Uproar Blog

Another post in the Gratuitous design series, this time on rounding.  Ah, rounding.  Other tip calculators have up to nine ways to round.  Gratuitous has one.  Staying true to our philosophy on design, we’re not interested in building a huge feature list but rather providing just the features that make sense and are necessary.  Let’s go through each of the rounding methods to find just the one you need.

Round Tip

If you find yourself wanting to round the tip amount, it is most likely because…

• You are leaving cash for the tip
• You want to write in a rounded tip amount because its easier than writing an exact tip.

In the first scenario, a tip calculator would only be used to show you what percentage you are tipping based on the cash tip.  With Gratuitous, you can do this by simply entering the cash amount in the custom tip amount field.

The second scenario defeats the purpose of a tip calculator.  Namely, that it calculates the exact tip for you.  Again, you can still use the custom tip amount field to specify your rounded tip amount.

Round Per Person Total

This rounding option falls into the category of a feature thought up by a programmer but completely unnecessary in actual use.  Take the following scenario…

• 3 friends, Tom, Dick, and Harry go out for lunch
• The total un-split bill comes to $45.36
• The 3 friends agree to leave an 18% tip with Tom paying the bill

Tom’s a smart guy and uses Gratuitous.  Tapping in the values, he sees that the bill + 18% tip comes to $53.52 ($17.84/person).  He tells his friends Dick and Harry that they owe him $17.84 for their portion of lunch.

Dick writes Tom a check for $17.84.
Harry gives Tom his only cash, a $20 bill and asks just for $2 back (Tom obliges).

This is what happens the vast majority of a time when a party has to split the check.  When you walk through this common scenario, it is clear that it does not make any sense to round the per person total.  You tell people exactly what they owe you and at that point people do whatever they think is appropriate.

Round Total

Finally, we have arrived at the only rounding option which makes sense.  You have a bill, want your total amount rounded (so it looks nice on your statement), and need to know the exact tip amount to ensure a rounded total.  Naturally, this is the only rounding method available in Gratuitous.  However, we’re not done yet.

Up, Down, Half-Up, Bankers, etc

For each of the above rounding methods, you can round up, down, half-up, via bankers, or a myriad of other ways.  Other than up or down, these other methods require an explanation, both adding complexity to the app and potential confusion for users.  Do you really need that much fine-grained control over rounding at the expense of the previously mentioned complexities in the app?  Hopefully, you agree that the answer to this is no.

That leaves us with just round up or down.

For Gratuitous, we went with the single option of rounding the total up.  Staying true to the name of the app, rounding up benefits the recipient of the tip; at most an extra 99¢.  For anyone who feels the extra change is not deserved, our guess is that you either:

• Never use rounding in the first place
• Wouldn’t pay for a tip calculator like Gratuitous

At this point you can see the thought that was put into deciding how Gratuitous would deal with rounding.  While we could have put every option but the kitchen sink into Gratuitous, we choose to include just what make sense.