Abstract:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are vital for managing any modern-day
business. These systems aim to facilitate an organization's work by automating and
integrating all business information and processes. However, ERP systems suffer from
many problems that may cause an implementation failure. Many of these problems are
related to usability, which is affected by the complexity of user interfaces (Uls). Usability
can be defined in terms of an end-user's efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfactions.
A study was conducted in this thesis to inquire about the usability problems that ERP users
face. The results showed that ERP usability is mostly affected by two issues. Although
other issues were identified these two issues were the most common. The first issue is
related to the cases where end-users are required to navigate through many Uls in order to
accomplish a task. The second issue is related to the numerous incomprehensible error
messages that stress out and sometimes mislead end-users.
The contribution of this thesis is divided into two parts, based on the two common usability
issues that were identified by the previously mentioned study. The first part of the
contribution involved conducting an empirical study to test the usability difference between
accomplishing a task using multiple UI and a single adapted UI. The outcome showed that
the single adapted UI saves time and users found it to be much better than the initial set of
Uls. The second part of the contribution involved analyzing a sample of error messages
from various SAP Business One Uls. Based on this analysis, ten types of validation rules
were suggested. Then, the design of an approach for developing model-driven multi-target
UI validation was presented. This approach is capable of executing validation on multiple
levels including Uls, software classes, and databases.
Description:
M.S. -- Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, Notre Dame University, Louaize, 2018; "A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science, Department of Computer Science"; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-71).