Today I was working with a customer to define the outcome needed for my work on their application. The customer wanted a specific field to be updated and copied to be the same value as other products that are conceptualy the same. The form is pretty open as to how users can interact with it, but they don’t have access to this hidden field that will link it together with other items by design. And it’s a complex number that links things together.

For now, they just want to aggregate line items that are exactly the same across multiple purchase orders. The whole trick though is to match intention of the user as to which items are the same.

If they want to track all the tools that can use screws for example, and want to know how much it has cost to purchase screwdrivers and electric drills, how do we make that happen? I think putting the control of this kind of linking into the hands of the users is important. And being able to transparently see a list of all the other items that are being aggregated with that item (perhaps in a popup form) would be super helpful.

Articulating issues though can be a problem. If I’m not using language my customer understands, it makes moving toward the goal together more difficult. Hopefully, one develops trust with the client and they will trust that you understand their ultimate vision and goal, but this really depends on you. Have you really dug down to find out why they want a particular feature and know what they want and expect it to do for them? Maybe there’s an easier way you can get to that end result.

If you go to your doctor and tell them you’d like them to perform heart surgery on you tomorrow, they wouldn’t be a very good doctor if they told you “OK, hand over the cash and I’ll cut you open!”. They should ask you questions as to why you want that and help you identify less intrusive and expensive decisions if possible.