Phone number only allows numeric characters

[zsh-eng]

Great job in specifying in the user guide that phone numbers can only be numeric.

However, phone numbers can sometimes include other characters, just as country code, and limiting to numeric characters might be excessive. This is especially the case in that this is a generic contacts management app, and I might have contacts from different countries. I've included some examples for reference!

add n/John2 p/(212) 567-8901 e/john.doe@example.com
add n/John3 p/+658883491 e/john.doe@example.com

[soc-pe-bot]

Team's Response

The phone number is still valid even if you take away the special characters and we already mentioned that phone numbers should be only numeric.

Such a change could potentially be considered in our application but since our application's focus is not on contact management but rather taking notes for meetings, we feel like this is not important enough to be a focus in our current iteration of the project and hence we have changed this to not in scope.

Items for the Tester to Verify

:question: Issue response

Team chose [response.NotInScope]

• [x] I disagree

Reason for disagreement: Hi, thanks a lot for the clarification. However, I do not agree that this falls under NotInScope.

While it's true that the numeric representation of a phone number might technically still be valid, the absence of special characters can indeed lead to potential confusion, especially when dealing with international phone numbers. Here are a couple of points to consider:

1. Country Codes: Some phone numbers, especially international ones, are identified by country codes. Without special characters, it might be challenging to discern whether a numeric string includes a country code, and if so, which one. Including special characters can provide a visual cue for the different components of a phone number, making it easier for users to identify country codes.

2. User Clarity: From a user experience perspective, maintaining the original format of a phone number, including special characters and/or spaces, contributes to user clarity. Most users are generally accustomed to seeing phone numbers with specific formats (e.g. 8433 4321), and deviations from these formats may cause confusion or uncertainty.

Furthermore, in your response you claim that:

our application's focus is not on contact management but rather taking notes for meetings

However, the UG states that (emphasis mine):

NoteNote is a desktop application designed for swift and systematic management of contact information and meeting details.

Based on the UG, contact management is a major selling point for the target users of this application. As mentioned in my initial issue, as the target user group is not narrowed to a specific country, I find that it might be slightly unnecessary to restrict phone numbers to only numeric characters.

Finally, as this behaviour hinders and inconveniences the user as they are (1) unable to input special characters and (2) might have a harder time reading / differentiating different phone number formats, I would consider this to be an issue within the scope for this iteration of the application.

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