Punchcard Tracking Mini-System

Skate Sharpening

A graphic of a clipboard with paper attachedThe Client’s Need

The owner of a skate sharpening business had a loyalty card process where people prepay for many sharpenings and the store would record how many they used, manually on paper cards. He needed something that was extremely easy to use to look up customers and keep track of credits. Other software was too complicated to use and too expensive. Much like getting a simple cell phone interface right, there are many ways to get it wrong and upset users.

A graphic of 4 interlocked puzzle piecesThe Project

A very easy and fast to use system on tiny computer that can lookup a customer in 1 click plus the name, and can add a credit and move to the next person in 2 clicks total. Training takes about 60 seconds. Every other system compared against required many additional clicks and was much harder to use. This system is now available for other industries.

Making simple interfaces is not as easy as it sounds: consider annoying cell phones.

A graphic of gearsComponents

  • Small screen interface
  • Outsourced software maintenance
  • Outsourced product customer support

Common

  • Pleasant reusable core

A graphic of a USB thumb driveTechnology

  • Microsoft .NET Framework
  • C#
  • Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
  • XML/XAML
  • Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
  • LINQ

Databases

  • SQLite