Rony, These are some books I've read or am currently reading that directly relate to what you're about to get into.
- For creating good forms and managing documentation: Robert Hoeckman Jr., *Designing the Obvious*<http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Obvious-Common-Approach-Application/dp/032145345X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204245575&sr=8-1> - For taming office politics and keeping the product focused: Indi Young, *Mental Models*<http://www.amazon.com/Mental-Models-Aligning-strategy-behavior/dp/1933820063/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204245607&sr=8-1> - For dealing with the difficult situations you're going to encounter if your IT team is grounded in green-screen apps: David Platt, *Why Software Sucks and What You Can Do About It<http://www.amazon.com/Why-Software-Sucks-What-About/dp/0321466756/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204245668&sr=8-1> .* That's a lot of reading, but I read Robert's book in a weekend. I haven't even gotten through the first chapter of Indi Young's book but I've already gotten enough of the concept (and I attended her virtual seminar last week) that I intend to try it in my next project. David's book is comic relief backed up by solid insight. Personal lessons I've learned from doing several green-screen-to-web app conversions for a big corporation: 1. RESEARCH. This is when good people skills come in really handy. Find a couple of people who are the end users, give them fair warning that you may be spending LOTS of time with them, and then stick on 'em like a reality-show camera crew. You don't always get the opportunity to do this, so if you've got that chance, recognize it for the gold that it is. It's a great way to get to know people. 2. User task flows rock. These are the best way I've found for flushing out unexpected surprises and getting a true screen count, which in turn helps you develop a realistic project schedule. There have been times when I've skipped this step, and I've always regretted it later. 3. Just because they're I.T. doesn't mean they know web. Perhaps my first and biggest mistake. I came to the bank assuming that financial green-screen IT guys would be able to do all the same stuff as dotcom programmers. That doesn't mean there isn't a willingness to try, but be prepared to deal with some serious management-of-expectation issues. 4. Do not be alarmed by white space. You do not need to fill every inch of space in order to convince someone they're getting their money's worth. Where I work, it's actually the marketing and business teams that are the most guilty of this; user research is the crucifix for this particular vampire. 5. Prototypes, baby. People -includes programmers- are visual creatures, and prototypes visually communicate goals better than a 300-page requirements doc. Also, conducting usability sessions on clickable prototypes and recording those sessions with Morae is a powerful method for fast, iterative design. Hope this helps! Please let me know if I can help you in any other way. -Gloria ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
