Realization

I just realized that Apple Blossom is the test maangement software I've wanted to create for a long time -- just with a different name and market. The epiphany came to me while revising "What we are doing at Apple Blossom".

Not really, but a lot of the usability ideas are the same. It's task driven, but goal oriented. A lot of the usability ideas are the same. It explains who I'm so passionate about it and sure of the design. I've spent years thinking about it.

This could be a bad thing though. If I'm trying to force teachers to think like testers and it's not a universal design principle, it could be worse than bad.

But I think the concept can stretch across disciplines. I feel that thinking about solving the problem of organization and improvisation outside my day to day work discipline has given me clarity that I didn't have before .

Usability, and creating the least amount of work, but still being able track it is important. While the schedule is central to lesson planning, it's also important in software development. It does show that, in some case at least, completion is the goal, and timeline should be modified to suit it. Agile tends to push for "release something by this date."

The concept of the feature backlog transmogrified into curriculum goals is a very nice fit. But I need to be careful not to draw too many analogies and influence the flow of the system incorrectly.

(This post is based on a text-message conversation I had with my wife.)