Semi-OT: Programming Question

[Jack]

--- "Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student)"
<jmcqk6 at umkc.edu> wrote:
> >Beware the client who always changes the
> requirements... :)
> 
> Think there is a method of discovering such clients
> ahead of time?  My
> experience so far has been that people with vague
> ideas of what they
> want are the worse.  They don't know what they want,
> so you try to build
> what they describe
This is the totally wrong approach. It is the
deisgner's job to extract from a client a clear
picture of what it is they want. This means getting
input from the people who will use the product. It
maens asking questions, restating the answers, and
developing a data map and interface requirements.
Defining the data that will be captured and how it
relates is crucial in designing the database. If your
database design is flawed all else is crap. Once you
know what your data is and how it will be used you can
go to the next level and design the interface. As was
stated developing these design requirements takes
several meetings. Also, it is important to tie feature
creep with expenses. While I don't promote the
approach of making feature creep overly expensive, it
should be factored in a way to ensure profitibilty. If
a client asks you to build a satellite and then over
time the project creeps into building the moon, as
long as you can do it and make a profit doing it I see
no problem in giving it to them.

That's just my $0.02, from the perspective of someon
who has done this type of criteria extracting and
feature creep management. Clients often don't think as
designers (that's why we are supposed to make the big
bucks) and need structured guidance in determining
what it is they want and can afford.

Now I have to go see what kind of feature creep my
daughter wants. ;')

Former designer meets Mr. Mom, ;')
Brian Densmore



		
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