Connector flow actions and Guardrail 6
Summary
A developer asks: Guardrail #6 states "no more than five connector flow actions". In our application, during the verification of a document, it is quite reasonable for a Verifier to select from eight connector flow actions:
- Accept
- Reject
- Incomplete
- Re-Request
- Waived
- Send to fraud
- Send to Supervisor
- Send to Discrepancy Workbasket
To strictly stay within Guardrail #6, the designer has proposed reducing this list to:
- Verify
- Send to fraud
- Send to Supervisor
- Send to Discrepancy Workbasket
And under the Verify flow action, the idea is to introduce another property to hold the result of the verification (Accept, Reject, Incomplete, Re-Request, Waived). Since each of these sub-actions has different HTML requirements, we propose creating custom HTML with JavaScript to control the display. The Verification connector flow action terminates in a fork shape, which directs the flow according to the sub-action. Our questions:
- Should we ignore the Guardrail in this case, instead of implementing the custom HTML with JavaScript?
- Can we group the displayed flow actions somehow so that we could include, for example, fewer than 5 groups that might expand to more than 5 total flow actions?
Suggested Approach
Guardrails are guidance, not absolute requirements. You have reasonable flexibility to respond to business requirements. Consider user needs, maintainability, implementation risk, performance, and other factors.
Guardrail 6 is based on scientific evidence about computer users' input behavior, accuracy, and productivity. But comparing the two alternatives you suggest:
- Ignore Guardrail 6
- Code custom HTML with JavaScript
the better practice is to ignore the guardrail.
As another approach, you can split the flow to proceed down the verification route under the appropriate circumstances and the exception route under others. You can make the verification route a screen flow, thereby allowing users to go "back" as necessary. This would require users to enter additional clicks, but provides additional process guidance, rather than simply presenting more options.
Grouping of flow actions is not available.