This question's explanation and your answers so far.
営業伝票を入力する画面の設計に際し，リストボックスを使った選択画面において，作業効率を高めるために，画面が表示された時点で，ある値がすでに選択された状態になるように設定することにした。 取引先の所在地（関東地方の七つの都道府県の名称）を選択するリストボックスの場合，選択された状態で設定される都道府県として，適切なものはどれか。ここで，入力作業に関する事項は，次のとおりである。 〔入力作業に関する事項〕 (1) 営業担当者ごとの取引先の所在地は，一つ又は隣接する二つの都道府県にある。 (2) 営業担当者は，伝票を取引先ごとに分類して，入力作業担当者に渡す。 (3) 入力作業は，営業担当者ごとの伝票をまとめて行う。 (4) まとめて入力する伝票の数は，都道府県ごとに複数枚ある。 (5) 1画面の入力操作で，1枚の伝票が入力できる。
There is no relationship at all between a representative having good sales results and the location on the slip currently being entered. As stated in (3), the entry work processes together the slips of the sales representative at hand at that time, so while the slips of a different representative are being entered this initial value stays wrong the whole time, and reselection is needed on every screen. In the first place, good sales results guarantee nothing about the number of slips or the distribution of their locations.
This is the plan of fixing the value to Tokyo. The general statistic that Tokyo has the largest number of companies does not mean that the prefecture coming next in this entry work is Tokyo. While the slips of a sales representative whose business partners are only in Ibaraki Prefecture and Tochigi Prefecture are being entered, the initial value is wrong on every screen and must be reselected each time. A fixed value makes no use at all of the property shown by (1) to (4), namely that the same prefecture continues for each representative.
This is the plan of making the first item in the Japanese syllabary order (Ibaraki Prefecture) the initial value. The criterion of being first in the sort order is merely a mechanical rule unrelated to the actual content being entered, and it is no basis for work efficiency. While prefectures other than Ibaraki are being handled, reselection occurs on every screen, so just like イ it carries the drawback of a fixed value as it is.
正解 The correct answer is エ. If the initial selected value (default value) of a list box is set to the value that is most likely to be entered next, the selection operation itself can be skipped, so efficiency improves. In this work, from (2) and (3) the slips are entered together for each sales representative, and from (1) that representative's business partners are located only in one prefecture or in two adjacent prefectures. Furthermore, from (4) there are multiple slips for the same prefecture, and from (5) one slip is entered per screen. In other words, as screens are processed one after another, the situation where the same prefecture as the one entered on the immediately preceding screen continues is overwhelmingly common. Therefore, if the prefecture entered on the previous screen is set as the initially selected state, the data-entry operator does not need to touch the list box for consecutive slips, and only needs to reselect at the boundaries where the prefecture changes (when a representative covers two prefectures, or when moving on to the next representative). This method of carrying over the immediately preceding entered value, rather than using a fixed value, minimizes the number of operations under the given work conditions.