CFUnited Session Review: Implementing Usability by Ron West

by Doug Boude, CFUnited Correspondent

Usability. It's a term whose definition can be somewhat ambiguous and definitely subjective. In Ron's explanation, usability is defined not in a textbook as much as it must be defined on a case by case basis by consensus of those who will use the end application. Even with its blurry definition, though, there are still some commonalities that should be considered throughout the process of designing most any user interface, and these are what Ron focused upon.

Usability is an art, not a science, and therefore should always be considered a fluid, moldable thing. Despite its fluidity, however, a successfully executed user interface (UI) design is arrived at when a good plan is in place to do so. What are the goals of your UI? Have you built prototypes for your end users to review and critique? Will Ajax or some other form of asynchronous processing be utilized? What technologies and resources are available to build the final product? The answers to these questions will be the foundation of a successful UI project plan.

Ron's philosophy on building an app, from what I derived from his presentation, is that it should be designed from the backend forward. That is, you should design your database and the objects interacting with that database before you can design a successful UI for the application. Although I almost completely disagree with this idea, I was able to see his points. (I wasn't converted, though.)

Several minutes were also spent presenting the group with some of the different Ajax frameworks, with a short list of pros and cons for each. There was also some discussion on the process for determining what technologies should be utilized for your UI design, considering such factors as your own skills and the skills of the resources available to you.

Overall, I didn't really get too much takeaway from the session, but Ron is a very charismatic fellow and it was well presented.

Having spent four years disarming bombs for the Air Force, Doug Boude is now a Senior Web Application Architect for Fiserv Health in San Antonio, TX. He has been developing with ColdFusion since version 4.0.

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