Household/Individual 2.0 - more than just a pretty face!

CurtisHarris — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:54:00 GMT

Last night we released a very significant project that will impact everyone who uses Fellowship One; a total replacement for the Household/Individual detail pages. Accounting for over 35% of our web traffic, nearly 100% of our users access these pages in the course of a normal day. While the exposure of this project makes it significant, the underlying architecture is equally as important and is the aspect of product development that can be, but shouldn't be, overlooked.

It is always obvious when screen design changes, what is not so obvious are the scaffolding and foundation changes that must be considered. This is an area that is easily ignored when software development is rushed, on a tight budget, or farmed out since the end user doesn't see or typically understand what this is; in the end this will determine how easy it is to make improvements, support, and extend the functionality. We did not short cut this step! A significant effort was put into a solid foundation that will help us continue to build upon, reduce errors and support what you see. Database calls and render times were tested and re-tested to work toward an optimum performance; this was very important since we are displaying so much on one screen. The scaffolding was built in a way that will allow us to extend abilities to 3rd party vendors so they can begin building external solutions while keeping Fellowship One as the database of record. In short, the changes you see today are much more than just a pretty face; they represent a starting place for a big future.

As always, we hope you appreciate and enjoy the changes that were made.

Reminder: if you had been following the design conversations we had 5-6 months ago, you will undoubtedly notice that there are some things we have further improved upon, but also some aspects that are missing; this is an iterative process and you can expect improvements to come.Please be patient and make sure you let us know what you would like to see by submitting your ideas on the IDEAS tab above.

Check out the EDUCATION tab above for more information and direction to learning opportunities available.

Intelligent Design : Individual

Household/Individual 2.0 - more than just a pretty face!