1. What should BoB have done to avoid this situation?
2. Should the sales support staff ask the IT department to rewrite the user manual as a maintenance project, or should they request more training for sales staff? Can you offer any other suggestions?
3. Rewrite the user manual instructions so they are clear and understandable, and use the guidelines in Communications Tools found in Part A of the Systems Analyst’s Toolkit. What steps would you take to test the new version?
4. In the process of rewriting the user manual instructions, you discover that some of the instructions were not changed to reflect system maintenance and upgrade activities. A request form on the firm's intranet, for example, has replaced Form RBK-23. BoB also has phased out printed reports in favor of online reports, with a menu-driven interface. Rewrite the user manual instructions to reflect the changes.

About a month ago, BoB implemented a new point-of-sale (POS) system at all locations. Using a client/server design, the workstations in the firm's 12 retail stores are networked to a server at the main office. Sales reps in the stores use the system to record sales transactions, manage customer accounts, and to print various daily, weekly, and monthly reports. When the new sales system was installed, the IT development team conducted extensive training for the sales staff, and set up a support desk. The IT team also prepared a user manual and distributed copies to all sales and office staff.
Store managers have reported that sales people do not like the new system, and find it very confusing. When an IT support person visited the stores to investigate the problem, she discovered that the new people were having problems with the interface, and could not understand the user manual. They said that it was unclear, very hard to read, and did not use familiar terms. When she asked for examples of confusing instructions, the sales staff showed her the following examples:
Obtaining the authorization of the store manager on Form RBK-23 is required before the system can activate a customer charge account.
Care should be exercised to ensure that the BACKSPACE key is not pressed when the key on the numeric keypad with a left-facing arrow is the appropriate choice to accomplish nondestructive backspacing.
To prevent report generation interruption, the existence of sufficient paper stock should be verified before any option that requires printing is selected. If not, the option must be reselected.
The F2 key should be pressed in the event that a display of valid merchandise codes is required. That same key terminates the display.