No offense to the talented individuals who can push around, clean, normalize, and integrate data—but they may not be ideally suited to designing a user interface for non-technical users.
I once worked with a guy - a thoroughly obnoxious chap - who decided he could not only tell me, the network admin, how to do my job, but that he could design user interfaces, as well. I paid attention to him because he was dangerous on a network. (Things like issuing a simple query to a database, and then he would sort out the results, locally... Not too bad - unless the database was a trading history... An entire trading history.)
Anyway, his new widget was a bust. It was a little chap, with a flag. Up meant, er, whatever it meant. And down meant, well, whatever it did. The users hated it. With a passion.
Now, this was a trading analysis application he was designing. There's no such thing as "right" or "wrong" choices; there are only scenarios. (This was probably a precursor to the CDO days...) The users - bankers - really despised it when he made the little man "green" for up, and "red" for down. They felt like the programmer was condescending.
Well, as it happens: he was. Very.
(Ah, fond memories. Especially when I (seriously) threatened him bodily harm...) :-)
4 comments:
I once worked with a guy - a thoroughly obnoxious chap - who decided he could not only tell me, the network admin, how to do my job, but that he could design user interfaces, as well. I paid attention to him because he was dangerous on a network. (Things like issuing a simple query to a database, and then he would sort out the results, locally... Not too bad - unless the database was a trading history... An entire trading history.)
Anyway, his new widget was a bust. It was a little chap, with a flag. Up meant, er, whatever it meant. And down meant, well, whatever it did. The users hated it. With a passion.
Now, this was a trading analysis application he was designing. There's no such thing as "right" or "wrong" choices; there are only scenarios. (This was probably a precursor to the CDO days...) The users - bankers - really despised it when he made the little man "green" for up, and "red" for down. They felt like the programmer was condescending.
Well, as it happens: he was. Very.
(Ah, fond memories. Especially when I (seriously) threatened him bodily harm...) :-)
Carolyn Ann
How did he feel about talking paperclips?
I'm not sure. He managed, with staggering ease, to get himself fired before that little monster came out.
:-)
Carolyn Ann
That sort of person isn't fired. They accomplish a "lateral or upward move", and "hey, if they FIRE me, I get unemployement benefits!!!"
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