Section 5.15. Software and Hollywood Movies

   

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5.15 Software and Hollywood Movies

The current climate in IT sees companies going out of business and laying off thousands of people every week. There is a lot of pressure to rush projects just to get them out the door. It is easy to think that there is a lot of code you've already got lying around that can be cut and pasted, and not plan sufficiently for the details of this system. The methods described in this chapter are fairly complex and require some ramping up. Sometimes we get away with it, sometimes not. Users suffer in a poorly planned system. Software must be planned.

Software lacking well-thought-out use cases is generally difficult to use. It is like a punishing art film where nothing happens. The audience is left out so the director can pursue a vision filled with mixed metaphors and cocked camera angles. Such films are boring. They're dreadful. Nobody goes to see them. Everybody hates them.

There is certainly a prominent place for art. Punishing your audience is something you can make a lot of money doing if you're in a punk rock band . This is less lucrative in the software industry.

Designing a successful system doesn't just mean designing a system that works. It means making a system that gives your user everything she needs, when she needs it. It is not confusing. It is not confused itself. And you can always get there from here.

The way to make such systems is to make them like a Hollywood movie. More specifically , a Steven Spielberg movie.

Whether or not you like his movies doesn't matter. Spielberg thinks of his audience above everything else. He is only interested in his audience. He views his job as giving the audience a roller coaster ride ”he means to keep them absolutely riveted from start to finish.

Spielberg has a formula for making movies that are like roller coasters. He follows it every time. He maps out every second of the movie from start to finish, drawing it from multiple angles just as if it were an animated film. The actual filming is almost an afterthought, because it is just the real-life description of his plan. The films are obsessively manipulative.

He calls this style of filmmaking "hyperintensity." For the software developer and Web application developer, programs should have hyperintensity. Anticipate every need of the user at every moment she is engaged with your program, and be there with a message, an image, an option. Use signposts to guide your user through the system as if it were a ride. Get the user to do what you want (complete a test, create a document, purchase a product) as if you were making a hyperintensive Hollywood movie.

The only way to achieve this kind of success is to map your user scenarios, use cases, class diagrams, and sequence diagrams carefully and thoroughly. Using sound OOAD will make sure that your users' goals are always in your mind, and everything you do with the system is intended to help them successfully achieve those goals.

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