nus-se-bot
commented
3 days ago Team's Response
As mentioned in the course website for what is considered NotInScope :
This is considered a missing feature / suboptimal design of a feature and that it is less important.
Furthermore, we have also stated in the user guide that the find feature is only intended Company Name
Items for the Tester to Verify
:question: Issue response
Team chose [response.NotInScope]
- [x] I disagree
Reason for disagreement: I respectfully disagree with the team's decision to potentially classify the limitation of the find feature to only search by company names as NotInScope. This limitation constitutes a significant FeatureFlaw under the course guidelines for the following reasons:
According to the course guidelines, a feature flaw should not be considered NotInScope if "fixing the feature flaw is essential for the app to be reasonably useful." In this case, the find feature’s restriction to only search by company names limits the usability of the app significantly for its target users—busy undergraduates managing potentially hundreds of internship applications. For instance, users may want to filter or search by specific roles (e.g., Software Engineer) to track or plan their application strategies. This is a common use case that the app fails to support, making the app less effective for users with a large number of applications.
The User Guide identifies Computer Science students managing multiple internship applications as the primary users. Given the competitive nature of the tech industry, CS students often apply to numerous companies for various roles. Tracking by role is a critical feature for such users, as roles like Software Engineer, Data Scientist, and Product Manager carry vastly different preparation and follow-up needs. Without the ability to search by role, users are forced to manually sift through hundreds of entries, undermining the app's stated goal of "streamlining management" and potentially pushing users toward alternative solutions like Excel for convenience.
The course guidelines specify that a feature flaw is present when "the feature is implemented to work in a certain way but it could have been implemented to work in a better way (from the end-user's point of view) without much additional effort." Expanding the find feature to include role-based searches would align the app with standard practices for data management tools. It would provide significant added value to users without requiring disproportionate effort to implement, given that the data (roles) is already stored and displayed in the application.
The app's primary goal is to help users efficiently manage their internship applications. Limiting the find feature to only company names makes it difficult for users to retrieve relevant entries efficiently. This is not a niche or extreme user behaviour; it is a fundamental use case, as users are likely to have preferences or strategies based on specific roles, which the current implementation does not accommodate.
The data required for a role-based search (i.e., the ROLE field) is already being captured and stored in the application. Adding the ability to search by role would require minimal additional development effort while greatly enhancing the app's value and usability.
In conclusion, the inability to search by role is a significant FeatureFlaw because it restricts the core functionality of the app, reduces its efficiency for target users, and fails to meet the expectations set by the User Guide. Expanding the find feature to include role-based searches is essential for the app to be reasonably useful and would align with standard practices for data management tools. This improvement would not require disproportionate effort but would provide substantial benefits to users, making it a necessary enhancement for the current version of the app. Therefore, I urge the team to reconsider their position and accept this bug report as a valid FeatureFlaw rather than marking it as NotInScope.
Currently, I have 5 Software engineering internship applications. As a CS student in today's market, I can have more than 100 applications of jobs for all sorts of different companies and different roles. I may prefer the coveted Software engineering role and would like to see where did i even apply for SWE roles.
However right now since I'm only limited to finding by company names, I have to manually sift out the words SWE from all 100's of application which is tedious and a waste of time. This would result in me rather using another product to store my data such as excel for convenience.