The AndPlus Software Development Blog

Today we start a series of blog posts that dive into the design and development process we use here at AndPlus.

Our philosophy at AndPlus follows the Agile development methodology. By way of review, Agile breaks down a development project into short (one- or two-week) mini development cycles called sprints. A fundamental principle of Agile is that at the end of each development sprint, the team should have a working (albeit not necessarily complete) version of the software product.

Have you ever used software whose user interface had some or all of the following characteristics?

• No clear path for performing a task
• Non-intuitive controls
• Poorly worded, non-descriptive labels
• Unhelpful error messages
• No feedback when you take an action (Is it doing anything, or is it stuck?)
• Data entry fields that allow you to enter invalid data
• Date entry fields that require you to duplicate data entry or enter extraneous data for no good reason
• Poor or nonexistent help

If so, you’re not alone—in fact, if you haven’t encountered such software, you are in a tiny minority.

The world, it seems, is getting dark.

It’s not for want of sunlight or electricity to power our myriad lighting devices. (Indeed, light pollution is considered by many to be a growing problem with environmental and public health implications.) It’s an aesthetic preference for darker colors in our daily lives. Our kitchen appliances have gone from white to black or unpainted stainless steel. Computer cases, for which “ivory” was once de rigeur, are now almost universally black or some shade of dark grey. Look around on our roads and you’ll mainly see cars that are black (even matte black), grey, or some muted shade of silver.

We’ve all seen examples of bad design in our daily lives: appliances that break on first use, floor plans that are difficult to navigate, and of course, computer software that makes tasks harder, not easier.

Software developers are a funny bunch. Not necessarily “ha ha” funny—you don’t see many developers on the stand-up comedy circuit—but they have certain peculiarities. Although they are generally amenable to learning new things, such as shopping for books, buying airline tickets, and meeting people in “chat rooms.” Witness, for example, the great struggles some development teams had when switching from procedural to object-oriented programming.

Futureproofing software designs and user experience minimizes the risk of ending up with obsolete programs and outdated apps. It’s a challenge facing all software development companies, but by keeping up with trends it's possible to anticipate and prepare for changes in requirements and include them in the planning.

Here are some of the issues we expect to see, and what we’re doing to address them.