Scenarios

Printing a page from Banner Finance

Janet has looked up the details of an account through Banner Finance and would like to print these results. She manipulates the screen display through the scrollbars to display as much pertinent information as possible. Then, she clicks on the print icon in the Tool Bar. A preview window is presented which does not seem to look like the screen at all. She confirms her decision to print in this window with a single click. Next, the familiar printer selection window is presented and she clicks OK to confirm the printer. Finally, she enters one more confirmation click to capture the current screen display. Her printer produces a hard copy exactly like what she saw on the screen. Lastly, she repeats the procedure to get the rest information that didn't fit on her display the first time.

Claims Analysis

Print Icon and Printer Selection window:

+ icon is consistent with other application tool bars
+ selection window occurs with other application's menu print procedures
- print selection window is inconsistent with other application's use of the tool bar, normally clicking on an icon skips this window

Print Preview:

+ is not unfamiliar to users
- print preview can be confusing in its awkward display, what is printed is not what is shown

Print Procedure:

+ for simplest task of one copy, no choices are required in various windows (simply confirmation clicks)
- requires multiple clicks to complete the task
- frustrating to users who have to continuously alter the display
- easy to forget to manipulate the display before printing

Hard copy output:

+ matches the screen display without frustrating, unexpected modifications
- requires multiple print tasks to get all the information
- inconsistent with other applications that print all the data in a file, independent of scrollbar positioning
- results in post-printing work such as stapling, taping, cutting, and pasting efforts to complete the task