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Subject:Re. Moving targets From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Thu, 22 Feb 1996 15:15:05 -0600
Karen Gwynn noted that her developer colleagues keep on
fiddling with the interface code (thus, its appearance) up
until the code freeze, and never quite get around to
telling her of all the changes she must document.
Karen, you've already received lots of advice on the
"process" aspects of your problem, but here's one you may
not have come up with yet: are the developers
user-interface experts, or are they "just" programmers? I'm
not denigrating programmers (without whom we wouldn't be
having this discussion right now), but few programmers can
produce a usable interface from scratch without special
training.
Why not negotiate with your manager to get the _appearance_
of the interface frozen early on in the process (if you're
so inclined, you might even become the interface expert for
your company). Then, get the programmers to tweak the
performance and functionality to whatever extent they
desire... but leave the interface itself alone. Much easier
for you, more productive for them, better for the end user,
and probably a much more logical approach to software
design overall.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.
