On Mar 6, 2006, at 2:25 PM, Prather, Wanda wrote:
... And WHERE did this notion of "one consolidated front end" come from?
...
Unfortunately, it seems to be in the genomes of the company, making for an unrelenting urge to create ponderous interface systems regardless of cost or practicality. Those of us who have been around IBM a long time recall the absolutely astounding corporate fiasco called System Application Architecture. The definition in redbook "The Library for System Solutions End User Interface Reference" (at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/GG244107.html) summarizes it thusly: "SAA is the detailed architecture (specifications) about software interfaces, conventions and protocols that programmers use to create common applications. SAA specifications provide a structure that enables consistent, transparent access to information resources across IBM operating environments i.e. OS/2, OS/400, VM, MVS and any other which adhere to these specifications." In other words, IBM had these disparate operating systems, and someone thought it would be a good idea to divert about 40% of the corporation's efforts over several years toward a Grand Unification Theory. After untold millions of dollars of effort, and countless hours diverted from customer attention, it collapsed under its own weight. But the urge never seems to die, and thus we keep seeing these efforts to create unwieldy interfaces, which satisfy designer ambitions more than they do end user needs or customer satisfaction. In stark contrast to such design orientations, there is Apple, with arguably the best human interfaces in the industry, providing immense user satisfaction in outstanding usability and performance. They achieve this largely because they remain focused on usability and speed - and because the people there use this software themselves. Straying from such basic objectives, and becoming distracted by "architecture", results in designs which satisfy only designers...who must think that there's something wrong with the end users if they don't appreciate how wonderful the design is. Outstanding interfaces can be realized; but the corporate culture must be of a kind which allows it to naturally occur. Where bureaucracy and departmentalization are overbearing, it just doesn't seem to happen. Richard Sims
