What is the best system for designing software for people who know nothing about software?

What is the best system for designing software? For people who know nothing about designing software? This might be a question that was unanswerable 10, 12, 20 years ago, that if you were not a software developer, a software designer, then your chances of executing a successful deployment of software were virtually zero.

But in the Miracle World that we exist in right now, I am having experience of designing software with zero, previous software design experience, like not even skills, no experience at all.

But what I do have is a lot of experience in building systems.

And it's very interesting to work with the guys because they ask questions that are very clear from a systematic point of view, in my mind, but from their mind because they're just building the software.

They're like, this makes no sense.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, it does make sense.

You're not seeing it the right way.

Hit check this out, see it this way.

And then you'll understand and they'll be got it.

But what is going on, is an experience of essentially, four stages.

The first is actually getting the flow of each screen, like how does the whole thing flow together? The design is scrappy, not scrappy, it's certainly not elegant.

But it's enough to make sure that the buttons are working, what's grayed out needs to be grayed out what the steps are described, how many limitations are placed in various aspects of the software? How many characters are here? How many words are there? How many options can they have? What's the minimum, what's the maximum? So we went through and did our best in terms of designing the flow, I think there must be probably, I'm thinking maybe around 200 screens, for one app 200 screens, and this is not a that complicated app.

But the coolest thing is that it's relatively easy to create these designs, these days, it's virtually dragging and dropping software design.

And I've never used this tool before, but I jumped in on Figma.

And I'm like, I'm getting this and I progressed personally, I chose to progress the project substantially in the flow stage, because I was able to download the steps that I wanted, quicker than I can make explaining videos, and like, I'm just going to do this to treat you with essentially zero training, I was able to substantially build out the software now.

Then the software design guys like okay, let's tidy this up.

Let's make sure this all works.

You did a good job.

Sure.

But let's make sure that this flow is right.

So the first step is to create the design to get everything working, get the flows in place, what happens when you click here, what happens when you click there, the next step is very interesting.

I thought this was interesting.

It is not to go to design, and certainly not to go to development, it's to do quality assurance on the mock-ups, check that out high-quality assurance on the mock-ups.

And I'm like, Oh, this is cool.

This is cool.

So we're going through and checking everything in the mock-up to make sure that all of the buttons work, all of the logic is in place.

Everything that should be thought about is thought about at this stage.

So first of all, we've got creating Second, we've got QA third.

Now the designers come in and they make it look nice.

And I'm like, Oh, check this out.

This is this is pretty cool.

What was essentially some sketches and some rough drafts are now made to look professional, modern.

On point for the design.

I'm like, Oh, wow, check this out.

There's a color scheme, there's a design guide through it almost is like, hey, well, this is how we choose options.

And that's got to happen a couple of places.

So it's going to be the same whenever it's the same as it looks the same.

So it's intuitive, and why ah, this is pretty cool.

But that would all be a complete waste of time if the previous two steps had not been done.

If the creation wasn't done, and then the QA wasn't done like it might have been very tempting.

It was tempting.

I'm like let's make it look nice, but instead, it was much better to cute do QA and now the design coming in.

And then now that this mock up, not only flows not only has been tested and not only has been designed then then we move to development.

And the advantages of this flow are substantial, like if you've never designed software before, and I had never had, but no one actually told me this, but I have learned by working through the process, but these four stages are going to allow you to design whatever software you want.

Now, you might find yourself in the place where you like, you know what, I just want an app that does x.

And the interesting thing about me, I don't know whether you're anything like this, but if you are, you'll know you're like, Oh, my goodness, well, what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And so I got like four more app ideas already going, but my you know, what, chill, stop all of those needs to be placed on to some kind of storage board, which I have, which I pay for.

And that is the door service, the door app from Wake Up Warrior? Am I Oh, cool.

Let's just store that install that in.

Not going to get excited.

Yes, I'm excited.

But I'm not going to activate it because there is no point zero point in proceeding further until this app is done.

Button nonetheless, knowing these steps gets you the ability to be able to describe what you want, and then get it brought into reality.

You do not have to be a software designer, you do not have to be a software developer.

Yes, you must have one thing, which is cash, but that cash is able to be exchanged.

The cash can be exchanged.

It might be a little bit more than you're expecting.

And it's my little chokepoint there.

Am i, Oh, my goodness, well, yeah, that wasn't, that was like three times the price.

And I already got told that one of my buddies is a software developer, he's like, Tom, just to let you know, whatever you're thinking it is you can double and really triple that price.

And so far, that's proven to be true, particularly as we go through all these stages, but I am so glad that we are spending the money on the planning and the mock-ups to get those right because it is still infinitely cheaper.

Or at least I imagined it is to fix it in the mock-up stage in the design stage than it is in the reality.

Now, this is true in building in real life.

This is true in project management.

And so I see no reason why it will not be true in software development as well.

Perhaps everyone is just so elite these days that it's like, oh, we just do.

We don't even do drag coding anymore.

We just do drag and drop, like 00 code design.

I don't think we're at that stage.

Like there's some, there's some integrations between webhooks and triggering purchases, and subscriptions and access to email servers, all of that stuff.

I mean, it's clearly come a massive way.

So far in the last couple of years, it's that it is actually possible for you, as a nonsoftware person to build software for a reasonable price, perhaps not as much as, as you had feared or not as little as you'd hoped.

But somewhere in the middle there for high quality, high design experience pleasurable kind of experience.

It's actually pretty fun.

And that could just be the inner geek in may just going oh my god, check out what is possible, I do not need to go to university.

Instead, I am leveraging the skill sets and the mindsets of those people who do this all day long.

And saying this is what I want.

And they're like, well, that's great.

We can make that happen.

But have you thought about this and this, and then we run through and I'm literally leveraging their skill sets to make this stuff into reality.

I'm super excited about it.

If you want to make your own software, then take those four steps as your system.

Number one, you're going to create the flows in the mock ups number two, you're going to do QA on the mock ups, number three going to make it look super nice.

And number four, well.

The lights just went out if you're on the podcast, the lights went out to number four, then and only then proceed to development.

All right.

That's all I got for you tonight.

I hope you can see the system that is coming into play here that the problem is I think I have to be a software developer to have software.

The result that I want is live deployed real software.

And the steps to get that is to use other people's skill sets.

But make sure that you follow those basic guidelines of create the mock ups run the QA do the design and then implement alright thanks so much for tuning in tonight I hope you got a lot of value out of tonight's episode I certainly enjoyed making it for you I look forward to continuing this adventure into the power systems to get results look forward to seeing you next time.