It has a long, prestigious history of success in bringing users and developers together on design issues, as well as ensuring all affected user groups share a stake in the system design and development process. But since JAD can require a week-long commitment of uninterrupted effort by several key participants from user organizations, it can be overkill for small, simple systems, as well as focused redesign of specific existing system features. For that reason, Granite Ridge conceived its Mini-JAD methodology that uses the general concepts of a full JAD focused on a fixed problem domain. Granite Ridge employs these techniques to lay the groundwork for designing new applications or enhancements. For large systems, data dictionaries may also be advised during the physical design phase of a project.
Data dictionaries are also valuable during maintenance.
We utilize perfected principles from graphic layout design, coupled with human factors engineering, applied to graphic user interfaces. This approach results in intuitive, consistent, attractive systems with well-mapped screens that closely mirror your business workflow. User interface design is a keystone of Granite Ridge software engineering. While some people may dismiss the importance of an attractive appearance as superficial and insignificant, Granite Ridge understands that the graphic design of an application can signal the care taken in developing the system as a whole. While the design of the user interface does not itself make an application, it can indeed break it in terms of user perception and acceptance.