How Best to Add Lots of Tabular Items To a Form Before Submissions

Question

I need to create a form for which salesmen (or women) register what products they sold and on what day they sold them. They can enter multiple products per claim form.

The idea for how they add items to the form before submitting it is in the mockup below:

I'm happy it makes sense, but that's because it was my idea. Wondering if you guys had any input on whether your average user will find it intuitive?

Answer 1

I like the form, but:

• why a dropdown list for such product codes? F31Z34
• are these users aware of all possible product codes (so there are only a few products)

In my opinion maybe you could try inline autocomplete, if the product codes are so different then shown on your mockup. Because this way you could make the typing process easier and faster.

It all depens on the number of products, and the variety among product codes.

Answer 2

Your form concept makes sense - its a metaphor salespeople who pre-date your system will be very familiar with. I would take additional care however to hint at the form's functionality for newer users who are not used to filling out actual paper forms for such things, perhaps by adding a component group above the form which allows for item entry with a more robust feature set (like product search options)? More mature users could still enter items inline.