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There are limits to this. A ten pound sledge hammer can be used to drive finishing nails in fine furniture but it would be absurd to claim that all the dented

There are limits to this. A ten pound sledge hammer can be used to drive finishing nails in fine furniture but it would be absurd to claim that all the dented furniture coming out of your shop is a result of poorly trained workers rather than inadequate tooling. A generic hammer, like this UI (at least, as much as is apparent from the screenshots in the article) can drive basically any nail. But specialized hammers exist for good reasons. This is equally applicable in software tools. A good tool should enable you to do things you couldn't do without it but the best tools make it easier to do what you want and harder to do what you don't want.

rkagerer 6y ago
I would ordinarily agree, but to be honest the UI in the screenshot doesn't really look all that terrible. Not saying it couldn't improve to clarify effects, incorporate documentation and nudge the user away from making mistakes - but overall I agree with the grandparent post. Clearly the operator is supposed to have business knowledge of what those GL fields mean. I'd bet there are more experienced operators who would be frustrated and less productive if they were forced to use a dumbed-down UI where you couldn't just put the amounts you want in the fields they should go. My decade-old Quickbooks software similarly lets me create GL entries and assign amounts to the accounts involved. If I let my $12/hr intern who doesn't know what they're doing use that feature and they post to the wrong accounts, then of course bad things will happen. Instead, he uses other more specialized interfaces (like you suggested) to enter things like invoices, bills, etc. We give children safety scissors, and expect adults to be able to handle the real thing. I really do have sympathy for the employees involved, and strongly agree with your sentiments that software should be engineered for safety. But I encourage anyone else reading this and forming an opinion to click into the article and have a glance at the screenshot.
- ggpp 6y ago
  You should at least pay your intern a livable wage, $15/hr

rkagerer 6y ago

I would ordinarily agree, but to be honest the UI in the screenshot doesn't really look all that terrible. Not saying it couldn't improve to clarify effects, incorporate documentation and nudge the user away from making mistakes - but overall I agree with the grandparent post. Clearly the operator is supposed to have business knowledge of what those GL fields mean. I'd bet there are more experienced operators who would be frustrated and less productive if they were forced to use a dumbed-down UI where you couldn't just put the amounts you want in the fields they should go. My decade-old Quickbooks software similarly lets me create GL entries and assign amounts to the accounts involved. If I let my $12/hr intern who doesn't know what they're doing use that feature and they post to the wrong accounts, then of course bad things will happen. Instead, he uses other more specialized interfaces (like you suggested) to enter things like invoices, bills, etc. We give children safety scissors, and expect adults to be able to handle the real thing. I really do have sympathy for the employees involved, and strongly agree with your sentiments that software should be engineered for safety. But I encourage anyone else reading this and forming an opinion to click into the article and have a glance at the screenshot.

ggpp 6y ago
You should at least pay your intern a livable wage, $15/hr