3.1. Hacks 1927

An application's success often rests on user acceptance. With this in mind, it makes sense to plan how to make your application's front-end experience as visually pleasing and user-friendly as possible.

Sometimes user experience is overlooked. Developers can spend oodles of time designing fields and tables, setting up relationships, writing tricky SQL, and so on. Does this mean anything to the typical user? Not one whit!

Let's face it. Access is more than just a database. It is a database with built-in front-end tools. Tables are the core of a database, but the ability to create forms and reports is the main job of a development platform. Access has both, so let's make the best of both.

The hacks in this chapter have been drummed up with the ordinary user in mind. Entering data is a major user activity, and these hacks make this often mind-numbing activity a little more pleasant.