Skipping—causing the cursor to jump over one or more fields during the data entry operation—is an issue that provokes discussion both pro and con. The decision of the application designer to use (or not use) skips will depend entirely on the type of application and the data entry staff.
When the data capture operation is expected to be
heads-down, as it would be for a census or similar high-volume application, it will cause less confusion to the keyer if all skips are controlled by the operator rather than the application. There will then be no "surprises" for the keyer when the application logic forces the cursor to one field when the keyer, looking not at the screen but at the form, expects the cursor to be in a different field altogether. Thus, instead of speeding up the entry operation by anticipating probable cursor movement, this tactic eventually slows down the operation when there are inconsis tencies in the data or, simply, keying errors.
When the data capture operation is of smaller volume, or with a more complex questionnaire or forms, it may make sense to use application-controlled skipping. The operator will be more likely to be aware of the cursor movement and less likely to be surprised by unexpected interruptions in the normal sequence. Of course, a combination of operator-controlled and application-controlled skipping may be used in any given application; the designer will have to weigh the keying environment and the forms to be entered to make the appropriate decision.
During data entry, there may be times when you want the operator to be able to skip over certain fields that do not apply to the current case. For example, in a Population record, the fertility fields do not apply to males or to underage females, nor do questions on economic activity apply to children under a certain age. In CSEntry, the '+' key on the numeric keypad is always active as a "skip" key. Every field has a skip field value associated with it. The default value is "next," meaning that when the cursor is on that field and the skip key is pressed the cursor will move to the next field in sequence. CSEntry allows you to change this value to any later field in the sequence, or to the end of the screen or form. This approach corresponds to the
operator-controlled option in CSPro.
Automatic, or application-controlled, skips depend on information already keyed to direct the cursor movement. For example, in a household survey, if a female respondent states that she has at least one child living with her, the cursor can skip automatically to the form for capturing information about that child (and any others). Conversely, if the female indicates that no children are present, the cursor can be directed to skip over the information about children. It is clear that such skips depend entirely on the accuracy of the data keyed prior to the skip; if a "Yes" response is mistakenly entered as a "No," the cursor will be misdirected and the operator will find that the screen(s) presented for keying do not correspond to the information in the paper forms. This will cause loss of time as the operator seeks to uncover the error. Automatic skips, when used, must be well-documented so that the keyer is aware of the possibilities of non-sequential cursor movement. This approach corresponds to the
system-controlled option in CSPro.