[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Billing / Pay Bills UI

[Josh Stompro]

We see enough errors with applying payments that I'm wondering if a different interface would work better.  We are on 2.10 and are using the XUL staff client.  The problem seems to be with the payment type dropdown.  For some reason the wrong options gets selected occasionally, and the payment is submitted with the wrong type.  I think the drop down is just hard for some staff to see, and the level of accuracy required to select the correct option is high.  Also, I suspect that the interface just has too much going on when you first look at it, and sometimes staff are at a loss on where to start the process.

Also, there is no confirmation step before the payment is applied.  I think a summary of the payment about to be applied would be useful for staff to double check the options that they have selected.  Another error we see is having the wrong items selected to pay the bills on, or more specifically not selecting a specific item when that is wanted, and going with the default we have set of all bills being selected.  This also might be helped if there was a confirmation process.

I've seen the interfaces that some POS(Point of sale) systems use and one style that I've seen used is to show all the payment options as a grid of buttons, with unique icons for each method.  I think this would be more touch screen friendly also, which isn't something that we use now, but with the web staff client there is more of a possibility of staff using devices with touch screens  to help customers.

So what if instead of the pay bill ui being on the bills page, there is a "Pay Bill" button at the bottom of the screen that brings up a separate interface for selecting the payment type, annotation, amount, etc, along with showing which items were selected and the distribution of payment on those items, and then a final confirmation screen?

Example screenshots of other POS interfaces:
https://help.shopify.com/assets/images/pos/operating/checkout/checkout-screen-fixed.png?1438282125
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4f/ec/8f/4fec8f6c1cb803e614f0dd0994972f11.jpg
http://blog.ignify.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/customizable-pos-interface-b.jpg

I would also like to hear if others don't have a problem with how it currently works.  Maybe we just need more training, or just a font size change for the drop down.
Thanks
Josh


Lake Agassiz Regional Library - Moorhead MN larl.org
Josh Stompro     | Office 218.233.3757 EXT-139
LARL IT Director | Cell 218.790.2110

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