Syndeo Corporation was building a Class V softswitch to compete in the VoIP telephony space. I was asked to develop some dashboards that would allow any telco customer with a Web browser to adjust their calling services, such as call forwarding, call waiting, do not disturb, etc.

The Web's document-based delivery did not suit the dashboard metaphor I envisioned, so I adopted the Flash SWF as a way to display customer data, deliver UI state changes, and the needed interactions in a clean and consistent cross-browser fashion. This is equivalent to moving the webpage-style wireframe logic into the Flash timeline.

The user requirements came almost entirely from senior management. There was no allowance for interviewing a focus group as the project was in stealth mode. Senior management representing the users became a source of difficulty, as the models this group suggested were too sophisticated for the typical user, although management wanted the 30%-ile computer user to be successful changing their call settings through the UI.

In 1999, there was little in the way of user data that would represent the telco user base vis-a-vis Web usage skills. We tested wireframes, mockups and prototypes by asking groups of three Syndeo employees to step through a specific scenario, taking notes and debriefing after the test. Tests were kept to 10 minutes to prevent testers from 'learning anything' about the interaction, as we wanted the fresh, unschooled reaction. After changes were made, we asked the original three testers to review it. There were some 50 people employed at Syndeo, so we were able to test many scenarios with fresh groups of testers.

This demo is backed by an Instantis SiteWand application. (The actual dashboards were backed by a J2EE platform and database.) This is very old-style Flash 4, no object orientation, no XML, no SendAndLoad, etc. Data is delivered to the page within a JavaScript object, along with the Flash SWF. Flash's FS Command transported the data between the SWF and the JavaScript... wouldn't do it that way today!

Typical Deliverables

To approach this project, I first created a Business Needs and User Analysis, and later a requirements specification. This is an early draft of the Call Forwarding Dashboard Requirements definition.