New Look and Feel on display

Readers, who have read the last Blog entry, will know that we are re-designing the "Look and Feel" of Caseworks to make it look more modern, more planned and more consistent. As promised I am including screen dumps in the Blog, when we pass a milestone, but the Nat Fed Exhibition will be your first chance to see it for real. Come to stand 18 and ask for a demo.

The good news is, the exhibition is completely FREE whether you register in advance at http://www.itinhousingexhibition.co.uk/ or simply turn up on the day. The website gives the exhibition opening times, and travel information.

Where have we got to with the re-design?

Well we have now done the Details pages - both View and Update - and our ".net specialist" is working on the main menu. This will be a complete rebuild, not just a cosmetic change. Here is our prototype so far:-

This screen has many options opened up, but in the final version, only one at a time will expand.
The intention is that the new menu will be fully user-customisable with user bookmarks and user search screen options.

Modernising the User Interface

We were all at it today.


Well, almost... I had a super-super urgent report which had to be set up for South Lanarkshire before 11am and David had a meeting at Enfield in the afternoon. Other distractions included a user locked out from Lewisham and some woman trying to sell me advertising space over the phone. All resolved satisfactorily then we got on with the main purpose of our meeting...


We have decided to modernise the user interface, bring it into line with Office 2007 and generally make it pleasing to the eye. A lot of trial and error and informal voting - "I quite like that..." , "I definitely dont like that" and unhelpful comments like "How do Microsoft decide on the look and feel of their products?" - "pay a graphic designer a fortune to play around with shapes and colours, and not write a line of code" was the cynical answer.


Well, it is definitely time to change the wallpaper. 18 months ago we introduced the new visually appealing Buttons, with a rollover hierarchy, but we never changed the background or thought about the impact on the eye of bold colours and numerous hyperlinks.


This is not a quick project, and while we consider ourselves to be software experts, we would not pretend to be graphic designers. Unfortunately we suspect, our customers - the readers of this blog - will want their system to be visually pleasing, and won't want to pay the premium for an art expert. Seems like a good use for a Blog, to invite opinion as the project unfolds. As a reader, this is your chance to have an impact on our thinking and on the system.


We started with the Case History, surely the central screen in the whole system. We have adopted the Office 2007 colour scheme, we have replaced the hyperlinks with icons, we have introduced roll-over highlighting. Outstanding items, get a red flag if they are overdue, and orange flag if they are pending.

What do you think? There is a "Comments" button at the end of this blog. The next blog episode will be the main data display page - what we call View Details.

What a week... and congratulations to Riverside

What a week, and probably worth a Blog, partly because people who have emailed me may have wondered where I was, and partly because the various meetings I had were important for HUBSolutions and its customers.

Monday, witnessed a meeting with Capita plc in Victoria, to plan a proposal we are making jointly to the DWP. Relevance to Caseworks? Well the reality is that for much of the last 10 years, Caseworks development has been subsidised by work on Revenues and Benefits.

Tuesday, got off to an early start (5:30 am) to get to the HITEX exhibition in York. A lovely venue, loads of stands, but not enough visitors. However, we made one good contact, which may yet lead to developments for Caseworks, as the approach was from an IT Department of a RSL with a very specific technical view.

Wednesday, 10am, and I was in Accrington, discussing future enhancements with my Think Tank, David Perry. In just a couple of hours we had planned the Fire Safety Checks enhancement to Estate Management, specified the proposed new Project Module, and set a date for the Estate Management User Group.

Thursday, 10am and I had driven to Glasgow and was discussing the new Mediation Module with the Mediation Team from South Lanarkshire Council. Very worthwhile hammering out of detail, which has given me another couple of weeks of work. Then a quick chat with Lynn about South Lanarkshire's statistics, and a short drive to East Dunbartonshire for a follow-on demo about the Estate Management Module in the afternoon.

Firday, was another early start, and (as it wasnt quite early enough), as very fast drive down the M6 to Liverpool to meet Riverside Housing Group. This was another very worhtwhile meeting, which has also given me two weeks of work to do to complete their upgrade. Best of all, they are keen to come to the Estate Management User Group meeting, I had arranged two days earlier. Also, congratulations to Riverside for winning the Social Landlord of the Year Award.




At the end of the week, I felt that quite a lot had been achieved. Maybe driving 1,500 miles wasnt the best way to preserve the environment however. Back to the trains next week I think!