Why do credit card issuers take a percentage from merchants on each transaction?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot07/Dec/20111 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 07/Dec/2011
Having been through what you are writing, here was my approach.
Rather than struggling with code, etc. I spent good 3 weeks researching and reading (yes actually reading tons and tons of papers, PDFs, blogs, etc.) to understand everything I ever wanted to know about the mobile platform in which I was interested in (i.e. iPhone).
Having gathered a complete understanding of the eco-system, it was very clear I did not have the patience nor the time to program the app myself (and to be very honest, did not want to do it anyways). The easiest way to get the app up and running was to have some one else program it for me, and in order for that to happen, I needed to do some preparatory work to make it easier for the developer.
So I broke the task down to three items:
The understanding of the entire development ecosystem of the iPhone was a big help. I did not have to pause every time, I came across something unheard of, my lingua franca was one of the programmer.
In short, f you do adequate and not cursory research, you will save both yourself and the developer time, money and lots of useless frustration. This will result in a faster time to market with hopefully a stable and working app.
Rather than struggling with code, etc. I spent good 3 weeks researching and reading (yes actually reading tons and tons of papers, PDFs, blogs, etc.) to understand everything I ever wanted to know about the mobile platform in which I was interested in (i.e. iPhone).
Having gathered a complete understanding of the eco-system, it was very clear I did not have the patience nor the time to program the app myself (and to be very honest, did not want to do it anyways). The easiest way to get the app up and running was to have some one else program it for me, and in order for that to happen, I needed to do some preparatory work to make it easier for the developer.
So I broke the task down to three items:
- "How" I wanted my app to be programmed. Natively, or using a cross-platform software like Appcelerator (see http://www.appcelerator.com/)
- Decided on a tool to make my screens and flow and then hired a good UI designer to improve upon them. A list of tools to help you get started in this arena can be seen here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/...
- Decided to provide detailed documentation to the programmer on the functionality, input / output of all the screens.
The understanding of the entire development ecosystem of the iPhone was a big help. I did not have to pause every time, I came across something unheard of, my lingua franca was one of the programmer.
In short, f you do adequate and not cursory research, you will save both yourself and the developer time, money and lots of useless frustration. This will result in a faster time to market with hopefully a stable and working app.