Monday, November 24, 2008

Censorship in Software Development

Hello everyone! We have discussed some points related to censorship in various spheres of life earlier. Now I would like to draw your attention to censorship in software development. Whatever strange it may seem, censorship in software development (user interface) can also be a stumbling block for many IT specialists, mainly for business analysts who work with customers' requirements. Well, imagine you work as a BA for a project, and you got a requirement from a customer to use, say, an arse, as part of user interface for the web application that you are designing. Of course, the arse is semantically quite to the point there where the customer wants to place it on UI, but, somehow, you start feeling confused... At first, you will think that he/she is kidding. You will laugh at the funny joke and forget about the requirement. After some time passes, you show a piece of implemented stuff to the customer, and face a question: "And where is an "arse" icon" that I was requesting"? And you drop your eyes and try to say something like: "It was just a joke, wasn't it?" It turns out that no joke was there. It was a real requirement... a critical one... Without "arse" the part of the application will lose its ZEST. You don't like the idea but you have to submit.
Now, the question is what actually end users think of this? On the one hand, it looks bad.. and does not coincide with our views of decency. "Arse" is not something that you expect to see on UI of a web application. Moreover, we are concerned about what will top management think if sees that. On the other hand, in the depth of our soul, we somehow like the idea... why not make the web application more informal, closer to the mind of an average person? Also, having investigated the issue, we find out that swear words and icons of such a kind are really used in UI of many applications and these applications are highly popular. People like this! Application looks more true-to-life, so to say. It is cool. And as soon as manufactures understand that people like everything of such a kind, even in web applications, they start use it wider. Why not make it part of PR and marketing campaign. Somehow, we can call it black PR. Use things which are not commonly approved, but which draw attention due to their "badness" and thus are better remembered and recognized.
So, the question is, shall or shall not we submit to customers' requirements of such a kind? Will it do more good or bad to our application? I will appreciate your opinion.