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> User interface design (and yes, we are talking about your "boring" invoice capture screens here) may seem easy at first glance to be dismissed as unexciting,

> User interface design (and yes, we are talking about your "boring" invoice capture screens here) may seem easy at first glance to be dismissed as unexciting, but almost every real world example is a challenge that requires creative thinking. But how does this tie in with the manager who says 'it's just an invoice screen, why are you taking so long' probably based on the mentality that $ revenue is proportional to # features.

tripzilch 11y ago
Wrong question, how does a bad manager getting in your way tie in with building well-designed quality CRUD applications? Obviously the problem here is the manager, not the fact that you want to write and build quality work. Especially if they run on flawed assumptions such as "the mentality that $ revenue is proportional to # features". You can't build quality under shitty management like that. There's markets and jobs for both types: some desire cheap & shitty, others are willing to pay premium for solid, beautiful & well-designed.
ak39 11y ago
Fair enough. This sort of standoff with pointy-haired managers is always politically tricky. You have to show the manager that there is business value in creating effective and efficient user interfaces and that "getting it right" ultimately saves money. If you are developing software for high-volume capture, your manager will understand that doing it correctly is the main feature. Also, I've noticed many end users are not confident to comment on what they believe is an inefficient interface. So, problems with user interfaces are not spoken openly unless the interface completely blocks the user from completing his/her task. It takes some amount of permission-giving from the developer's side to get valuable feedback that would otherwise not be spoken about.
- bbcbasic 11y ago
  Unfortunately in the enterprise, the purchasing decision maker is usually not the user, and may not even use the invoice screen before deciding to buy. So in the short-medium term it is not in the interested of the business to make it awesome. In the long term ... maybe. The exception to this is in situations where the market is being disrupted. For example when the iPhone 3g came out it just made any other hard-to-use smart phone look like shit. And thus the competition was forced to catch up. However in enterprisey applications we are a long way off that. The awesome invoice screen may add value to the customer, but not much if none of that will be captured by the provider of the software. Unless a certain class of invoice screen is on the list of must-have things the buyers must have, because it is a particular pain point. In which case you will be told by the pointy haired boss to make it awesome, it won't be your choice as the developer. Damn I sound cynical! Your point about users is spot on, and we have all been such users. I mean you have used MS Word ... right? And often at work we have to use such applications. We just push on through. Users that are not programmers may not even know to question it, they assume that is the way it is unless they have used a competing product.

tripzilch 11y ago

Wrong question, how does a bad manager getting in your way tie in with building well-designed quality CRUD applications? Obviously the problem here is the manager, not the fact that you want to write and build quality work. Especially if they run on flawed assumptions such as "the mentality that $ revenue is proportional to # features". You can't build quality under shitty management like that. There's markets and jobs for both types: some desire cheap & shitty, others are willing to pay premium for solid, beautiful & well-designed.

ak39 11y ago

Fair enough. This sort of standoff with pointy-haired managers is always politically tricky. You have to show the manager that there is business value in creating effective and efficient user interfaces and that "getting it right" ultimately saves money. If you are developing software for high-volume capture, your manager will understand that doing it correctly is the main feature. Also, I've noticed many end users are not confident to comment on what they believe is an inefficient interface. So, problems with user interfaces are not spoken openly unless the interface completely blocks the user from completing his/her task. It takes some amount of permission-giving from the developer's side to get valuable feedback that would otherwise not be spoken about.

bbcbasic 11y ago
Unfortunately in the enterprise, the purchasing decision maker is usually not the user, and may not even use the invoice screen before deciding to buy. So in the short-medium term it is not in the interested of the business to make it awesome. In the long term ... maybe. The exception to this is in situations where the market is being disrupted. For example when the iPhone 3g came out it just made any other hard-to-use smart phone look like shit. And thus the competition was forced to catch up. However in enterprisey applications we are a long way off that. The awesome invoice screen may add value to the customer, but not much if none of that will be captured by the provider of the software. Unless a certain class of invoice screen is on the list of must-have things the buyers must have, because it is a particular pain point. In which case you will be told by the pointy haired boss to make it awesome, it won't be your choice as the developer. Damn I sound cynical! Your point about users is spot on, and we have all been such users. I mean you have used MS Word ... right? And often at work we have to use such applications. We just push on through. Users that are not programmers may not even know to question it, they assume that is the way it is unless they have used a competing product.