I have been providing support to customers forever, since the dark ages of Dos 6.00. Believe me, at the time, it was even worse, as the only interface was the command line. The only difference was that PC customers did not expect computers to be simple. So they were a lot less demanding.
At the same time, Mac customers went up in arms about having to use Font/DA Mover, and yelled at me because it should have been way simpler. It was my fault that they had to suffer and they would not hear of it.
We are in many ways hostages of user interface evolution. If you think about it, today the first computing device is a smartphone. The three words you mention have absolutely no reality in iOS or Android. You go to the online store, select an app, and zoom, it is on the phone. Double tap is rather alien, often replaced by long press.
We have to adapt to customers. Not the other way around. One must not bite the hand that feeds. Never said it was easy, though
Should the user adapt to a program or should the developer adapt the program to the user??
If only one of both is intelligent enough there shouldn’t be a problem!
[quote=221338:@Andre Kuiper]Should the user adapt to a program or should the developer adapt the program to the user??
If only one of both is intelligent enough there shouldn’t be a problem![/quote]
50-50. Here’s how we think about it (in our office), there will always be a learning curve with a new application. However making the application as easy to use as possible, attempting to create a self-explanatory interface, reduces the learning curve and makes it easier for the user to adapt to the program.
If you have to explain to a user what this control does or how it works, you’ve already lost (as a developer). This of course is in general, I realize that there are going to be circumstances where you simply can’t simplify the application and the user has to learn more.
My core business is consumer software. Means I sell through my web sites which are for all intents and purposes glorified vending machines where people buy, and if all goes well, never need any support. So my job is to make sure that ease of use is such, they never need to ask for anything.
Nothing is ever perfect, and I do have about a couple customer a week on average that need additional support. Usually because they cannot quite figure the download. Most of them get it, and just never bother me again. About twice a month, I get customers asking for a refund. To me, while it is not really a hassle to refund, I want to make sure the refund request is not motivated by a technical issue. And it happens. Goal is zero defect, whatever that means for software.
Since I have placed my Mac software in the MAS, I discovered bad reviews and opaque refunds. very seldom the customer comes to me directly, but most often I discover refund in statistics. Anything to minimize that occurrence is critical. My greatest fear is to have a new system my programs don’t run with.
Corporate software is a different case. Actually, since it is supposed to be a tool of the trade, it may be a little more involved, and IT department is normally here to provide front end support.
sorry for being uncool but this is easy with free pdfcreator: Use config tool to produce JPG (or anything else) as output for the pdf printer and print anything to this printer (a pdf for example)
I used it a lot some years ago to extract all the pages of pdf comics to png files and then convert it to .cbr files. Always had good results and you could easily shell it.
I must have said that a long time ago… The macOS has a much more fully fleshed toolbox available to developers, to port any single one of our application to Windows would be very difficult as we’d have to recreate a lot of functionality that we take for granted.
That being said, Apple’s complete disregard for quality control has turned a great deal of these frameworks into time bombs. You simply don’t know when one will get broken, causing your application to fail and your customers to blame you. “I just upgraded to Apple’s latest OS and now YOUR application is ■■■■”. Ahuh… So what changed?
@Kimball and @Sam: Same thought but in different direction. The problem here was not any toolbox or complex thing to port between platforms. As you experienced with upgraded OS X versions… it’s often (always?) the customer, who breaks his own settings. But in telling him this, you would cross the Rubicon. Two important customers of mine are using windows software. To reduce exactly same support and developing cases they got small zotac zboxes for free. These small and inexpensive boxes are just acting as smb-servers, serving standalone WebApps or database services. Nobody is working on them locally. They even don’t get admin priviledges.
[quote=281154:@Emile Schwarz]I just upgraded to Windows 10 Anniversary Edition and Terratec Home Cinema does not works. Hey Geniatech, where is your updated software ?
Why ? Just because takling to the OS provider is vain: never get an answer or eventually: “ask the 3rd party !”
Different point of view, but same result --> “ask the 3rd party !”.[/quote]
Ja but the difference is: Are you “just” selling a piece of software or are you selling the customer a busines solution in general? Literally it might be everything. If it’s not running, it’s always your fault.
