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GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
den2k8813-Nov-22 22:44
professionalden2k8813-Nov-22 22:44 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
charlieg13-Nov-22 23:51
charlieg13-Nov-22 23:51 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
11917640 Member 14-Nov-22 0:20
11917640 Member 14-Nov-22 0:20 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Sander Rossel13-Nov-22 1:02
professionalSander Rossel13-Nov-22 1:02 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
jschell14-Nov-22 6:57
jschell14-Nov-22 6:57 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Sander Rossel14-Nov-22 23:49
professionalSander Rossel14-Nov-22 23:49 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
jschell28-Nov-22 9:30
jschell28-Nov-22 9:30 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Gary R. Wheeler13-Nov-22 2:19
Gary R. Wheeler13-Nov-22 2:19 
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Have you ever had a boss who placed unrealistic constraints on your work?
Not so much a boss as internal users. Our product is a commercial ink-jet printing system, and our application runs the machine. I do our user interfaces, which are the control panel for this $2M+ piece of equipment.

My ongoing problem is this. The mechanical, electrical, chemical, and service engineers love adding decisions to the user's workload. They want the user to decide whether they want to use mode X or mode Y when performing process A. When performing process Q, should we stop when condition C23 or C27.2 is detected? In a running joke in the group, they always suggest "Can't you just display a popup?". This is on a machine that must have certain operations always available (like STOP) and displaying a modal message box or task dialog is only reasonable in very select cases. The more important issue is that the user is a machine operator, and he simply doesn't care; he just wants to print.

I spend ¾ of my time figuring out how to not add buttons or knobs. Many times the decision they're asking for is for their own debugging purposes, so those get added to an engineering section of the UI that isn't displayed in customer installations. If the decision is one they make once for the customer installation, it's made part of the configuration loaded at startup. Most of the remaining decisions I have to present and place so that they don't interfere with normal operations, but are where the user will find if needed. Every so often I get lucky, and after taking a pick-axe to the engineer's brain, figure out how to make the decision within the application without involving the user.

When sales/marketing and management get involved this is harder. They like to dictate a particular solution ("can't you just display a popup?") and if they don't see that, they throw a conniption because you haven't done what they've asked. The advantage of being a Wise Old Head is that you become adept at explaining the benefits of your solution over the one they mandated, and doing so in a way that smooths their ruffled feathers.
Software Zen: delete this;

GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Nelek13-Nov-22 2:40
protectorNelek13-Nov-22 2:40 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Mircea Neacsu13-Nov-22 3:28
Mircea Neacsu13-Nov-22 3:28 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Gary R. Wheeler13-Nov-22 5:10
Gary R. Wheeler13-Nov-22 5:10 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Matt Bond14-Nov-22 6:24
Matt Bond14-Nov-22 6:24 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Calin Negru13-Nov-22 4:22
Calin Negru13-Nov-22 4:22 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
dandy7213-Nov-22 3:41
dandy7213-Nov-22 3:41 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
peterkmx13-Nov-22 3:55
professionalpeterkmx13-Nov-22 3:55 
AnswerRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Ravi Bhavnani13-Nov-22 12:23
professionalRavi Bhavnani13-Nov-22 12:23 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Wizard of Sleeves13-Nov-22 19:56
Wizard of Sleeves13-Nov-22 19:56 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
den2k8813-Nov-22 22:48
professionalden2k8813-Nov-22 22:48 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
den2k8813-Nov-22 22:43
professionalden2k8813-Nov-22 22:43 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Dave B 6814-Nov-22 3:08
Dave B 6814-Nov-22 3:08 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Richard Andrew x6414-Nov-22 12:27
professionalRichard Andrew x6414-Nov-22 12:27 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
englebart14-Nov-22 5:20
professionalenglebart14-Nov-22 5:20 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
SeattleC++14-Nov-22 5:48
SeattleC++14-Nov-22 5:48 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
Juan Pablo Reyes Altamirano14-Nov-22 6:29
Juan Pablo Reyes Altamirano14-Nov-22 6:29 
GeneralRe: Opinions on Dialog Design? Pin
sasadler14-Nov-22 6:21
sasadler14-Nov-22 6:21 

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