Re: GUI

re: UPS's look-it-up-yourself interface

Yes!  Exactly!  The gui interface is ideal for the casual (onsey-twosy)
user who is looking up one or two UPS tracking numbers.  I mean, unless
your company is terribly anal retentive you only look up the one or two
packages that got lost or are super critical.  The rest you hear about when
the person who expects them doesn't get them.

The UPS interface isn't a LOT gui; I mean, key in a number and press ENTER
is almost green-screen in its simplicity.  The hotel reservation system
could be either.

In both cases the interface would be used by someone who isn't expecting to
function as an airline reservation clerk, keying in hundreds of
transactions a day; it's used by Administrative Assistants who need to do
it for their bosses, once in a while.

PS-- rumour has it that the UPS tracking system is run on an AS/400.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com







>I have problems with calling an application a gui interface and still
>needing the F3 key.  One point I feel we can all agree on is that
>gui-izing a green screen is not gui.  True gui goes far beyond that.
>Designed and implemented from the event-based paradigm instead of the
>cycle-based paradigm allows the gui to become both fast and accurate.
>
>The example earlier of the hotel reserveration system strikes me as an
>example.  Why aren't the guests doing their own reservations and
>reservation equiries?  It might not be faster, but it is much more
>effective imho.  Who here has tracked their own UPS shipment?  Isn't that
>a wonderful example of making you feel really good about UPS service, yet
>it doesn't involve a single paid UPS employee to give you your own order
>information.  What can be better than that?

boothm@ibm.net
Booth Martin


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