{"id":407,"date":"2007-07-10T23:54:09","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T04:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/archives\/407"},"modified":"2007-07-24T19:44:29","modified_gmt":"2007-07-25T00:44:29","slug":"pretty-software-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/archives\/407","title":{"rendered":""Pretty" Software Applications"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most difficult expectations for me to overcome with respect to my coworkers is the idea that I’m here to simply make the software look pretty. It’s difficult for so many to understand. I do understand principles of typography, layout, color, and design in general…and yes, I do have the ability to decorate<\/em> an app to make it seem “prettier” to the untrained eye.<\/p>\n

The thing is, I’m not necessarily here to apply typographical, layout, color, etc. changes to a system. Before that can happen, the tool has to have a logical flow. Input fields that are displayed have to make sense. Everything that has been placed on the screen up to this point must be there for a reason. I take it as my first job to understand exactly why<\/em> you’ve placed that input box above that drop-down menu, for example. Sometimes this part of my job is easy. Other times it is not.<\/p>\n

My point is that I will not (and cannot) make your system look nice unless the basic interaction part is already taken care of. In fact, having a cordial interaction with the user is core to the system looking nice. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the colors themselves don’t matter if the user can’t figure out what he’s supposed to do.<\/p>\n

The UI needs tending, and it can’t just be fixed at one point in the process…beginning, middle, or end. It needs attention throughout the design and implementation phases. Each development iteration can also be an interface design iteration. Slowly but surely I’m learning that it’s not a good idea to just try to save an interface in one fell swoop. Everybody involved in the software development process should take this lesson to heart as well.<\/p>\n

For now, I’ll keep busy on projects chugging away at finding interactions that make little sense from a user’s perspective and helping to ameliorate these issues. It’s my hope for each project that one day I’ll get to the point where I can help the user have an experience that is not only easy, but fulfilling and emotionally pleasing as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most difficult expectations for me to overcome with respect to my coworkers is the idea that I’m here to simply make the software look pretty. It’s difficult for so many to understand. I do understand principles of typography, layout, color, and design in general…and yes, I do have the ability to decorate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,2,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agile-development","category-design","category-hci-topic","category-technology","category-thoughtworks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}