Documentation-Rons-Rules-For-Tools

Introduction

"Rules for tools" is an informal set of rules that developers should keep in mind when working on interactive tools for translational clinical research. If you follow them, you will create tools that many people will use.

1. You make it, I break it
2. Your tool works when it works on my laptop with my data. Until then its useless to me.
3. I am lazy. Make my life easy.
   1. Minimize the number of clicks
   2. Minimize the distance my pointer has to travel
   3. Make sure your module sets up everything for me, but allow me to override. E.g. if you create an output file, use the input filename plus name of the module.
4. No more than one parameter that I can set.
5. If I need more than 20 seconds to figure out how to set the parameter, I won't!
6. If I can take my lunch break while your algorithm is running, I won't return to it.

For Tool Developers

• Build a case library with 10 cases
• Use 5 for development, cycle through the cases daily
• Use the other 5 for testing