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"Necessity is the mother of invention" - Plato, from the dialogue Republic
Hi there.
My name's Brandon McPherson, and I'm a software developer and consultant that has served several industries for about 12 years now - agriculture, finance, human resources, marketing, manufacturing... the list goes on.
At the start of 2007, I had finally decided to take the plunge and branch out into my own service firm. Things have been moving well - to such a degree that it took me a full year to get around to building a website for it.
While I could probably create a good solid page of corporate-speak about quality, innovation and all the other good stuff you would expect from a consultant or software company, I'll just explain what I believe to be my perceived truths about software. From there, you should be able to decide if I'm the type of person you're looking for.
The 98 Pounds Rules of Software Development
- Good software doesn't require thick manuals - unless a client requires some sort of training session for its users, the best choice is to simply make software intuitive so that people are willing to experiment with it. Users always feel more productive if they're hands-on than if they're surfing through a huge pile of paperwork and/or help files.
- Good software considers the user perspective as much as the client's - I've encountered several situations where both clients and former employers have had very different ideas of how to achieve certain tasks in their software that simply didn't make sense to the user. For this reason, I prefer to have a very open field of communication with not only those who conceive the ideas, but those who will be using the software on a regular basis.
- Good ideas come from anywhere - being open-minded and willing to accept feedback can lead to all sorts of innovation.
- If your software works great and looks ugly, it still needs work - user experience is everything. In the same way an ugly car won't be sold to potential buyers, an ugly program will not be adopted by the intended user base. In short - make it pretty, make it work and make it right.
- Many people don't want an intimate relationship with their software, they just want it to work - in other words, leave the details to the programmers. If the user had a choice, they'd have one button on the screen that said "Solve all my problems", and it would probably click itself when necessary. It's always best to try and get as close to that as possible.
Computer work can be a lot like taking one's car to the mechanic - you're left with a head full of technical jargon and a bill for services that you may not fully understand. I don't believe it should ever be that way.
If you require any more information about anything written here(or anything else software-related), feel free to contact me.
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