And now for something on the edge of meaningless compared to my last post. Well I’m starting a new project at work. I’m adding another level of enhancements to an online tool that has already been created. I got to take a tour of how the tool works, observe how the business uses it, and ask any initial questions I might have.

As I observed, I thought of walking into a fastfood establishment and being greeted by someone who’s English consists mainly of menu items. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a racist thing. They may be a fine bright person, but communication is kind of important for a “front counter” type job. I’ve even tried to get reservations at a hotel before and eventually had to call another place because I couldn’t understand the person that answered the phone. It makes me think about a lot of developers in the industry that are increadibly smart people that have skills out the whazoo but are lacking when it comes to communicating. One of the key skills needed when developing an application is getting past what the client THINKS they want and getting to what they need to do the job. Part of that is getting past the client’s awkward terminology and translating it into common language.

None of that happened on the first release of this project and there are some serious usability issues that are too far gone to resolve. So if you’re hiring someone to develop an application look at their technical skills but also ask yourself, “are they going to listen to me and offer usable solutions or are they just going to meet my requirements?” If they are just going to meet your requirements then you aren’t really gaining anything outside yourself when there are probably better solutions to be found.