Discussion Archive: April 2009

Complex Data Table Design

Folks

I'm working in an enterprise application with a large table of data
that currently forces a horizontal scroll. This table displays data
contained in a work order. This is the legacy of a previously built
system.

We know we need to eliminate the horizontal scroll, but the business
customers still want to use the table model to maintain some
consistency with the old application.

Process resposibilties: PM does initial requirementsgathering with client?

Here, it's usually the Product Manager who gathers the requirements from
customers, prospects, and other business stakeholders and decides what
use cases need to be changed or supported. Occasionally I'll "ride
along" but not often, both because of time constraints and because the
requirements do not typically get transcribed directly from customer
requests.

I then work with the Product Manager to determine how to implement the
use cases in the software. I do user testing of the designs with
customers to ensure that the implementation is logical, efficient, and
pleasant to use.

Adobe Air / MS Silverlight... what's next

If you are working with Air or Silverlight ... where do you think it's
going? What is the current state of the tools? There yet? Not? How do we
see these changing what we do?

Love a discussion on what changes with them? What's the same? Are they
harder to build and develop then other alternatives? What do they mean
for the programmers/developers we work with?

Personal interest here:

Looking for examples of AIR and Silverlight that mimic a singular
environment...i.e. almost like creating your own os with its own
behaviors, affordances etc.

Searching People: Best Practices

Hi All,

Currently have some questions about searching an internal directory
of 20,000+ people.

There's some thinking that a Google appliance utilizing a white bar
with rich search capability (parameters / facets on particular
attributes) would be enough to narrow down to who you're looking
for.

There's an opposing thought that an advanced search is required
Upfront for searching by a particular first name, last name, company
name, etc.

We don't have capacity to build both.