On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 5:54 PM, William H. Fite <omni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ..."Don't tell me what you want to do, tell me what you want to know." > Same > principle, exactly.... > > ========= Yep, a fundamental principle of modern software architecture is the "use case," a description of all the actions that users perform, what they want to put in, and what they want to get out. If you start with that, you get a lot better project than the old methods based on data flows and relationships. Hams are in this hobby for recreation, so the overarching goal is to make the user experience enjoyable. The goal is to communicate, so the radio has to send and receive, and do it in a way that the user likes. A radio can't be all things to all hams, because there are so many different kinds of communication, and so many different kinds of fun. The question of how to package a certain set of communication features in the most attractive way to please the most users is not just a matter of adding this or that feature. A hugely successful example of this sort of total design is the iPhone. But there aren't too many revolutionary products like that in history, and certainly ham radio is too small and specialized a market to see such a phenomenon. Some products have had a big impact on hams (consider, for example, the S-Line, the Drake 2B, the FT1000D) and have influenced later designs, but none has swept the market, because it's too diverse. Flex, or any manufacturer, will have the most success by focusing on the user's overall experience, which is a function of the totality of a lot of things, and not just an endless accretion of new features. HF gear has reached a state where some features have more or less maxed out. Receiver dynamic range is as good as it needs to be, IF filters have great shape factors and wide-range shift and width, and so on. Transmitter performance is similarly at a plateau. In this situation, operating features like QSK, easy integration with the rest of the shack, and nice ergonomics dominate the evaluation of the user experience. (Integration includes interfacing with your amp and your transverters, your digital programs, your autokeyer and voice recorder, and so forth.) Some feature requests may improve the overall design, but others may be narrowly-focused tweaks that aren't worth doing. There's a lot of upside, as chips get smarter and components get smaller, and the a pretty darn good radio can be cobbled up with a small number of parts. But the technology isn't the story -- it's making the radio so the ham has a great time using it. 73, Tony KT0NY -- http://www.isb.edu/faculty/facultydir.aspx?ddlFaculty=352 _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
