User Experience

Application Launching — Softly Please

There have been a number of posts made commenting about a recent post on 37 Signals blog about “Why it’s wise to launch softly“.  I always love to see my thoughts in print by others, or to see approaches that I believe in being touted as “good” methods.  Such is the post I refer to, I could have written it myself if I weren’t beaten to it.  (…and had thought of it).  Myself, I always want to launch a project softly — get feedback — know what will work, and what users don’t like, or what is perhaps “clunky”.

Launching softly provides ability to “tweak and revise” easily — something that the “big bang” launch doesn’t provide.  I’ve experienced my “Big Bang” launch thank you, never want that again!  August 1, 1999 is permanently etched in my memory as the implementation from Hell, as it is with others I shared the experience with.

Legacy Application to Windows - Challenge of design

I’ve discovered the greatest challenge of my application programming and design career,  (Hopefully I haven’t met my match!).  My latest project involves a rather large legacy character-based system which has evolved over the past 20 years or so.  The source code directory lists some 800+ pieces of source code, with close to 500 being actively used, and others that were basically copies of some “active” source with minor modifications - mostly in the screen layouts for entry programs, and header footer changes on reports.  In all, a lot of code to evaluate. Continued »

Application Design and Expectations

I believe I’ve stated before in this blog that at one time while working with some ERP software I became known as the man who “…wouldn’t have designed it that way!”  Well, yesterday I saw that same user frustration and amazement (I’m being nice) with regard to an application that my friend was (trying) to use.  He was somewhat under the gun to get setup, and the software wasn’t working the way he expected or thought that it should.

Now, I don’t know this friend well enough to understand his computer preferences and depth of experience as an end-user.  I do know that he does do professional programming.  Perhaps he’s a “Mac” guy trying to run software on a “PC” — but clearly the application software was not living up to his expectation, and he was frustrated.  Seeing his frustration reminded me once again of the difficulty which can be experienced when trying to develop that “perfect” application! 

It just so happens that the software he was using matches my expectations - I find it easy-to-use, intuitive and structurally together, and therein lies what I’ve come to appreciate as one of the biggest difficulties with creating application software.  Yes there are certain “standards” to be used, and using them results in ease-of-use for those familiar with those “standards”.  Where application design seems to break down in my opinion is when there is the need to do something “special”, for example use some functionality for which the software is designed, but functionality that is seldom used, “out-of-the-ordinary” in that respect.

It seems to me that these kind of operations just don’t seem to clearly “fit” in any one place, so to get to them a user may have to go to something like “Options”, or maybe “Setup”, or maybe it can only be found through a menu 4 or 5 levels down.  Perhaps the functionality is so independent (although related) to the main application that it actually acts as if it were an independent application.  These are problem areas for users — and as developers it is important for us to get as much feedback as we can (if we can) regarding where to place access for the “out-of-the-ordinary” functionality.

A well-designed help functionality can sometimes be a support for this — in my experience, forget help in the “manual” — you probably wouldn’t be able to find it if in fact it once existed !

Software Development Project Closure Thoughts

Back in mid June I was interviewed by a freelance writer working on an article about software development project closure.  It was an interesting topic to me, and one which I have honestly never really stopped to think about.  While I’ve blogged often about my thoughts regarding user input, communications and other development topics — project closure hasn’t really been much a part of my planning.

The article for which I was interviewed is a well written piece which I will not try enhance.  (It is already full of my thoughts during the interview!).  I expect that readers of this blog will find it interesting.  The article entitled “The Beginning of the End: Defining Project Closure” is a recommended read.

User Experience, User Interface or Human Interface Design?

I have written quite often over the past year about user interface issues. One of my blog posts worked with the question of whether the interface should be busy or sparse. I also provided a link to a fellow developer white paper which dealt with some simple ideas regarding layout of fields on an entry screen. The user interface has always been something of interest to me, since the users I deal with are looking for simplicity — yet simplicity with powerful functionality.

As a result of reading a post in one of the newsgroups which I follow regularly, I discovered of all things a new (to me) acronym — UX. Now my definition for UX up until today had been UNIX, but now I find it is being used for user experience. (…proof once again that you learn something every day — IF you “show up”). The post which I read had a link to a detailed article named “Label Placement in Forms” –and this article in turn introduced me to a new website www.UXmatters.com. Readers of this blog may find the article, and the website of interest.

Anyway, no matter what you call it, design of an application interface is critical. Not only must an application be fully functional for the task to be performed, but it is important that it be visually functional as well.

I know various developers who from time to time can very quickly get on a soapbox regarding interface design preferences. In my explorations today I found an interesting blog regarding user experiences — “The user experience soapbox“. Enjoy!