New England Software Developer's Third Party Trade Show -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 10/1/1997
Last Visited: 12/3/2007
Featured speakers were Dr. Harold Miller-Jacobs, a professor at Tufts University and noted authority on User Interface Architecture, and Jeffrey Tarter, renowned software analyst and Editor/Publisher of the Watertown based Soft*Letter.
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Opening speaker Harold Miller-Jacobs, speaking on "Developing the High Level User Interface", set the tone by deriding the way most software is developed."Most developers figure 'Bill {Gates} has been successful doing it his way, I'll copy him.' They then create a window with the standard file, edit and options menus, with the functionality of the program in the options menu ." Miller-Jacobs then bluntly stated that "while a great deal of software is written that way, it's not the way most users would choose to work."Miller-Jacobs offers an as alternative the paradigm of a "Task Panel with a Central Object."With this model, the major tasks to be performed by an application (for instance, changing or deleting a customer record) are represented graphically (via push buttons or tabs) with the "central object" (the customer information) on screen at all times.Miller-Jacobs emphasizes that the "Task Analysis" stage-in which the developer determines what functionality needs to built into the task panel-is crucial.