Layers of simplicity: Hiding the complexity of your tasks with bespoke solutions.

One thing that computers should be doing for us is making things simpler, but inevitably it all seems to get more and more complex. One part of that is because we expect everything to do more, along with one thing doing… well, everything.

So what we do – and of course, what we can do for you – is bring back a little of that simplicity.

Computers as we know them are the result of many, many layers of conversion from one data format to another.

At the lowest level the computer brain is all just numbers and calculations. Very few people could write anything with that however, so there’s an interface for common logic and tasks built over it. On top of that there’s another layer, shortcutting more common tasks, and on top of that, another. This goes on and on until it evolves into a human-readable programming language, but what ends up in your computers’ processor is still the same – it’s just been translated from human-readable to machine-readable instructions (code).

Each layer is hiding complexity from subsequent layers.

Programmers are no better at repetitive tasks than anyone else, and computers only have cold hard logic to rely on when interpreting what you’ve written. There’s no intuition and there’s no margin for error – it either works or it doesn’t.

The aim of each of the layers is to simplify the capabilities of the previous layer – the more you make the basics simple, the easier it is to develop the complex parts and the less prone to human error your code will be.

Reduce the complexity and you boost the reliability of your processes. Reduce complexity and you can start breaking down your processes into smaller tasks. Nobody likes doing the mundane repetitive tasks, do they?

Once you’ve stripped your complex process down to a set of tasks with a specific input and specific outcome, that’s where computers can step in and take over. And that’s where software development transforms from application development and into a bespoke solution.

Bespoke digital solutions.

That’s what we do. Part of what we do anyway.

It’s what we do.

Applications like the Microsoft Office Suite or Kentico CMS are developed to make it possible for you, the user, to do whatever you want in them. They are generic in that sense – you can do whatever it is they let you do. Trouble is they can’t really streamline, standardise or automate your processes. A bespoke solution is built around your requirements, so it can streamline, standardise or replace the repetitive parts.

For example: Say you had to provide a centralised library of approved stock photography to your company; one part of your process could be managing the approval process for those images, another might be managing access and permissions to those images, and another task would be making sure the files are available in suitable formats and dimensions.

It’s the perfect case for a bespoke solution – you could have a system that ties into your workplaces’ existing Active Directory login information, auto-generates files in suitable formats and dimensions, and cross-references requested files with a central database to check the approval status of images. Minimal manual labour, and we’ve reduced some potential bottlenecks to boot.

A bespoke solution reduces complexity in your business, just like adding another layer of abstract code reduces complexity when programming. Of course the complexity is still there under the surface, but now it’s the infallible, unrelenting, cold hard logic that’s doing the heavy lifting.