When a customer approaches me with a request for a new module in their database, it very often helps me to visualize the task.
This is actually the opposite way of programming.
Normally a programmer first solves the core problem in a program routine, then he takes care of the required input data for the routine and finally of the way this data is entered by the user.
In such cases the user interface is usually the part that the programmer treats most stepmotherly. This often has to do with the fact that the actual problem is solved, the data structure is ready and how the user enters the data is then rather uninteresting.
In addition, programmers are usually not good interface designers and at the end of a project there is usually always enormous time pressure.
With visualization, this approach is turned upside down.
First, the user interface is designed on the basis of a briefing or simply a spontaneous idea for a new software.
This gives the programmer to focus on the operation and the design and only then to work out the implementation.
For my visualizations, I actually always use an iPad Pro with Pencil and the great program Noteshelf.
The program offers an intuitive interface, the operation is wonderfully simple and the range of functions is manageable.
You can just get started without spending hours on the program.
Using the example of a release plan development, I would like to briefly show the workflow.
We started in the briefing with the basic requirements of releases divided by calendar weeks where information such as production status, artist, name of production staff and other basic data should be immediately visible.
In addition, a basic requirement was that functions like moving releases between calendar weeks or a status change (pending/off) had to be fast and intuitive for the user.
Already the first draft with the customer showed me that the requirements would be difficult to realize with the native Filemaker functionality.
So very quickly I had a variation of the jquery Drag&Drop plugin in mind.
Based on the first sketch, we were able to immediately define the functions and function calls together and draw them into the sketch.
Since the customer immediately gets an impression of the interface and operation, further ideas for the extension of the modules of the software developed already at this stage.
Thus the idea arose to program a production plan for 6 production workers and a product manager plan with the same card layout:
Such a procedure can be extremely important, since here already before the programming not only the structure of the software, but also the conditions for possible later extensions are contributed by the customer.
This makes it much easier for the programmer to estimate the structure of the programming.
To adapt such a structure in a later step or even after the end of the project can really be a nightmare.
I wouldn’t use this approach for every project and every customer, but for complex programming it can be very helpful.