Re: Hard to Revise a UI

Subject: Re: Hard to Revise a UI
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 15:53:11 -0400

Nancy Allison wrote:


It's a geek's paradise, and a total mess. The lead developer said to me, "Oh, we'll fix the UI later."



Nancy,

You're describing a broken process, obviously; but that's not really what you're asking. You're asking whether the product is fixable.

Generally, the answer is yes.

Most developers, even in an undisciplined organization such as the one you suggest, write software in a modular sort of way, and they think of the overall software architecture in terms of tiers or layers. The "functions" you describe belong to the "business logic layer." These functions exchange information with the data layer (generally depicted below) and with the presentation layer (generally depicted above). The presentation layer is where the UI is generated.

What can happen when a designer comes in and rips the UI apart is that a need becomes evident to manage additional pieces of information (user preferences, for one example). So the database analyst has to add some more content to the data layer, and perhaps some additional functions have to be incorporated in the business logic layer, and the presentation layer has to be completely rewritten; but that doesn't mean that the work already done on business logic is for naught. If the data has been calculated properly, the presentation layer can still use it.

But you're right; it's a lousy way to run a railroad.

Dick

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References:
Hard to Revise a UI: From: Nancy Allison

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