Software Design & Prototyping
Custom-Designed Business Software That Looks And Works EXACTLY The Way Your Business Does
Software Design & Prototyping
With today’s awesome agility and rapid evolutions of business models, it comes as no surprise that custom software solutions are a necessary evil, when “Out of the box” solutions simply cannot keep up or adapt to the numerous iterations and variations of traditional business practices. It may surprise you to learn that the most costly part of software is the design stage…not the actual coding and implementation of the solution. Most software companies focus on user objectives… but not user preferences, meaning… the end product may do what it has to do…yet be horrible for the user to interface with.
Our firm has nearly 20 years of experience gathering end-user requirements…anticipating best-practice input screens and error-trapping…all while thinking like the end-user, who will ultimately be using the product… not the programmer who wrote it. Whether you just need basic data flow chart design or a couple of screens designed or mocked up, let us help you prototype how the end product will both look and work for you. An investment in this crucial phase of your software project will spare you numerous re-writes… or worst of all, a failed product, where users will be reluctant to use it at all for its primary purpose in helping your business. Our collaborative approach will involve key personnel at just the right level, for an affordable price to ensure a successful end outcome. We provide written/illustrative documentation on data tables/relationship design, screenshots, as well as files with completely usable sample prototypes of VBA/SQL coding. Whether you wish to build your product on the MS Access platform…or take our ingenuity to SQL Server, Oracle or other…you and your developer of choice will have the roadmap and all of the tools necessary to build the product to look, work and feel just like the prototype that met your approval.
Prototyping Services Offered:
- Back-end Data Table & Work/Data Flow Diagramming and Design
- User Interface Screen/Form/Usage Design – Screenshots and/or Product
- User Screen Mock-ups with Partial VBA/SQL Coding Inserted
- Full Software Completion in MS Access, as a Full Working Prototype
Prototyping Packages
LEVEL 1
Backend Table Design & Relationships
LEVEL 2
Level 1 +
User Screen Mock-Ups
(Not VBA-Coded)
LEVEL 3
Full-working Prototype,
complete with SQL and VBA code
Design Gallery
Check out these examples of our designs that are being used by companies today.
 Custom CRM Application – Entering a New Activity for either a prospect or existing client. This could be an email, phone conversation or in-person appointment. This captures the date, the estimated value of the engagement and pertinent information in the notes field. Build a pipeline of potentials, where this app will remind you to follow-up and take the next steps. This application tracks the entire flow from pipeline-to-sale for each sales rep. |  Client Call-in Tracker – Entering client information real time from a call, to enable the entire office/firm to be aware of client request statuses and due dates. This application was written for a financial management RIA firm, who receives hundreds of calls per day, and any associate could end up talking to any client at any given time. This application kept everyone apprised of open items and key requests. |  Review Courseware – Main menu from a review course app that was written to study volumes of materials. The client could import their own questions in objective multiple choice format, and the app would allow either a focused review over certain content, or a random review over many areas. The software also tracked statistics on correct versus incorrect answers for every session and provided the opportunity to return to focus on missed questions only. |
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 Legal Billing Software – This screen shows the ability to apply payments not only against cases, but also against specific client invoices. This allows the attorney to apply a receipt and split it however they wish. As you can see, applied amounts do not have to equal outstanding balances…and can leave remaining balances on invoices/cases. |  Legal Billing Software – Example of an aged outstanding client statement, where all of the activity can be neatly summarized by case by invoice by days outstanding for a total client balance. |  Fixed Asset Management Software – An Example of a comprehensive yet condensed report, showing all types of potential activity on each fixed asset, and doing a complete period rollforward from beginning balance to ending balance. |
 Fixed Asset Management Software – This user screen allows you to accumulate project costs to a single asset, then later capitalize that project as one, aggregated asset for depreciation purposes at your time of choosing, once the project is completed and the asset is ready to be placed in service. |  Data Diagram 1 – An example of a data diagram for an incentive plan tracking application. This is the fundamental first step of database design and a graphical representation of the backend of any relational database. This is one of the main documents that is included even, with our Level 1 service of software prototyping. |  Data Diagram 2 – A second example of a relational diagram. This is the back end design of a legal billing application that was written many years ago. |
 Data Dictionary of a Table – This is an example of good documentation on a single table. This will tell any programmer what fields are contained, which ones are keys/indexes and the data types and descriptions of what each field represents. This helps users understand where certain information is stored, in case additional querying or reporting is required on the application. This documentation, as well as some other additional, is included even in our Level 1 prototyping services package. |
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