What is wrong with CQC?

[jkmonroe]

Ha!  I guess what I meant by that is, for a single penny, I have awesome control of my front door lock, and the wife approves.
 
I have many thousands more invested in CQC and its pieces, yet that 1 penny device meets the WAF.  Regardless of who and where you are, that's a pretty big deal when you think about it.
 
It also helps to drawn down my argument about the cost of things - this 1 penny device can control Zigbee, Zwave, and ClearConnect natively.  Put some real software behind it, and you can start to see how it might succeed. 

 

[pete_c]

Here I do get asked about the price comparison relative to a mechanical light switch versus that multiple paddle, dual load wondrous automated light switch and why sometimes due to a software programming glitch (caused by me)  the house starts to jabber incessantly at 0300 in the morning.  Does the software want attention?  Does it know I am sleeping? 
 
Does it make my life easier?  No because I have no real logical reason for it's use. 
 
Due to WAF shut off the follow me wherever she goes in the house at night lighting a few years back.
 
She does ask what purpose does the automated light switch serve and what justifies the cost? 
 
Just a couple of nights ago we got into a tête-à-tête relating to one switch being on or off mechanically or automatically.

 

[NeverDie]

The best software in the world LOOKS simple and very approachable, but when you did deeper, you find all the power you need. Think MS Office apps.  I think just about anyone can run Word, and write a letter with no extra help.  But if you want to do very involved tasks, it can do that also. Excel is similar. .... Approachable and easy to use by the beginner, with more involved features hidden from view.

+1 Well said.
I was learning FreeNAS recently, and it's "GUI" interface seems almost like a one-to-one conversion of a CLI.   I'm not sure why so many software products succumb to that.  I guess because doing it that way is relatively straightforward and easy to code.

 

[Deane Johnson]

I think most coders fall into the mold of thinking everyone sees things like they do, when the reality is that it's just the opposite.  Users have more of a tendency to think only in terms of what they see in front of them on the screen.

 

[fcwilt]

Programmers usually make poor UI designers.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Actually, that's not the problem for me. I'm a very aesthetic kind of guy. It's that creating super-slick GUIs is extremely time consuming. It often requires creating lots of bespoke graphics (incredibly time consuming), it's usually far less modal (and that means far more complex because it ends up being extremely state based which is very easy to mess up), and it usually requires creating a lot more situation specific code rather than using basic tools that are already there.  And, you still have to provide the hard core versions of the interfaces as well, for folks who need to get to the details, so you have to do everything you are already doing plus a lot more. So it's just a lot of work, with only so much time to do it.
 
And ultimately, especially in the pro installer world, the end user is not the installer, it's his customer, and that customer never sees any of that stuff, so it doesn't affect the sellability of the product to the end user. However, not having functionality the end user wants will very much affect the installer's ability to see the product. Even within the DIY community, it's sort of the same. People will complain about how the interface isn't as good as it could be. But if the product doesn't support something they want to do, no matter how seemingly trivial compared to the thousands of others things it can do, they probably won't ever get to the point of complaining about the interface, since they'll never even try it or buy it.
 
It all sort of pushes you towards giving priority first to getting the required back end functionality in place first. But, clearly we've reached a point where an awful lot of functionality is there. We'll still get plenty of people who will refuse to buy because it won't do this or that, but these days that's likely a smaller set of people than those who will not buy it because it's too difficult for them.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Dean, the extreme stability and fast performance alone put CQC in the top tier.  Your obsession with things working right every time has certainly paid off.

 

[fcwilt]

Aesthetics is not the issue. It's about how humans think and interact with computers. It's about human factors engineering. It's about being "user friendly". UI design is nearly a career unto itself.
 
Very simple examples.
 
- The lack of a single login
- Missing window close button (X) - clicking this becomes habitual - when it is missing it interrupts flow.
- Inconsistent placement of OK (or Close) and Cancel buttons - again this becomes habitual.
- Setting a field by checking/clearing a checkbox and then clicking a "Set" button - as opposed to "Set", "Clear" and "Cancel" buttons.
 
All of this affects workflow but perhaps more importantly makes a less then positive impression when first encountered.
 
I know you have your stated reasons but not using a install process that is consistent with the majority of user experiences makes an impression.
 
This is where your priorities as a programmer take precedence over good human factors engineering.
 
I spent the better part of my career studying UI design and I still had things to learn when I retired.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Funny thing, that inconsistent placement of the Close button throws me every time.  I thought it was just me.
 
I assume there is no way to disable the log in feature?  I live alone, nobody messes with my computer, I don't need this stumbling block.

 

[Dean Roddey]

- The lack of a single login

 
There's a reason for that, as there often is, but it's not necessarily obvious. Some programs are only available to user of a particular level. You can't use a single login because that would prevent an admin from logging in as a different user from someone who is currently logged in as a lesser rights user. It would also allow someone to walk up to a machine where an admin might be logged into something like the IV, and to just start up the Admin Interface and do anything he wants.
 
 

I know you have your stated reasons but not using a install process that is consistent with the majority of user experiences makes an impression.

 
That's already been dealt with, as of about a week ago.
 

This is where your priorities as a programmer take precedence over good human factors engineering.

 
But it's really not. It's what's practical given the time available, and sometimes within technical constraints that would take too long to get around given the time available. I know what's good and what's not. I use just as many programs as all of you. But great doesn't come cheap in terms of time. You wouldn't believe the time suckage that a creating something like a complex dialog box takes, even to just do it fairly simply. And there are hundreds in CQC.
 
And, in some cases, it's because some bits were written a decade ago, and rewriting them would take even more time than just starting over, which is likely what's going to happen (for the Admin Interface at least.) And it's maybe even worse to have some of the same program to work one way and some another, so in that way it's sort of also difficult to do it without starting over. And in some cases to do it better would require changing how the back end works, but that would require that lots of other stuff be changed to follow, again easier if just starting over.
 
It doesn't require a degree in UI design to do a good job. But it does require a butt load of time. Of course, if I do start over, I'd know a lot more this time around in terms of what is required, and I wouldn't be constrained by existing stuff. And if I do start over, I'd do it incrementally, i.e. the first thing would be some sort of limited function version of the product, so that I'd have a much shorter row to hoe to get something sellable out, could work out the issues in a less complex initial environment, and could leave the existing system alone in the meantime and not break it until I'm ready to take it on.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Funny thing, that inconsistent placement of the Close button throws me every time.  I thought it was just me.
 
I assume there is no way to disable the log in feature?  I live alone, nobody messes with my computer, I don't need this stumbling block.

 
That's one of the FAQ entries on the web site. It's easy to do. It's under "Set up a Low Security Environment".

 

[fcwilt]

I don't quite understand what you mean about not being able to have a single login.
 
For example you mention someone walking up to a machine where a admin is logged in and being able to access something they shouldn't. 
 
Don't you think the admin sitting in front of the computer would say something about that?  ^_^
 
You must mean something different.

 

[fcwilt]

That's one of the FAQ entries on the web site. It's easy to do. It's under "Set up a Low Security Environment".

 
This is something the installer should offer to do.

 

[Dean Roddey]

I guess it could. Normally it's not used for general auto-login, but for kiosk style dedicated clients, using limited user accounts that the user won't have created yet when the installer is first run.

 

[fcwilt]

I guess it could. Normally it's not used for general auto-login, but for kiosk style dedicated clients, using limited user accounts that the user won't have created yet when the installer is first run.

 
I was thinking more in terms of the other poster who said he worked alone. I would imagine that many folks fall into this category. Most of the apps I use simply rely on the need to login to the computer in the first place.