 'delete' without the final capitalized letter. This is due to the fact that there are so many delete commands, and all of it contains 'delete' in them. An example would be ‘deleteP’ , ‘deleteD’ , ‘deleteT’, etc. As error messages guide the user to the correct command, there should be an error message when the user types 'delete'. It simply needs to state all the variations of delete command available without providing the full syntax, as once the user types the command word successfully, even if the parameters are incorrect, a descriptive error message specific to the command will be displayed to the user. This will then guide the user to the correct command, without the need to constantly refer to the UG/help command every time they make an error.
The UG/help command should be used when the user is unaware of the commands available to him/her, to inform them about the possible actions they can perform. This will probably occur only a few times, when the user is first using the application. If they are already aware of the actions they can perform, it would be better if they were guided by descriptive error messages instead. Otherwise, the user's productivity will also be severely affected due to being slowed down by the constant need to refer to the UG/help command.
:question: Issue severity
Team chose [severity.VeryLow]
Originally [severity.Medium]
- [x] I disagree
Reason for disagreement: I would also like to disagree with the downgrading of the severity from MEDIUM to VERY LOW, which was likely done by the team as they decided to reject the bug.
The following snapshot explains the VERY LOW, LOW and MEDIUM severity:
It is clearly evident that this particular issue is not purely cosmetic, and hence, VERY LOW is not a suitable severity level for this issue. This issue is something that can occur frequently, especially for new users. The issue also affects the newer users by slowing them down due to unfamiliarity with the application. Hence, this will result in an OCCASIONAL INCONVENIENCE to SOME USERS(newer users).
Therefore, the most suitable severity level for this particular issue would be a MEDIUM severity, as originally stated by me.
Many commands in the app have very similar command words. One such example is 'deleteP' , 'deleteD' , 'deleteT' , etc. which are very similar. While the command words used for each fuctionality makes sense as they are all delete functions, which delete either a project, deadline or todo, it would be common for a new user of the application to simply type 'delete' and forget or be unsure to put the final capital letter. When this occurs, there should be an error message(first pic) informing the user of the various delete functions available, to help the user type the correct command word. After the user follows the error message and types the command word correctly, even if they type out the full command wrongly, there are existing error messages(second pic) that guide the user to get the correct command.
Lack of error message that guides the user to get the correct command word:
Descriptive error message that guides the user to type out their command correctly: