She had sworn never to become a softwaredeveloper. It all turned out differently. The reason for the change of mind is the teensy-weensy little thing that teases out our curiosity and turns a development tool such as APEX into an object of fascination. „APEX met exactly my expectation“, found Svenja Schriever out at a training in 2008. After that, she get started with version 3.1 of APEX.
She had sworn never to become a softwaredeveloper. It all turned out differently. The reason for the change of mind is the teensy-weensy little thing that teases out our curiosity and turns a development tool such as APEX into an object of fascination. „APEX met exactly my expectation“, found Svenja Schriever out at a training in 2008. After that, she get started with version 3.1 of APEX.
Hand in hand with the APEX releases, which spring up like mushrooms, the fascination for the tool grows. Whatever minor defects are discovered, the community forgives them quickly. At the beginning, the arrangement of the items is challenging, the implementation of dynamic elements difficult. But the APEX team of developers brings out one release after the other and implements what the heart of the APEX community desires. Oracle gives up the popular Drag&Drop layout in favor of the grid layout. No matter. People are already looking forward to the page designer.
With regard to fascination, the developer tool sustains comparison with Apple products. APEX is sexy – so sexy that the start of the early adopter program for APEX 5.0 almost bordered on a competition to request workspaces.
But why? Precisely this is what the Svenja seeks to investigate. „User experience (UX) is often neglected,“ regrets she. „This aspect is crucial to a successful introduction of a product into the market.“ The economic sector has recognized this fact and is increasingly showing interest in the subject.
Svenja deals precisely with this aspect of software development. She studies Media Informatics on a part-time basis at the university Ostfalia: „In addition to software engineering, the focus is also very much on web-design and psychology. A system must not only function properly. It is extremely important that the employees enjoy working with it.“
At the DOAG 2014 Conference + Exhibition, she will report on how APEX itself does with regard to user experience. For this, she will rely on the help from APEX users: A brief interview will be an integral part of the investigation. And you? How sexy do you find APEX?
www.doag.org/go/APEX
