The Company

OutSystems is a software company that develops enterprise software for business management. Their platform is designed to ensure efficient and effective production of software within an agile framework.
Agile software development is a development framework that supports constant iterations of applications. In this framework, software is developed quickly in short sprints and constantly tweaked throughout its development cycle. In order to support this environment, OutSystems developed software that focuses on the business end of development.

Currently, OutSystems is attempting to further redefine their industry by increasing productivity, simplifying development processes, and creating patterns to help support code reuse. They hope to be able to focus software developers more on the business logic of their programs rather than on the logic of the code itself. To this end, OutSystems has developed a visual-based coding language. The goal is to make this visual abstraction even further from traditional coding, while maintaining or improving their software’s usability.
By creating a visual-based coding system, commonly referred to as business logic design, they aid their users in moving away from focusing on tedious text-based programming, to quick drag and drop design.

The OutSystems platform uses iconic symbols to represent different entities within an application. By using arrows to link these icons, the platform creates application through this business logic design.
In order to allow the user flexibility, the system also has a design view workspace or User Interface Design area, where users can get a better idea of what their design looks like once deployed. This version of the software can be tweaked in real-time thus allowing users to manipulate a more natural view of the end result of their design.