Good Practice for Standard Capture App
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I'm developing a simple order capture application in MS Access for a client that doesn't know what they want, beyond this very simple description. They must be able to maintain a list of products, capture and print quotations, convert quotations to orders. This is far from my normal work, which seldom involves any GUI work, or very little. If I compose a feature set, it's what I would want, as a developer, and too much for the size of the job. I'm trying to find a set of guidelines or standard features that such an application should have, in order to present a tidy application. Where can I find these? Should I maybe use a generator such as Iron Speed, whose designers know all about this already?
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues. - W. Somerset Maugham My New Blog
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I'm developing a simple order capture application in MS Access for a client that doesn't know what they want, beyond this very simple description. They must be able to maintain a list of products, capture and print quotations, convert quotations to orders. This is far from my normal work, which seldom involves any GUI work, or very little. If I compose a feature set, it's what I would want, as a developer, and too much for the size of the job. I'm trying to find a set of guidelines or standard features that such an application should have, in order to present a tidy application. Where can I find these? Should I maybe use a generator such as Iron Speed, whose designers know all about this already?
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues. - W. Somerset Maugham My New Blog
Brady Kelly wrote:
for a client that doesn't know what they want
I strongly urge you to help them discover what they want before you develop it. Otherwise you will find yourself in the Software Rocks Development Process. I don't know Iron Speed but from the ads it states "Prototyping and Proof of Concept". Those and Use Cases normally help people think about and decide what they want. I am not sure you need a tool like Iron Speed for Prototyping and POCs, I would just use the Forms Designers in Visual Studio for Prototyping UI's.
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Brady Kelly wrote:
for a client that doesn't know what they want
I strongly urge you to help them discover what they want before you develop it. Otherwise you will find yourself in the Software Rocks Development Process. I don't know Iron Speed but from the ads it states "Prototyping and Proof of Concept". Those and Use Cases normally help people think about and decide what they want. I am not sure you need a tool like Iron Speed for Prototyping and POCs, I would just use the Forms Designers in Visual Studio for Prototyping UI's.
The client knows what basic high level functions he wants, such as products, quotes, and invoices. I'm after a basic set of usability features that apply to list and edit screens for all of these.
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The client knows what basic high level functions he wants, such as products, quotes, and invoices. I'm after a basic set of usability features that apply to list and edit screens for all of these.
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I was trying to determine a 'standard' set of features available in a typical retail sales application, such as print, copy, commit, export etc. that apply across all entity features, such a s quotes, orders, products etc. I've decided to just go with an iterative prototyping over the weekend. I'm just going to give the client exactly what he wants, even if he takes several iterations to tell me. Changes are pretty rapid in Access anyway.
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The client knows what basic high level functions he wants, such as products, quotes, and invoices. I'm after a basic set of usability features that apply to list and edit screens for all of these.
Write them a use case or two based on those high level functions and walk them through them to see if that fits what they have in mind. As for the UI, do simple sketch on paper, it's easier to lay down ideas and easier for them to write down notes and even let them draw sketches based on your designs. ( have a look at this blog : Flow|State[^] )
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