On Sat, May 17, 2025 at 7:56 AM Infodorado InfoDorado via MIDRANGE-L
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The trick is to keep USERS in mind when you do a graphic type interface.
Not just keeping them in mind, but keeping them in the loop. And that
goes for any interface, not just graphical.
The green screen forces the developer into coding in a way that has a shorter learning curve for new users.
No it doesn't. You could argue that it forces the developer into
coding in a way that uses display real estate efficiently, but I don't
even agree with that. I've seen plenty of actual 5250 user interfaces
that are clunky, slow, unintuitive, hard to learn, and inefficient in
their use of screen space. Just bad all around.
Effective user interface design is almost always a collaboration
between users and developers. Some developers either have experience
doing what the users do, or they have enough skill and imagination to
anticipate what will work best for the users. Such developers *may*
not have to involve the users in the design. And some users are good
enough at what they do, and have enough imagination, and have good
enough communication skills to tell a developer exactly what they want
and need, and all the developer has to do is blindly follow the spec.
But the vast majority of developers and the vast majority of users
need to work together to really get something that works well, no
matter if it's on the green screen or graphical. The very best
interfaces typically come from one of those superstar developers
working with one of those superstar users. That combination also
typically produces the shortest development and testing cycles.
John Y.
midrange.com
