[Sigia-l] The Horror of Access Database
robert.dornbush at ps.ge.com
robert.dornbush at ps.ge.com
Wed Jul 3 12:16:30 EDT 2002
I am working on massive scale web-enabled business applications built on a
Java architecture, and many of the end users [in this case, the "client" and
"Subject Matter Experts"] were weaned on building their own "homegrown"
Access databases to support the individual needs of their individual
department(s) within a Global corporation.
As the IA / UI / Usability guy, the most horrifying legacy of the Access
mentality is the UI of an Access style search query. They always want very
specific advanced search inputs (50 or more), and they always want to
qualify each of the search parameters with dropdowns for "equal to, not
equal to, >, <, > or equal to, less than or equal to", etc.
Combine this Horror with the tendency to use instructional verbiage (for the
search input form) such as: Find Orders with this # _____________, AND this
attribute ______________, AND this attribute ______________, AND this
attribute ______________, AND this attribute ______________, [on up to the
entire set of fifty attributes]. I have tried over and over to explain to
them that the more specific the search input, the less likely that the
search will produce ANY results. After much persuading, I have convinced
them that OR works better than AND...and that the instructional verbiage
should be more like "Enter any two or more of the available attributes to
qualify your search parameters, any fields left blank will be ignored for
the purpose of this search." They had assumed [based on Access experience]
that this is how their search would work even with their AND verbiage after
every search parameter value; and I really had to fight the good fight to
convince them that the paradigms they are used to from Access don't make
sense from either the back-end (code) perspective of the front-end (UI
instructional text) perspective. We are building multi-million dollar
applications utilizing complex Java and DHTML technologies, and it blows my
mind when the Users continually request search conventions established in
Access (an off the shelf MS product which sells for relatively small $$$)
when those Access query conventions do NOT match any of the standards,
conventions, or best practices of traditional web-based search queries.
To me the greatest frustration of any search functionality [from a User
perspective] is achieved by entering query after query which comes back with
a null set of search results. I guess from their perspective, the greatest
frustration is getting a results set with 1000's of generic hits, when what
they want is something very specific [which they have no clue where to
find]. Surely there must be a happy medium and a better way than the Access
way.
<BIG HUG>
I feel you Lucie, I feel you!
Robert E. Dornbush, Jr.
UI Architect / Interaction Designer
GE Power Systems
robert.dornbush at ps.ge.com
uiarchitect at earthlink.net
desk - 678 844 4625
cell - 404 729 1137
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"
- Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
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