RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

Tom, 

I think using amazon.com as an example of an order entry system is flawed,
yes it may be a very powerful and complex as any green screen order system
and it process millions of orders daily is exceptional but they have
millions of order entry people (customers) entering those orders, and in
general each order entry person enters one or two orders a day. The UI also
has to be built for the lowest common denominator (dumbest customer) so that
they aren't getting tens of thousands of calls to place those orders.

With our green screen system we have 50 or so order entry personal trained
on the order entry system, some with specialazations in specific very
complex order types, and we put through 5,000 to 25,000 orders per day.
Heads down green screen order entry by trained personal will, IMHO, always
be more productive than any current GUI. Unless some kind of revolutionary
UI comes into play I don't see that changing for years.

Where the change is comming, at least at my shop and many/most others, is
the realization that the customer is willing to do the work for us, taking
their time to enter orders etc... for us. So like amazon.com and many others
we are building browser UIs to our systems allowing our customers to become
order entry personel for the company, who pay us to do it.

Duane Christen
    

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Tom Jedrzejewicz
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 8:54 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence


On 5/3/06, Douglas W. Palme <dpalme@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Without wanting to sound as if I am completely negative, I could not
> disagree with you more.
> ...  more time is wasted playing with the g-d forsaken mouse and
> clicking on buttons than anything else I have ever seen.
> ... users like to play and with a green screen (...) we have far
> little of those issues and a hell of a lot more productivity.
> ... it has to do with the fact there are no graphics and colorful
> screens and browsers, etc.

Initially, it sounded as if you don't like GUI is because of solitaire
and web-browsing.  Both are relatively easy to eliminate, so there
must be more to it.  Do you disagree with the assertion that a GUI
application is more intuitive and easier to train?

My view is that the GUI offers more opportunity to make an application
powerful, intuitive  and productive, because of color and object
sizing, because of pictures, because of the lack of state/mode
restrictions, and because of hyperlinking.  I think that the amount of
research and writing done about UI design is staggering, which will
lead to better apps.

Consider amazon.com; arguably their order entry app is as complex as
any green screen order entry app, and they have millions of users on
it daily.  Would that be possible if the interface was green screen?

I also think that whether you or I is correct is irrelevant.  The
world has made the decision for us; graphical UI is how things need to
work.  The green screen world is shrinking, and sooner or later a
developer without gui experience is going to be unemployable.

Take care

--
Tom Jedrzejewicz
tomjedrz@xxxxxxxxx