What a bodacious day today – actually, yesterday now – has been! I was up at oh-dark-thirty working on LIDA upgrades, and by midmorning I had posted an update.
But of course, that wasn’t enough, so I kept going and kept going, feeling like the Everready bunny, until sometime after supper I had four new significant upgrades made, and posted those … All to get as ready as possible for BETA RELEASE!
Which is today.
There is still a ton of work to do on LIDA, but the vast majority of the functionality is in place and operational, with only a few things left to do.I am so tickled to find that we now have 26 people signed up to help beta test LIDA, with a possibility of several more coming on board over the next week or two.
With a brain trust this massive, there’s no question we will be able to mold LIDA into a tool that every music organization will put on their must-have list.
Not only am I tickled to have all these folks on board, I am elated that every single one of them has experience with music and music libraries, so together we should be able to think of all the things a Music Director or a Music Librarian could possibly want.
Also, with a wide range of computer abilities among our beta test team, we should be able to fine-tune LIDA so it is as intuitive as possible for all users. Computer geeks call that UX, or User Experience. That’s a fairly new term for a concept that’s been around ever since I started programming computers in 1981, but it’s still valid.
The ideal target is to design a computer program such that you can put it for the first time in front of someone who knows the topic – in this case, working with music libraries – and they will look at it for a few seconds, then say, “Oh! I know what to do!”The dilemma is that of necessity, LIDA is quite powerful, and with that power comes complexity. I think the key is in furnishing the proper tutorials so users can learn to avail themselves of all that power.
This last day leading up to Beta release today has been one of the most intense days I have put in for many, many years. It was good, but I’m totally knackered from that and several other things going on today. But it’s one of those “good” tireds.
I’m looking forward to hearing the reactions once our beta test team gets their feet under them with LIDA. Meantime, I think it’s time to sleep…