The very reason for this post is that the most recent GUI application that I've written was officially released a few days ago, and it is in Delphi. What's special about this particular application is that it comes really close to the ever sought perfect "one button" program. Ease of use was the major goal and what our group managed to produce you can see for yourself here:
Internetbank installer (in Russian!)
To give you the idea what it is for, it is a program to initiate access to remote banking web site for the bank of Severnaya kazna, which I happen to be working for right now. A client clicks the button, browser pops up and the client is brought to http://www.internetbank.ru/ from where he can manage his cards, accounts, transfers, payments etc.
Looks simple, except that before you can enter, you need to have started a cryptographically protected HTTP proxy server and provided with it a key, which is used for putting legally valid digital signatures under all your payments.
And that encryption key needs to be have been generated before. And the key expires and needs to be extended remotely. And CA certificates (the bank runs its own certification authority) also expire and need to be replaced remotely. And the user may have multiple keys to choose from.
And there might be problems with Internet access and the user needs a clear and concise yet technical enough diagnostics.
And it should run without installation from a removable drive with very restricted rights. And it should not require any runtime installation, such as .NET, but it must run on Windows 98.
And it must be remotely updatable.
And it must be simple to be usable by the most average Joe.
The result is the program works and really has just one button, which is also big and pretty. There is no confusion as to what to do next, because most of the time the user is simply not given any choice at all, clicking the only button starts the only process (of entering the protected web-site).
In a rare case when a user has to initiate some other process, such as generating a new key, the reasons for that are clearly explained right there on the program's face. Hints and careful label wording help at least those users who can and actually are reading.
Looking back I realize that the only reason why such a simple solution appeared is three years of refining the procedure. During last three years our customers had to use different software, clumsy and inconvenient (despite being also written by me). But in three years we learned all the moves and most of the problems. And then a strategic decision was made and we trashed the old software and rolled out the new one. And I like what we did.
Anyhow, returning to Delphi.
I'm using it for what it does best - pretty GUI with access to OS services or 3rd party libraries. Skin support (as well as good taste) makes programs really good looking. Being pretty is a major advantage for end-user software. Positive emotional reaction would actually help the user to deal with it.
Aside from that, Delphi programs don't require any *cough* runtime platform but run on Windows 98. And Delphi produces reasonably lightweight executables. And you don't need administrative rights to run them. And I like it.
Great stuff.
2 comments:
"...Looking back I realize that the only reason why such a simple solution appeared is three years of refining the procedure. During last three years our customers had to use different software, clumsy and inconvenient (despite being also written by me). But in three years we learned all the moves and most of the problems. And then a strategic decision was made and we trashed the old software and rolled out the new one. And I like what we did..."
That is nearly the same what will be said about the product after the next 3 years ;-)
You are right of course. It's called "improvement" :)
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