Business Application Design
Posted by geetarista January 01, 2008
I love web design and development–I really do. I spend a lot of my spare time doing it and I love doing it as my career. One of the struggles that I have is trying to find out which direction that I want to take as my main specialty or focus. Should I develop personal websites, business websites, blogs, or public applications? It is a tough decision for me since I really love doing all of it! However, something that I have consistently thought about lately is the development of web applications for businesses. There can be many difficulties in pursuing this field of development, but I also like the many advantages that it has.
What I really like is that you know exactly what your audience will be and how to design accordingly. There are many problems and annoying issues when developing web sites for public use that can be disregarded in a business application. When you design for a public application or website, you have to try to accommodate every browser (including plug-ins, etc.), screen size, accessibility concern, etc. Though when developing for a business, you know all of these details and you do not have to worry about covering all your bases just in case one of your visitors is different from the rest. For example, most companies use the same browser, so worrying about compatibility issues between browsers will be minimal or (hopefully) a non-issue. Most companies buy their computers in bulk, so you will most likely be dealing with the same sized monitors. Any accessibility concerns will be very specific and you will know precisely what you need to do to accommodate those concerns. All of these issues may seem minor, but they really add up on top of trying to design a complex application. Most of these issues are very time-consuming and can be very frustrating which can take away the fun sometimes.
I am also really drawn to the challenge of application design and the complexity of it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I am interested more in actual development/programming than I am in just the design of a website. I really like both, but I feel that development is more of what I really want do.
