RE: Improving UI (was Should the Doc Manager be equal to the Dev Manager?)

[Sean MacRae <sean -at- rcp -dot- co -dot- uk>]

> > Over the past year, I have focused on asking for improvements=20
> > to the user interface.=20
> > I explained that a better UI would require fewer pages of
> > explanation, which saves the company lots of money in tech=20
> > writing time and translation costs.=20
> 
> Another very powerful argument is that a better UI also 
> reduces training and support costs.

Go straight for the bottom line.

If you are selling to an open market, then a good UI improves your sales
performance; you'll sell more, faster because a poor UI is a barrier to
sales. If you have a competitor, then a poor UI is also a point of weakness
that they can attack. You can sell 'round it, but it costs more in sales
effort.

If you're working on internal system developments, a good UI has a direct
impact on staff effectiveness, and even morale. We've all worked with
systems that seem to frustrate our every move, take longer to do simple
tasks, require us to concentrate on driving the software instead of doing
our job, and just add to the general stress level and cognitive overload.

Glenn's subsequent description of paper prototyping is spot on. I'd just add
that you should try to involve an end-user or two as well as the dev. team
if you can.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and 
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe.  http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.