>If they want an "Exit" button and they insist on it, give it
>to them and let them see how stupid it is first hand at their own
>cost. This is desktop mentality at its worst.
<snip>
>Again, you can also start to look for other progressive
>clients that "get it" and know how to use these machines
>right. If I had
>your contract, I would give them what they wanted and then
>just let them hang in the ropes they tied. Then they will
>come to you to
>fix what they have spec'ed out and you can charge them more to
>have it done right.
>
>Sometimes the clients like learning the expensive way.
Eh, they don't care that much about the expense one way or the other.
Our clients are vendors of PoS equipment...many don't train their
customers in on our stuff, so our software often has to be very obvious
and easy for anyone to just sit down with and learn, without any manuals
or whatnot. (Which ususally requires custom labelling...yet another
thing that would raise ire on this forum, but I digress)
I even tested this with a number of people who were completely new to the
platform, and they had to be able to learn the interface without any
manuals, or software, or otherwise information. I had my original version,
which had one control button (had to because our Symbol had a MSR attached
to it and we wanted the user to be able to initiate a swipe operation when
needed, still used the scan buttons of course) tested by them, and none of
them could figure out how to exit to see all the other stuff on the
handheld. They knew there were other things, but the little "house"
(or arrow on the III's) icon didn't look enough like an exit (I'd like to
see a little open door, instead). So I added a little button on the bottom
of the form (I had LOTS of room because I had no control buttons on the
primary form) that said "exit" on it. When they worked with it the next
time, they were able to navigate around the Palm much easier, thus, they
were much happier and they notified their vendor to require us to formally
add it to the program.
-Rus
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