Re: Green-screen versus browser

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Reeve,

> Am I missing any points meaningful to senior management?

I think one of the major issues that you're missing is the idea of 
"presentation" vs "utility".  How something is presented to the user makes 
a big difference, even if it doesn't seem practical.

For example, When you walk down the aisle of a grocery store, studies have 
shown that the packages that are most pleasing to the eye are the ones 
that sell. Not necessarily the food that tastes the best, or has the 
lowest price (Though those factors do help!) but the most important thing 
for attracting customers is how the package looks.

The same is true of your screens. How they look to the user is a BIG DEAL 
as to how satisfied your users will be. This is the face of your 
application to them, this is all they see.

Sure, green screens are practical.

Let me use another analogy... clothing.  What's needed for clothes to be 
practical?  They don't have to match. They don't have to look good at all, 
in fact. They just have to protect you from the weather, that's all. Yet, 
it's very important to all of us to look good. We want nice looking, new 
clothes. We want to coordinate them so the colors look good together, they 
fit us well (well, some better than others!) and that they're appropriate 
for different events. How they look to others is paramount.

The same is true for your comptuer programs.  How the screens look is 
absolutely vital. You should be putting as much effort into how they look 
as you do into how they work -- both are important!

And that's a HUGE reason why green screen fails.  In fact, the green 
screen paradigm is a big part of the decline of the iSeries.  Nobody wants 
a system where all/most of the programs are green screen.  It's ABSOLUTELY 
KILLING US.  And IBM has given us not one, but SEVERAL ways to make them 
GUI and for some reason we're not doing it.

There's more to marketing than paying for advertisements!  You have to 
make your applications look good, and when everyone does that, it'll make 
the iSeries look good.  Until then, it's a "legacy machine."

---
Scott Klement  http://www.scottklement.com