On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 13:11:52 -0500, Stephan Richter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The brainstorming of actual educators is a totally different level of
discussion that could be easily done in parallel to the development.
And hopefully it *will* be done in parallel. We will get the best software if
we permit a dialectical relationship between customer and software.
Note that the general rule of thumb is: The customer does not know what s/he
wants until s/he sees the product. And this is pretty much always true.
I'm hoping you mean early and often when you speak of "seeing the software". If
customers don't "see" the software until large amounts of it have already been
implemented, it will be too late to get the best outcome.
It would be fantastic if you could place idea outlines & design concepts
on the website, or better even on a wiki? My argument is that in order
to arrive at a user-friendly application overall, you need to enable
participation and critique when you are still ordering your thoughts /
when you are in early design. If you plough away coding, only to
discover - after a full month of hard work - that you missed an
important related user requirement for a particular feature, this turns
into a disappointment, for both "sides".
That's not true. We are using agile programming techniques, which recognizes
the fact that requirements always change and thus software always changes.
The process that Tom seems to be putting in place would be great: get a group
of early adopters to sign-on to the project as test schools, with the
understanding that by contributing actively as customers they will get the best
software which most closely meets their real needs.
jeff
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