stop and look -- software design

the advances of technologies has brought about a spacious “learning arena” for all of us. finding solutions can prop you up to a lot of “literatures” which you may need to read and learn in order to even begin the progress of achieving the start off point.

when you have deduced everything and be ready for the take-off, you may then get to “learn” the specifics of your chosen solution that it will then still be a “gargantuan” learning task to handle… that even before you start, you are already drained out and maybe thinking of another way to handle the problem. that was the past…

in today’s software development designs, most software developers has been eased with the burden of the complexity of having to define each and every move that their users has to learn… that is the fruit of the advent of “graphic user interface” known as the GUI which makes everything an intuitive interaction with their software users.

intuitive designs as well has seen a leap with the proliferation of usable technologies with almost the same face-lifts. “phone sets” that behaves the same way but was actually designed by different manufacturers is a big “helping hand” in these technology advances.

20 years ago, you read a manual before using your handphone, now, it is like you just need to really “plug and play” with it.

google and yahoo has also mastered the magic of “loose coupling” that you will not even notice that you have been using a lot of “searching” and “browsing” even before you know that your requirements are just in front of you and for the taking.

how many will remember that you needed to type that www.yahoo.com and feel intimidated by it? as to what will be in it?

the software arena is in a stage of advanced “maturity” that simplification strategies on the part of software developers is a must-have and the thrust of each undertakings.

the vagueness of “user-friendly” software tag is now becoming passe since this one is relative to the person who is speaking and guided by some self-serving outlook.

how many times have you seen a system that is supposed to be user-friendly to your colleague and not to you? it may be that, your colleague has been using the same for a long time and has become a “mouth-piece” for that software unintentionally.

it may happen on a “reverse”, that you are the one who is familiar with the design and he or she may not be.

but as mentioned earlier, the maturity of “technological designs” is now in some kind of wonderful advances. when you need to calibrate a software or hardware design, try to consider this feature and draw a parallel of your own.

— printer panels used to have a lot of buttons — eject, line feed, form feed, font selector, cancel and some more on… now, most have only one — “the power button to turn off or on”.

you dont even need a manual for that :-)

now, finding solution with a customized software development is all about pinning your direction towards the processes that you need to accomplish and simplifying the same.

if you would need a lot of learning to use your software solution, you may be in a wrong path and traversing the past.

you may have to consider “software designs” that are patterned in a “plug and play schema” which can put you in an easy jump-start for your solutions and with intricate methods unseen but works hard behind the scene.

our time-tested AEP Concept (add/edit/print) is something close which you may want to look at and try for your software needs.