Why developers don't like Java

You install the ME SDK, finally understanding that you found what you need.
The install page works only on IE ( and we thought java was competing with MS !). Doesn't work on FF or Chrome. Its a giant download but cannot be resumed. So when the internet connection breaks down (once a year, but exactly while your downloading it) you download it again.

Finallly you install it, and it says: You cannot install without a JDK, Minimum 1.6. Wait what's a JDK. so you look it up. There's JDK SE. So ME SDK needs JDK SE, but the JDK wont' work for Blackberry if you don't have the right WDE. You want MIDP support for CLDC. So all you have to do is install the JDK for JDE with EDJ for SDJ, without the SDE for the JDE, which of course will only support the JDSCLDSCE. That was easy, was it not?

Android

OK Now that Android's catching the wave, the need is here, more than ever.

I propose we conjure an easy and graphic way for almost anybody, to be able to offer their two cents about the user experience they would like for various software. 

I was looking for a project I wanted to do in open source, and I think I found it!!

Anybody with ideas, or who wishes to help is invited.

So why is the user experience of open source software so bad?

All the good stuff by M$ has been ripped off open source, some of it unabashedly. For starters, take a look at SVG and XUL and then read about XAML. Look at the history of Mozilla and Firefox , then see how IE followed suit.

But when it comes to the UX - somehow nothing looks good. The real mud puddle is the Gimp program.

So instead of just ranting, let's do something about it. Let's define the open source interface.

Moshe

There's Agile Programming, Management, but nothing about the UX

Or: Tackling the Agile User Experience

Agile is all about developing software that 'works', and is

1. What the user needs
2. What the client wanted
3. What the developer team is proud of.

There's one 'small' part of the whole process that has constantly been neglected.
The User Experience.

Long ago, I worked at IBM Scientific Labs (in Haifa) and heard of the The Three ive's:
I learned that software should be:

• Attractive
• Intuitive
• Interactive
  
  

I learned that one should be able to use software "out of the box" without reading any manuals, and without double checking long help messages on the screen.
Nobody reads the warnings, unless they are a debugging message, and you are a programmer, but even then, you don't enjoy it.

SO... Why is all Agile Management Software, sold on the market at full price, with a crappy static interface, with non-intuitive setup screens, and non-exciting user screens?

Why isn't the software showing me the simplest options, and hiding anything useless at this stage? As an example: If I have only one company, why do they show me a category called "companies" and force me to enter my single company under that?

This is not a rant. This is the first in a series of articles on a new paradigm in Extreme Programming aka Agile Programming: Tackling the User Experience.

This new methodology will be similar to the TDD (Test Driven Development) methodology developed for code programming, but will include various practices, rules and tests. I'm not focusing on the 'fancy' part of the pages (skinning, animations etc) - although that too will be part of what is looked at, but rather about the screen flow, what is and what is not shown at each stage, and the dynamics of the application user experience (what was once called User Interface or UI).

Join me in defining this new Agile Expansion paradigm!
Let's tackle the UX in an agile way.

Moshe Flam aka Pashute