Constraint regarding (name, category) in Add Product in UG not clear for target user

[nus-se-bot]

Note from the teaching team: This bug was reported during the Part II (Evaluating Documents) stage of the PE. You may reject this bug if it is not related to the quality of documentation.

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Given iBookʼs target users are small-scale grocery storekeepers, the assumption here is that they are of typical English competency and might not understand AND/OR in writing like technically inclined people do, in particular the logical implication of AND/OR.

In the UG,

The new product added must not be of the same NAME and CATEGORY as any existing products in iBook.

This line may be easily misinterpreted by non-technical readers to mean that new products cannot contain either NAME or CATEGORY that already exists in any products in iBook. (Think senior-in-age storekeepers, as well as storekeepers that might not have English as a mother-tongue.)

Rewording of this line to make the [NAME, CATEGORY] set's duplicity constraint even clearer to non-technical users would be better.

Flagged as Low severity as this fairly only has an occasional chance of happening to certain storekeepers, but could be a Medium severity as in the worst case, a shopkeeper that misunderstood this constraint might never add any new products that contains existing NAME OR CATEGORY thus affecting usage of this product.

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_{[original: nus-cs2103-AY2122S2/pe-interim#974] [original labels: severity.Low type.DocumentationBug]}

[DavidTan0527]

Team's Response

Thank you for telling us your concern about this.

Here we would like to make some points

1. The logical meaning of and and the English meaning of and are the same in this context.

2. If you were to substitute the sentence's usage of and with or, the meaning changes completely.

3. We cannot think of a better way to describe this behaviour in English.

4. We do not expect someone with close to zero knowledge of English to be able to use our product and UG at all.

5. We believe that the English used here is simple enough for people without a technical background and does not lead to any other misinterpretations.

6. We cannot see how must not be of the same NAME and CATEGORY can be interpreted as must not have either the same NAME or CATEGORY.

Consider these examples:

• They are wearing the same shirt and pants is interpreted as They are either wearing the same shirt or pants.
• They have the same first name and birthday is interpreted as They are either having the same first name or birthday.
• The two water bottles have the same colour and height is interpreted as The two water bottles either having the same colour or height.

It is clear that in all of the examples, the prior and the latter have totally different meanings, even without the logical context.

Therefore, we will be rejecting this issue.

Duplicate status (if any):

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