[connorp]

Well we've been building for about a year. Although the front-end is pretty simple it's quite complex in the back-end. We were the customers, myself and John both ran consulting web/dev companies. A lot of the user testing we did was on my mother 78, and Johns dad. We wanted to build a prod that didn't require any training. So if 'Mum', and 'Dad', could use it we knew everyone else could. In the last month we've been tweaking based on user feedback though, but not a lot. We'll be bloging about what we did.

[radicalbyte]

It'll be interesting to see your experiences. As a backend developer (who, unfortunately, sucks at visual design - damn colourblindness) I find these kind of posts inspiring: it's something I'd really love to do, I just haven't met the right partner yet (hard when you're a Brit living in The Netherlands).

The complexity of a user interface is inversely proportional to the time (and talent) needed to create it.

I wish you guys the best of luck :)

[connorp]

Thanks man. I spent 10 years working for Rabobank... Well I thought myself UI design. John who does the dev would say the same things as you. But I really think UI starts from the Dev. Example he was the one who met with the A/cant but still fought the simplicity. Then he'd say to me design a process for paying someone and you have to include xyz. I'd design it and send the screen back (not explaining them) if he didn't get a step we'd a prob and so on. If you look at the design I use it's just boxes. I'm not a graphic designer we just didn't have the money to hire one. But here is an interesting thing. If you look at dribbble it's full of beautiful design but when you then check out the sites they were designing for all their design is removed or broken (not all the time) so what that really says is keep it simple. As a point I use fireworks 8 - it's great at boxes and that all I can use. Means the site's super fast too. If you need any advice on it let me know follow me on twitter and we can share emails @peterconnor