Tracking Money in Savings Account

[Daniel Trezub]

Hi, Phil!

I wrote the following message back in April:
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2010-April/034787.html

Tell me what I can improve in the descriptions/specifications. I'll take a
look at what you and Derek wrote to try to figure it out by myself.

Happy hollydays!
=====
Daniel Trezub
http://www.gameblogs.com.br


On 20 December 2010 17:12, Phil Longstaff <plongstaff at rogers.com> wrote:

> If gnucash were a commercial product such as Quicken or Quickbooks, there
> would
> be people whose job it is to define how the user will interact with the
> program.  Human/computer interaction is a specialized field that most
> developers
> and users have (unfortunately) no training in.
>
> Let's use an example.  Daniel, I think it is you who has asked for a
> cash-flow
> forecasting mechanism.  I think the response has been that I as a developer
> need
> to know how it should work.  This needs to start with: what will the user
> expect
> to see?  A report?  Multiple reports?  A dialog box with info?  Line or bar
> charts?  How will the user initiate the operation?  How will the user
> select
> what accounts/transactions/scheduled transactions/whatever will go into the
> operation?  For that matter, what *will* go into the operation?  Could
> include
> just scheduled transactions.  Could include forecasts based on past
> transactions.  Gnucash and most open-source software is developed on the
> "scratch your itch" methodology - I developed a new format for a
> budget-to-actual report which gave me the information I personally need -
> it
> scratched my itch.  It won't be included in 2.4.0 but should be in 2.4.1.
>  With
> luck, other people will find it useful, or will have suggestions that I can
> make
> to adapt it to their use.  I have other issues with some of the reports,
> and I
> will make changes to make gnucash work better for me.  With luck, other
> people
> will find it works for them, too.
>
> Unfortunately, when you have developers do the work in this manner, the
> step of
> analyzing human/computer interaction may not be well thought through
> because
> that is not the developer's strength.  For example, creating a report, then
> editing the options is how gnucash does a report.  To me, this is
> backwards.
> However, it may have been easier or the developer just did it that way.
>
> How should a user suggest an improvement?  It needs to start with the
> concept.
> I haven't been tracking this thread too closely, but it seems to be
> involved
> with the envelope method of budgeting.  OK.  Think through how you would
> set up
> the envelopes using gnucash's accounts.  What works easily and what
> doesn't?
> What new capabilities/reports might be useful?  As a developer, I can help
> you
> use the gnucash vocabulary to try to develop what you want, but I would
> prefer
> you can provide a thought-out design (including dialog box layouts if
> possible,
> even if informal) and workflow.
>
>  Phil
> ---------
> I used to be a hypochondriac AND a kleptomaniac. So I took something for
> it.
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Daniel Trezub <daniel3ub at gmail.com>
> To: stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com
> Cc: Dennis Brakhane <brakhane at googlemail.com>; warlord at mit.edu; Gnucash
> User
> <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>; Wayne Bird <wrbird at hotmail.com>; Derek Atkins
> <derek at ihtfp.com>
> Sent: Mon, December 20, 2010 12:55:05 PM
> Subject: Re: Tracking Money in Savings Account
>
> > It may also be the case that once users have specified "I want to be
> > able to do THIS" (with "this" clearly defined) we can say "but you
> > already CAN use GnuCash to do that -- just not  the way you were going
> > about it (the facility was present; just not where you thought).
>
> This is very very common here.
>
> We, as average users, do not share the same line of thinking from the
> developers. Sometimes something is extremely logical to the
> developers, but it makes no sense at all to the average user. Let's
> face it, it's common. In this cases, where the USER perceive something
> as difficult or misplaced, how should we proceed to suggest an
> improvement? Sometimes it's just a matter of changing an item from one
> menu to another or something like this. How should we proceed?
>
> =====
> Daniel Trezub
> http://www.gameblogs.com.br
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