RE: No specifications

Subject: RE: No specifications
From: "Locke, David" <dlocke -at- bindview -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 11:40:17 -0500

Betsy Pfister said:
>Haha! Welcome to the "Level 0" nightmare.

Keep in mind that the "Level 0" nightmare is self correcting. Miss a few
ship dates and the people in charge will lose their jobs--provided you are
in a "performance-based" organization.

But, if you cannot wait that long, you might want to consider specifications
to be unneccessary. If you are experimenting with the application, you
should be able to identify all the entities exposed in the UI. And, you
should be able to identify the functionality exposed in the UI. These things
contribute to the user's conceptual model. Outside information is only
necessary when the application deviates from the user's conceptual model.
But, the application should NEVER deviate from the user's conceptual model.
If it does, then consider that deviation a bug of the highest order, and
don't let the product ship. This will drive negative use costs to the moon.
And, no amount of wallpaper (documents) will be able to paper it over.

If I have to ask you how it works, its broken. Period. Spec or no spec. SME
descriptions or not.

David W. Locke





Previous by Author: FW: Task analysis/ONE DEFINITION
Next by Author: RE: No specifications
Previous by Thread: RE: No specifications
Next by Thread: RE: No specifications


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads