Bess Sadler wrote:
Are you up for a bit of gentle constructive criticism?
Sure.
I think the borrow books screen is kind of confusing. It took me a really
long time to figure out how to borrow a book.
Here is how I was thinking:
First, I go to the "borrow books" screen. It says "Enter a library card
number." Okay. Then I'm asked to enter a book id. Okay. Yay! It found my
book. I'm all checked out, and it is asking me for another book id in case
I want to borrow a second book, but I don't, so I'm done.
Except no I'm not because I never actually checked that book out.
I think the screen should make a couple of things really explicit so
people don't get confused.
1) The "borrow" button should really be an "add a book to the list of
books I want to borrow" button. Obviously the phrasing needs some work
here.
2) There should be a separate button labeled "Finalize transaction" or
something which will actually check the books out.
This won't be much of a problem for places where only librarians will be
checking out books, and you can train all the librarians. I want to set
this system up in a situation where users will be checking out their own
books (very small, honor system library) and I suspect this could be quite
confusing.
Just my thoughts on the matter. Thanks for listening.
Bess
Thanks for your input! This is exactly the kind of response we need
right now =)
Now that you mention it, the borrow screen indeed seems a bit confusing
for first time users. It's designed for a terminal equipped with a
barcode reader, hence there is only one type of action and one button.
I presume you've discovered that checkout is performed when the Book ID
field is left empty, i.e. the books are borrowed if an empty form is
submitted. If JavaScript is enabled, the form gets autofocus and
pressing Enter will suffice - a librarian only has to use a barcode
reader and the Enter key.
Adding a "Finalize Transaction" button would fix the issue, but it could
also just confuse users more. We'll investigate and see if a help box
would be a better solution - the borrow function _is_ easy and fast to
use once you know how =)
Sincerely,
--
Erik Berglund
Oy Realnode Ab
Partner, Marketing
berglund [at] realnode.com
www.realnode.com
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