nus-pe-bot
commented
2 years ago Team's Response
The JSON data is not intended to be directly changed by users. While we invite advanced users to modify the data directly, this is not the intended usage and we do not recommend users to do so. If the user does not read the User Guide, there is no other way for us to inform the user. This would be out of the developers hands because warnings have already been stated in the User Guide.
Items for the Tester to Verify
:question: Issue response
Team chose [response.Rejected]
- [x] I disagree
Reason for disagreement: You have indicated that "The JSON data is not intended to be directly changed by users." and that you do "not recommend" users to use this feature. However, the UG does clearly give users a clear picture into it and welcome users to try it out if they are 'advanced'. While I don't doubt you could have mitigated this with UG additions, even so, I do believe this is a necessary and expected feature for advanced users given that an open source .json file extension was used and provided to the user with easy access.
With an expected and common use case like this, I would expect as the user to be able to see the impact of my action. While I would have accepted an "out of scope" response if you responded with how difficult it was to implement (perhaps the structure of the application does not make this a trivial addition), a rejection is not warranted as this is clearly something that is not just of great benefit, but likely expected even by users.
Should have an error message on app start if data invalid.
On editing the file, as per UG (e.g., adding spaces in the phone number to like "6555 5555"):
User may make edits that result in an error and result in this expected behaviour:
However this is insufficient for the user as there is no indication that the user had caused it with an invalid file. Many users will not read the UG from start to end and may have edited the file of their own accord without noting this blank start behaviour in UG. This could have been VeryLow severity if the FAQ section had referenced this behaviour and invited user to check out 'editing the file' section. But as it didn't, a user would be left in the dark.