What should be the features in a good software project

Question

I am wondering what should be the care given to any software project to have a dam professional look. Like Internalization should be considered, i want such types of ideas. Please help me. Thankyou

Answer 1

I would focus on more than "look", aim higher, aim for "be"!

there are some things which seem to lift good software out of the ordinary, I'm not talking about implementation, purely about what the user experiences. A starting point might be to consider "Non-functional" requirements, these are sometimes listed as "-abilities":

 Usability, Scalability, Reliability, Installability ...

You're right that internationalisation is important, it's one aspect of usability. Look at your software (or get someone else to look at your software) thinking about how easy it is to understand.

One good principle: aim for "least astonishment". When things go wrong, fail in graceful ways. Put related actions together in menus. Phrase prompts consistently. Don't just say "invalid input", help by explaining what valid input is.

I can remember trying to install some software.

"Insufficient disk space"

was the message. Well great, so how much do I need? You know you don't have enough, so you must know how much you need, why not tell me!!!