>>>Hello,
>>>
>>>I just wrote an article about building user friendly interfaces, maybe that is of interest for some of you or you have some ideas to add from your own.
>>>
>>>http://cisberner.wordpress.com/
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>>I've always said that anyone who is going to create good user apps should first do the user activity. In other words, do data entry on 'bad' data entry screens and then on 'good' data entry screens and pay attention to what the differences were.
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>>Keep in mind who you're programming for. Managers, for the most part, like bells and whistles, lots of mousing and drop down lists and such. People in the trenches want speed.
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>For me, that is one of the most frustrating things aboput programming. Our typical; "user" is not the decision maker. So our marketing staff (bless their hearts) continue to request "flash", which the typical head-down user couldn't care less about. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if in sales), flash sells.

That apect of course is true, there are times the programmer is not in control. Thankfully I am working in a fairly small software shop with only 5 programmers, and we all have a lot of responsibility in our assigned projects. We often do interview the end users ourselves and can make decisions down the road, and most of our clients really want us to interview the future users regarding their work and expectations. I think managers must learn that happy users will be more productive and more loyal in the end.