Time Software : Application Development

Application Development

Needless to say, the performance of any application is as a direct result of what is coded and how it is coded. Our code is always driven strictly by a technical specification, which in turn is driven by a systems (or functional) specification. The systems specification is driven by a business specification, which is in turn driven by your business processes. This rippling methodology is strictly adopted and enforced by us. Confirmation by the testing of business personnel of what is developed is also necessary throughout the application development process.

How we Develop

Time Software has specific policies regarding application development. They are as follows:

	Coding and development standards are perfected and rigorously enforced for maintainability and future development. These include specific and generic coding standards, re-usable libraries and programmers publishing their own work and checking each other's code.
	We prefer to develop on-site alongside the client thereby easily facilitating frequent progress reviews and system functionality testing by the client. In this way system functionality will not go astray.
	Rigorous testing is performed by ourselves. Things like program functionality, field inputs, ranges, and strings sizes are exhaustively tested.
	Applications are developed with safety checks on, tested with them off, and implemented with them on.
	System Phasing is a means to safely get on with everyday business whilst a new system is being phased in bit by bit. Specific methodologies are followed with regard to phasing. For this, a clearly defined business specification is needed.
	Documentation and training completes the development and implementation process and is essential to any successful system.

Graphical User Interface

Time Software has specific policies regarding the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of any of its applications. These are:

Simplicity! The screens in our applications are designed as simply as possible even if it means more coding in the background. The idea is to get the system to be simple in its use yet effective in its results, no matter how complex the coding behind the scenes.

User-friendliness. Our applications come across as user-friendly without going overboard by patronising the user. We strive to keep user screens simple and pleasing to the eye, using large buttons and icons. The number of screens is also kept to a minimum, thereby lessening navigation through an application in order to perform a particular task.

Help screens. It has been our experience that users would rather struggle at something than go and read a whole bunch of boring help screens. To this end, our help screens are short, simple, and very much to-the-point, clearly laying out functionality and giving simple examples.

Application Expansion

We have unique generic methods for expanding our custom-made software. So our software provides only the functionality that is currently required, but with the added benefit of any required future expansion.